TODAY’S HISTORY LESSON: OCT 7
1571 In the last great clash of galleys, the Ottoman navy is defeated at Lepanto, Greece, by a Christian naval coalition under the overall command of Spain’s Don Juan de Austria.
1737 A cyclone causes 40 foot waves that are believed to have killed 300,000 in Calcutta, India
1763 George III of Great Britain issues Proclamation of 1763, closing lands in North America north and west of Alleghenies to white settlement
1765 Delegates from nine of the American colonies meet in New York to discuss the Stamp Act Crisis and colonial response to it.
1849 Edgar Allan Poe, aged 40, dies a tragic death in Baltimore. Never able to overcome his drinking habits, he was found in a delirious condition outside a saloon that was used as a voting place.
1870 French Minister of the Interior Leon Gambetta escapes besieged Paris by balloon, reaching the French provisional government in Tours.
1913 For the first time, Henry Ford’s entire Highland Park automobile factory was run on a continuously moving assembly line when the chassis was added to the process.
1916 222 points are scored in a football game between Georgia Tech & Cumberland University of Lebanon, Tennessee
1944 Auschwitz-Birkenau Sonderkommando Revolt. The short-lived rebellion was staged by prisoners who worked at a crematorium after they learned that the Nazis planned to execute most of the squad. The revolt was quickly put down, and over 450 people were killed.
1950 The U.S.-led U.N. forces crossed the 38th parallel and entered North Korea. China in November proved their threat to enter the war by sending several hundred thousand troops over the border into North Korea.
1956 A U.S. House subcommittee began investigations of allegedly rigged TV quiz shows.
1957 A fire in the Windscale plutonium production reactor (later called Sellafield) north of Liverpool, England, spreads radioactive iodine and polonium through the countryside and into the Irish Sea. Livestock in the immediate area were destroyed, along with 500,000 gallons of milk. At least 30, and possibly as many as 1,000, cancer deaths were subsequently linked to the accident.
1959 Far side of Moon seen for 1st time, compliments of USSR’s Luna 3
1968 The Motion Picture Association of America adopted its film-rating system, ranging from “G” for general audiences to “X” for adults only.
1982 Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “Cats,” the longest running show in Broadway history, opened.
1985 Four Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) hijackers seize the Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro and demand the release of 50 Palestinians held by Israel.
1989 In Budapest, Hungary’s Communist Party renounced Marxism in favor of democratic socialism.
1996 Fox News Channel begins broadcasting.
1998 The U.S. government filed an antitrust suit that alleged Visa and MasterCard inhibit competition by preventing banks from offering other cards.
1998 Matthew Shepard, a gay student at the University of Wyoming, was beaten, robbed, and left tied to a fence. He died five days later.
2001 US invasion of Afghanistan in reaction to the terrorist attacks of 9/11 begins; it will become the longest war in US history.
2003 California governor Gray Davis was recalled and former bodybuilder and actor Arnold Schwarzenegger was elected in his place.
REFERENCE: HISTORY.NET, ONTHISDAY.COM, TIMEANDDATE.COM, INFOPLEASE.COM, FACTMONSTER.COM, SCOPESYS.COM, ON-THIS-DAY.COM, THEPEOPLEHISTORY.COM
