- 304th day of 2014, 61 remaining
- Sunrise: 7:35am
- Sunset: 6:12pm
- Moonrise: 2:23pm, 46% visible
- Tides at the Golden Gate - High: 7:08am/6:21pm Low: 12:34pm
Other special celebrations today include...
- Chiang Kai-shek's Birthday - Taiwan
- Hallowe'en – Canada, Ireland, Japan, Scotland, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, US
- King's Birthday - Cambodia
- National Flag Day - Ecuador
- National Magic Day (for Houdini) - US
- Reformation Day – Germany, Slovenia
- Nevada Day – US
- Girl Scout Founder's Day
- National Caramel Apple Day
- National Knock-Knock Jokes Day
- National Magic Day
- National UNICEF Day
On this day in...
1517 - Martin Luther posted the 95 Theses on the door of the Wittenberg Palace Church. The event marked the start of the Protestant Reformation in Germany.
1860 - Juliette Low, the founder off the Girl Scouts, was born.
1864 - Nevada became the 36th state to join the U.S.
1868 - Postmaster General Alexander Williams Randall approved a standard uniform for postal carriers.
1914 - The Ottoman Empire (Turkey) joined the Central Powers (Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Bulgaria).
1922 - Benito Mussolini became prime minister of Italy.
1926 - Magician Harry Houdini died of gangrene and peritonitis resulting from a ruptured appendix. His appendix had been damaged twelve days earlier when he had been punched in the stomach by a student unexpectedly. During a lecture Houdini had commented on the strength of his stomach muscles and their ability to withstand hard blows.
1940 - The British air victory in the Battle of Britain prevented Germany from invading Britain.
1941 - Mount Rushmore was declared complete after 14 years of work. At the time the 60-foot busts of U.S. Presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln were finished.
1941 - The U.S. Navy destroyer Reuben James was torpedoed by a German submarine near Iceland. The U.S. had not yet entered World War II. More than 100 men were killed.
1952 - The U.S. detonated its first hydrogen bomb.
1954 - The Algerian National Liberation Front (FLN) began a revolt against French rule.
1955 - Britain's Princess Margaret announced she would not marry Royal Air Force Captain Peter Townsend.
1956 - Rear Admiral G.J. Dufek became the first person to land an airplane at the South Pole. Dufek also became the first person to set foot on the South Pole.
1959 - Lee Harvey Oswald, a former U.S. Marine from Fort Worth, TX, announced that he would never return to the U.S. At the time he was in Moscow, Russia.
1961 - In the Soviet Union, the body of Joseph Stalin was removed from Lenin's Tomb where it was on public display.
1968 - U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson ordered a halt to all U.S. bombing of North Vietnam.
1969 - Wal-Mart Discount City stores were incorporated as Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.
1981 - Antiqua and Barbuda became independent of Great Britain.
1983 - The U.S. Defense Department acknowledged that during the U.S. led invasion of Grenada, that a U.S. Navy plane had mistakenly bombed a civilian hospital.
1984 - Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated near her residence by two Sikh security guards. Her son, Rajiv, was sworn in as prime minister.
1992 - In Liberia, it was announced that five American nuns had been killed near Monrovia. Rebels loyal to Charles Taylor were blamed for the murders.
1993 - River Phoenix died at the age of 23 after collapsing outside The Viper Room in Hollywood.
1993 - The play "Wonderful Tennessee" closed after only 9 performances.
1994 - 68 people were killed when an American Eagle ATR-72, plunged into a northern Indiana farm.
1997 - Louise Woodward, British au pair, was sentenced to life in prison after being convicted of second-degree murder in the death of 8-month-old Matthew Eappen. She was released after her sentence was reduced to manslaughter.
1998 - Iraq announced that it was halting all dealings with U.N. arms inspectors. The inspectors were investigating the country's weapons of mass destruction stemming from Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in 1990.
1999 - EgyptAir Flight 990 crashed off the coast of Nantucket, MA, killing all 217 people aboard.
1999 - Leaders from the Roman Catholic Church and the Lutheran Church signed the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification. The event ended a centuries-old doctrinal dispute over the nature of faith and salvation.
2001 - Microsoft and the U.S. Justice Department reached a tentative agreement to settle the antitrust case against the software company.
Birthday celebrants today include (or included)...
- Jan Vermeer 1632
- John Keats 1795
- Chiang Kai-Shek 1887
- Ethel Waters 1896
- Cal Hubbard 1900
- Dale Evans 1912
- Dick Francis 1920
- Illinois Jacquet 1922
- Norodom Sihanouk 1922
- Barbara Bel Geddes 1922
- Anita Kerr 1927
- Lee Grant 1930
- Michael Collins 1930
- Dan Rather 1931
- Phil Goyette 1933
- Michael Landon 1936
- Tom Paxton 1937
- Ron Rifkin 1939
- Otis Williams 1941
- David Ogden Stiers 1942
- Sally Kirkland 1944
- Russ Ballard 1947
- Frank Shorter 1947
- Deidre Hall 1948
- John Candy 1950
- Jane Pauley 1950
- Lynda Goodfriend 1950
- Dan Spring 1951
- Bernard Edwards 1952
- Larry Mullen Jr. 1961
- Dermont Mulroney 1963
- Mikkey Dee 1963
- Johnny Marr 1963
- Rob Schneider 1964
- Darryl Worley 1964
- Annabella Lwin 1965
- Adam Schlesinger 1967
- Vanilla Ice (Robert Van Winkle) 1967
- Fred McGriff 1968
