This Day in History – October 29, 2011

539 BC Cyrus the Great entered the city of Babylon and detained Nabonidus and finish the Babylonian captivity and gave the Jews permission to return to Yehud province and to rebuild the Temple; but most Jews chose to remain in Babylon. 312 Constantine the Great enters Rome after his victory at the Milvian Bridge, he stages a grand adventus in the city, and is met with popular jubilation. Maxentius’ body is fished out the Tiber and beheaded. 1390 First trial for witchcraft in Paris leading to the death of three people. 1675 Leibniz makes the first use of the long s (∫) as a symbol of the integral in calculus. 1682 William Penn lands in what will become Pennsylvania 1787 Mozart’s opera Don Giovanni receives its first performance in Prague. 1792 Mount Hood (Oregon) is named after the British naval officer Alexander Arthur Hood by Lt. William E. Broughton who spotted the mountain near the mouth of the Willamette River. 1811 1st Ohio River steamboat leaves Pittsburgh for New Orleans 1863 International Commission of the Red Cross founded (Nobel 1917, 1944, 1963) 1863 American Civil War: Battle of Wauhatchie Forces under Union General Ulysses S. Grant repel a Confederate attack led by General James Longstreet. Union forces thus open a supply line into Chattanooga, Tennessee. 1901 Capital punishment: Leon Czolgosz, the assassin of U.S. President William McKinley, is executed by electrocution. 1904 1st intercity trucking service (Colorado City & Snyder, Texas) 1921 The Harvard University football team loses to Centre College, ending a 25 game winning streak. This is considered one of the biggest upsets in college football. 1923 “Runnin’ Wild” (introducing the Charleston) opens on Broadway 1929 The New York Stock Exchange crashes in what will be called the Crash of ’29 or “Black Tuesday”, ending the Great Bull Market of the 1920s and beginning the Great Depression. 1940 Sec of War Henry L Stimson drew 1st number-158-in 1st peacetime military draft in US history 1941 Holocaust: In the Kaunas Ghetto over 10,000 Jews are shot by German occupiers at the Ninth Fort, a massacre known as the “Great Action”. 1942 Holocaust: In the United Kingdom, leading clergymen and political figures hold a public meeting to register outrage over Nazi Germany’s persecution of Jews. 1945 1st ball point pen goes on sale, 57 years after it was patented 1953 BCPA Flight 304 DC-6 crashes near San Francisco, California. Pianist William Kapell is among the 19 killed. 1955 The Soviet battleship Novorossiisk strikes a World War II mine in the harbor at Sevastopol. 1960 Chartered C46 carrying Cal State’s football team crashes, kills 16 1960 In Louisville, Kentucky, Cassius Clay (who later takes the name Muhammad Ali) wins his first professional fight. 1964 A collection of irreplaceable gems, including the 565 carat (113 g) Star of India, is stolen by a group of thieves (among them is “Murph the surf”) from the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. 1966 National Organization For Women is founded. 1969 The first-ever computer-to-computer link is established on ARPANET, the precursor to the Internet. 1980 Demonstration flight of a secretly modified C-130 for an Iran hostage crisis rescue attempt ends in crash landing at Eglin Air Force Base’s Duke Field, Florida leading to cancellation of Operation Credible Sport. 1980 Mark David Chapman, John Lennon’s murderer, leaves for New York from his home in Hawaii. 1987 Thomas Hearns wins unprecedented 4th different weight boxing title 1988 China announces a herbal male contraceptive 1988 Jim Elliott (US) begins 24-hr paced outdoor race for 548.9 mi 1991 The American Galileo spacecraft makes its closest approach to 951 Gaspra, becoming the first probe to visit an asteroid. 1994 Francisco Martin Duran fires over two dozen shots at the White House (Duran is later convicted of trying to kill US President Bill Clinton). 1998 Space Shuttle Discovery blasts off on STS-95 with 77-year old John Glenn on board, making him the oldest person to go into space. 1998 While en route from Adana to Ankara, a Turkish Airlines flight with a crew of 6 and 33 passengers is hijacked by a Kurdish militant who orders the pilot to fly to Switzerland. The plane instead lands in Ankara after the pilot tricked the hijacker into thinking that he is landing in the Bulgarian capital of Sofia to refuel. 1998 Hurricane Mitch, the second deadliest Atlantic hurricane in history, makes landfall in Honduras. 2004 The Arabic news network Al Jazeera broadcasts an excerpt from a video of Osama bin Laden in which the terrorist leader first admits direct responsibility for the September 11, 2001 attacks and references the 2004 U.S. presidential election. 2004 In Rome, European heads of state sign the Treaty and Final Act establishing the first European Constitution. 2005 Delhi bombings kill more than 60. 2008 Delta Air Lines merges with Northwest Airlines, creating the world’s largest airline and reducing the number of US legacy carriers to 5. 2008 The Philadelphia Phillies claim the world series title over the Tampa Bay Rays 4-3. This was the first major sports title in Philadelphia for 25 years and was 28 years since the Phillies last World Series title in 1980.]]]]> ]]>