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Wednesday October 29, 2014

  • National Cat Day
  • National Forgiveness Day
  • National Hermit Day
  • National Oatmeal Day

  • International Internet Day
  • World Psoriasis Day
  • Republic Day-Turkey
  • Creole Day-Dominica
  • Naming Day-Tanzania
  • National Youth Day-Liberia

  • On This Day
  • 1618 --- Sir Walter Raleigh, English adventurer, writer, and favorite courtier of Queen Elizabeth I, is beheaded in London, under a sentence brought against him 15 years earlier for conspiracy against King James I. During Elizabeth's reign, Raleigh organized 
    three major expeditions to America, including the first English settlement in America, in 1587—the ill-fated Roanoke settlement located in present-day North Carolina. Raleigh later fell out of favor with Elizabeth after she learned of his secret marriage to Bessy Throckmorton, one of her maids-of-honor, and he was imprisoned with his wife in the Tower of London. After buying his freedom, Raleigh married Bessy and distanced himself from the jealous English queen. After Elizabeth died in 1603, Raleigh was implicated as a foe of King James I and imprisoned with a death sentence. The death sentence was later commuted, and in 1616 Raleigh was freed to lead an expedition to the New World, this time to establish a gold mine in the Orinoco River region of South America. However, the expedition was a failure, and when Raleigh returned to England the death sentence of 1603 was invoked against him.

  • 1652 --- The Massachusetts Bay Colony proclaimed itself to be an independent commonwealth. 

  • 1682 --- The founder of Pennsylvania, William Penn, landed at what is now Chester, Pa.

  • 1764 --- The first issue of The Hartford Courant was published. It is the oldest continuously published newspaper in the U.S.

  • 1777 --- John Hancock resigns his position as president of the Continental Congress, due to a prolonged illness. Hancock was the first member of the Continental Congress to sign the Declaration of Independence and is perhaps best known for his bold signature on the ground-breaking document.

  • 1863 --- The International Committee of the Red Cross was founded.

  • 1901 --- President William McKinley's assassin, Leon Czolgosz, is executed in the electric chair at Auburn Prison in New York. Czolgosz had shot McKinley on September 6, 1901; the president succumbed to his wounds eight days later.

  • 1923 --- Turkey formally became a republic after the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire. The first president was Mustafa Kemal, later known as Kemal Ataturk. 

  • 1929 --- Black Tuesday hits Wall Street as investors trade 16,410,030 shares on the New York Stock Exchange in a single day. Billions of dollars were lost, wiping out thousands of investors, 
    and stock tickers ran hours behind because the machinery could not handle the tremendous volume of trading. In the aftermath of Black Tuesday, America and the rest of the industrialized world spiraled downward into the Great Depression.

  • 1945 --- The first U.S. commercially made ballpoint pens are sold for $12.50 each at Gimbel's Department store in New York City.

  • 1956 --- Israeli armed forces push into Egypt toward the Suez Canal, initiating the Suez Crisis. They would soon be joined by French and British forces, creating a serious Cold War problem in the Middle East.

  • 1956 --- John Cameron Swayze and The Camel News Caravan were replaced by Chet Huntley and David Brinkley on NBC-TV. The Huntley-Brinkley Report clicked so well that the respected newsmen reported nightly until July of 1970.

  • 1956 --- Maria Callas made her Metropolitan Opera debut in "Norma." 

  • 1958 --- Russian poet Boris Pasternak refused the Nobel Prize in Literature. He was forced to decline the honor because of protests in his home country.

  • 1960 --- Muhammad Ali (Cassius Clay) won his first pro bout -- over Tunney Hunsaker -- in six rounds in his hometown of Louisville, Kentucky. Hunsaker was never heard from again, but we heard a great deal from Clay, including, “I am the greatest!”

  • 1962 --- The Beach Boys' debut album, "Surfin' Safari," was released.

  • 1964 --- The largest star sapphire in the world, the Star of India, was stolen from the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. Fortunately, the gem was later found, unharmed.

  • 1966 --- The National Organization for Women was founded.

  • 1967 --- The musical "Hair" opened off-Broadway.

  • 1971 --- Duane Allman, a slide guitarist and the leader of the Allman Brothers Band, is killed when he loses control of his motorcycle and drives into the side of a flatbed truck in Macon, Georgia. 

  • 1975 --- Joan Baez became a member of Bob Dylan's Rolling Thunder Revue.

  • 1983 --- Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon became the longest-charting album of all time when it logged its 491st week on the Billboard Top 200 album chart. The previous champ had been Johnny’s Greatest Hits, by Johnny Mathis (490 weeks: April 1958-July 1968). Dark Side of the Moon stayed on the chart for 724 consecutive weeks (740 weeks altogether) and didn’t drop off until July 13, 1988.

  • 1990 --- The U.N. Security Council voted to hold Saddam Hussein's regime liable for human rights abuses and war damages during its occupation of Kuwait.

  • 1990 --- The Byrds, LaVern Baker, John Lee Hooker, The Impressions, Wilson Pickett, Jimmy Reed and Ike & Tina Turner were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. 
        
  • 1991 --- The U.S. Galileo spacecraft became the first to visit an asteroid (Gaspra). 

  • 1995 --- Jerry Rice of the San Francisco 49ers became the NFL's career leader in receiving yards with 14,040 yards.

  • 1998 --- East Bay Ray, Klaus Flouride and D.H. Peligro, all former members of the Dead Kennedys, filed suit against Jello Biafra. The claim was that the former lead singer had diverted money owed to the other band members for his own use. 

  • 1998 --- South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission condemned both apartheid and violence committed by the African National Congress. 

  • 1998 --- Nearly four decades after he became the first American to orbit the Earth, Senator John Hershel Glenn, Jr., is launched into space again as a payload specialist aboard the space shuttle Discovery. At 77 years of age, Glenn was the oldest human ever to travel in space. During the nine-day mission, he served as part of a NASA study on health problems associated with aging.
  • 2004 --- Osama bin Laden, in a videotaped statement, directly admitted for the first time that he had ordered the Sept. 11 attacks.

  • 2012 --- 900 mile wide Hurricane Superstorm 'Sandy' with 90 mph winds hits the East Coast of the U.S. Sandy drops up to 12 inches 
    of rain; record 32.5 foot wave in NY harbor; 14 foot storm surge floods New York subways; shuts down Wall Street for several days; causes blizzards in West Virginia and Maryland; floods communities in 23 states; cuts power to more than 8 million residents; destroys beaches up and down the Eastern U.S. The worst storm in U.S. history.
  • Birthdays
  • Fanny Brice
  • Bill Mauldin
  • Winona Ryder
  • Zoot Sims
  • Kate Jackson
  • Dominick Dunne
  • Denny Laine
  • Peter Green
  • Richard Dreyfuss
  • Randy Jackson
  • Diane Fratus Burke

  • 302nd Day of 2014 / 63 Remaining
  • Winter Begins in 53 Days

  • Sunrise:7:32
  • Sunset:6:13
  • 10 Hours 41 Minutes

  • Moon Rise:12:53pm
  • Moon Set:10:28pm
  • Moon Phase:35%
  • Next Full Moon November 6 @ 2:22pm
  • Full Beaver Moon
  • Full Frosty Moon

This was the time to set beaver traps before the swamps froze, to ensure a supply of warm winter furs. Another interpretation suggests that the name Full Beaver Moon comes from the fact that the beavers are now actively preparing for winter. It is sometimes also referred to as the Frosty Moon.

  • Tides:
  • High Tide:4:18am/3:05pm
  • Low Tide:9:16am/10:02pm