This Day in History – September 30, 2011

1452 1st book published, Johann Guttenberg’s Bible 1659 Robinson Crusoe is shipwrecked (according to Defoe) 1777 Congress, flees to York Pa, as British forces advance 1880 Henry Draper takes that 1st photograph of the Orion Nebula 1791 The Magic Flute, the last opera composed by Mozart, receives its premiere performance at Freihaus-Theater auf der Wieden in Vienna, Austria. 1846 Anesthetic ether used for 1st time (Dr Wm Morton extracts a tooth) 1882 The world’s first commercial hydroelectric power plant (later known as Appleton Edison Light Company) begins operation on the Fox River in Appleton, Wisconsin, United States. 1888 Jack the Ripper kills his third and fourth victims, Elizabeth Stride and Catherine Eddowes. 1898 City of NY established 1901 Hubert Cecil Booth patents the vacuum cleaner. 1907 McKinley National Memorial, final resting place of assassinated U.S. President William McKinley and his family, dedicated in Canton, Ohio. 1927 Babe Ruth becomes the first baseball player to hit 60 home runs in a season. 1929 1st manned rocket plane flight (by auto maker Fritz von Opel) 1935 The Hoover Dam, astride the border between the U.S. states of Arizona and Nevada, is dedicated. 1938 The League of Nations unanimously outlaws “intentional bombings of civilian populations”. 1939 1st televised college football game (Fordham vs Waynesburg at NYC) 1941 3,721 Jews are buried alive at Babi Yar ravine (near Kiev) Ukraine 1946 22 Nazi leaders found guilty of war crimes at Nuremberg, Von Ribbentrop & Goering sentenced to death by Nuremberg trial 1947 The Islamic Republic of Pakistan and Yemen join the United Nations. 1947 The World Series, featuring the New York Yankees and the Brooklyn Dodgers, is televised for the first time. 1955 Film star James Dean dies in a road accident aged 24. 1960 Flintstones premiers (1st prime time animation show) 1960 On Howdy Doody’s last show Clarabelle finally talks “Goodbye Kids” 1962 Mexican-American labor leader César Chávez founds the United Farm Workers. 1962 James Meredith enters the University of Mississippi, defying segregation. 1968 The Boeing 747 is rolled out and shown to the public for the first time at the Boeing Everett Factory. 1970 Jordan makes a deal with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) for the release of the remaining hostages from the Dawson’s Field hijackings. 1972 Roberto Clemente records the 3,000th and final hit of his career. 1975 The Hughes (later McDonnell-Douglas, now Boeing) AH-64 Apache makes its first flight. 1977 Because of US budget cuts and dwindling power reserves, the Apollo program’s ALSEP experiment packages left on the Moon are shut down. 1978 Major Indoor Soccer League grants 1st 6 franchises to Cincinnati, Cleveland, Houston, New York, Philadelphia & Pittsburgh Phillies win 3rd consecutive NL East Division title 1980 Ethernet specifications are published by Xerox working with Intel and Digital Equipment Corporation. 1982 Cyanide-laced Tylenol kills six people in the Chicago area. Seven are killed in all. 1988 IBM announces shipment of 3 millionth PS/2 personal computer 1988 Robin Givens & Mike Tyson appear on the Barbara Walters Show 1989 NASA closes down tracking stations in Hawaii & Ascension 1989 Nolan Ryan’s perfect game is broken with 1 out in the 8th, but he strikes-out his 300th of the year 1994 Aldwych tube station (originally Strand Station) of the London Underground closes after eighty-eight years of service. 1999 Japan’s second worst nuclear accident at a uranium reprocessing facility in Tōkai-mura, northeast of Tokyo. 2004 The first images of a live giant squid in its natural habitat are taken 600 miles south of Tokyo. 2004 The AIM-54 Phoenix, the primary missile for the F-14 Tomcat, is retired from service. Almost two years later, the Tomcat is retired. 2005 The controversial drawings of Muhammad are printed in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten. 2009 The 2009 Sumatra earthquakes occur, killing over 1,115 people.]]]]> ]]>