This Day in History – October 3, 2011

1778 British Captain James Cook anchors in Alaska. 1789 George Washington made the first Thanksgiving Day designated by the national government of the United States of America. 1795 General Napoleon Bonaparte first rises to national prominence being named to defend the French National Convention against armed counter-revolutionary rioters threatening the three year old revolutionary government. 1849 American author Edgar Allan Poe is found delirious in a gutter in Baltimore, Maryland under mysterious circumstances; it is the last time he is seen in public before his death. 1862 Battle of Corinth, Miss 1863 The last Thursday in November is declared as Thanksgiving Day by President Abraham Lincoln as are Thursdays, November 30, 1865 and November 29, 1866. 1873 Captain Jack and companions are hanged for their part in the Modoc War. 1904 Mary McLeod Bethune opens Daytona Normal & Industrial School 1913 Federal Income Tax signed into law (at 1%) 1920 NFL (then American Pro Football Association) plays 1st games 1922 1st facsimile photo send over city telephone lines, Washington, DC 1932 Iraq gains independence from the United Kingdom. 1942 Spaceflight: The first successful launch of a V-2 /A4-rocket from Test Stand VII at Peenemünde, Germany. It is the first man-made object to reach space. 1947 1st telescope lens 200″ (508 cm) in diameter completed 1948 NFL becomes 1st sport televised as sport of the week 1950 1st black lead (Ethel Waters) on TV (Beulah) 1950 Korean War: The First Battle of Maryang San, primarily pitting Australian and British forces against communist China, begins. 1951 The “Shot Heard ‘Round the World”, one of the greatest moments in Major League Baseball history, occurs when the New York Giants’ Bobby Thomson hits a game winning home run in the bottom of the ninth inning off of the Brooklyn Dodgers pitcher Ralph Branca, to win the National League pennant after being down 14 games. 1952 The United Kingdom successfully tests a nuclear weapon to become the world’s third nuclear power. 1954 “Father Knows Best” premieres 1955 “Captain Kangaroo” premieres, Good Morning, Captain! 1955 The Mickey Mouse Club debuts on ABC. 1957 Allen Ginsberg’s Howl and Other Poems is ruled not obscene. 1961 “Dick Van Dyke Show” premieres on CBS-TV 1961 “Mr Ed” premieres 1962 Project Mercury: Sigma 7 is launched from Cape Canaveral, with Astronaut Wally Schirra aboard, for a six-orbit, nine-hour flight. 1964 First Buffalo Wings are made at the Anchor Bar in Buffalo, New York. 1974 Watergate trial begins 1981 The Hunger Strike by Provisional Irish Republican Army and Irish National Liberation Army prisoners at the Maze Prison in Northern Ireland ends after seven months and ten deaths. 1985 The Space Shuttle Atlantis makes its maiden flight. (Mission STS-51-J) 1986 TASCC, a superconducting cyclotron at the Chalk River Laboratories, is officially opened. 1990 Florida record store owner Charles Freeman is found guilty of obscenity, for selling 2 Live Crew rap records 1990 Re-unification of Germany. The German Democratic Republic ceases to exist and its territory becomes part of the Federal Republic of Germany. East German citizens became part of the European Community, which later became the European Union. Now celebrated as German Unity Day. 1995 O. J. Simpson is acquitted of the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman. 2003 Roy Horn of Siegfried & Roy is attacked by one of the show’s tigers, canceling the show until 2009, when they rejoined the tiger that mauled Roy just six years earlier. 2008 The Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 for the US financial system is signed by President Bush.]]]]> ]]>