This Week in History: Oct. 16th-22nd

Oct 16- 1813: Napoleon is defeated in the Battle of Leipzig by the combined armies of Prussia, Russia, and Austria. It is the largest military battle in Europe prior to World War I. 1923: Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio is founded in Burbank, CA. 1962: President John F. Kennedy first sees reconnaissance photographs of Soviet missiles in Cuba. He would order a military blockade of the island six days later, starting what became known as the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Oct 17- 1943: The railroad bridge over the Kwai River in Burma is completed for the Japanese military by Allied prisoners of war and civilian laborers. It would later inspire a fictionalized book and blockbuster film that would win seven Academy Awards in 1958, including Best Picture. 2006: The US population reaches 300 million according to the Census Bureau. 2020: Chicago, IL is named the “rattiest” American city for the 6th consecutive year by the Orkin pest-control company, based on calls for rodent treatment in the preceding 12 months. (One would suspect that this “award” is not bragged about by the city’s Chamber of Commerce!).

Oct 18- 1867: The US formally takes possession of Alaska from Russia at a ceremony held in Sitka. The government had purchased the more-than one-half million square miles of land (about twice the size of Texas) for $7.2 million at the behest of Secretary of State William Seward. Dubbed “Seward’s Folly” by much of the media at the time, the purchase ended Russia’s presence in North America and gave the US access to the Pacific northern rim.

Alaska is more than double the size of Texas, the second largest U.S. state, and its oil production has created almost 200 billion dollars in revenue since statehood. Alaska was purchased by the U.S. from Russia for $7.2 million in 1867. whereig.com

1962: James Watson, Francis Crick, and Maurice Wilkins are awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine for discovering the double-helix structure of DNA. 1977: Baseball Hall of Famer Reggie Jackson hits home runs in three consecutive plate appearances in the World Series to lead the NY Yankees over the Los Angeles Dodgers by a final score of 8-4, the 21st championship in team history and their first in 15 years.

Oct 19- 1781: British General Charles Cornwallis surrenders to American General George Washington at 2:00 pm in Yorktown, VA, ending the Revolutionary War. 1931: American inventor Thomas Edison dies at age 83 from complications of diabetes at his home in West Orange, NJ. At the time of his death he held over 1,000 patents in his name, and is widely credited for his invention of the incandescent light bulb as well as the phonograph. 1943: Streptomycin, the first successful antibiotic treatment for Tuberculosis, is isolated by researchers at Rutgers University in Piscataway, NJ. 1983: The Senate approves establishment of a federal holiday honoring Dr. Martin Luther King on the third Monday of January. 1987: Global stock markets crash on “Black Monday” as investors (and their automated computers) sought to liquidate (sell) their holdings. The Dow Jones Index dropped 508 points or 22.6%, the steepest drop in history.

Oct 20- 1803: The US Senate approves the Louisiana Purchase, agreeing with the House of Representatives (and President Thomas Jefferson) that spending $15 million to practically DOUBLE the nation’s land area was a good deal! 1917: Suffragette Alice Paul begins serving a 7-month jail sentence for peacefully picketing at the White House on behalf of women gaining the right to vote. 1998: Comedian Richard Pryor receives the first Kennedy Center Mark Twain Prize for American Humor.

Oct 21- 1918: Renowned typist Margaret B. Owen sets a new world record for typing speed, correctly typing 170 words in one minute on a manual typewriter! (Your faithful columnist wishes he could type HALF as fast on a computer keyboard!). 1966: Waste from a coal mine in Aberfan, Wales slides down a hillside, engulfing Pantglas Junior School and a row of nearby houses, killing 116 children and 28 adults. 1970: Retired schoolteacher and geologist John Scopes dies of cancer at his home in Shreveport, LA. He had famously challenged a Tennessee law by teaching Darwin’s theory of evolution in his Dayton, TN classroom. He was the defendant in the 1925 “Scopes Monkey Trial” that garnered national attention and drew luminaries from the worlds of law and politics to a small courthouse in rural Tennessee.

Oct 22- 1797: French daredevil André-Jacques Garnerin jumps from the basket of a balloon floating 3,000 feet above Paris, unfurling a 23 ft. umbrella-shaped piece of silk to break his fall, accomplishing the world’s first successful parachute jump. (I guess that’s why they called him a daredevil!). 1879: Inventor Thomas Edison perfects the carbonized cotton filament light bulb at his laboratory in Menlo Park, NJ. 1883: The Metropolitan Opera House opens in New York City with a performance of Gounod’s “Faust.” 1978: Norway’s Grete Waitz enters her first race, the New York City Marathon, and wins in a world record time of 2:32:30!