October 18th
 

Lord Palmerston, who died in 1865, came up with a rather 'obvious' death-bed quote; "Sie, my dear doctor?" he wheezed, "That's the LAST thing I'll do!"


In the 1968 Olympics, in the thin air of of Mexico City, American Bob Beamon smashed the long-jump world record with an enormous leap of 8.9 metres, unsurpassed for 23 years


The Academy of Painting in Londons Lincoln Inn Fields opened the first school in Britain for "art and drawing from life" in 1711, under a leading painter of the time, Kneller


The cattle grid installed on the A4117 near Ludlow in 1982, incorporated a built-in escape ramp so that hedgehogs could negotiate it safely.

October 19th
 

British commander Lord Cornwallis surrendered at Yorktown in 1787, losing Britain her dominion over the American colonies.


In 1982 Thomas Kneneally won the Booker Prize for Schindler's List, sparking controversy over whether his reconstruction of real events was eligible for the fiction category


The first company formed to manufacture internal combustion engines was set up in Florence, Italy in 1860, to make engines designed by Eugenio Barsanti and Felice Matteucci


King John, younger brother of King Richard the Lionheart, died of a fever in 1216, having hastened his end by eating an excess of peaches and drinking too much cider!

On Oct. 19, 1987, the stock market crashed as the Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged 508 points, or 22.6 percent in value - its biggest-ever percentage drop.

19 October- busy day in history
 

North Africa- 439
The Vandals, led by King Gaiseric, takes Carthage. The ruthless Gaiseric has brought 80,000 people – including 15,000 warriors – with him from Spain since he crossed the Straits of Gibraltar ten years ago and started his march across the North African coast sacking and looting city after city.

Russia- 1812
After failing to persuade Czar Alexander to come to terms, Napoleon begins a retreat from Moscow.

Leipzig, Germany- 1813
Napoleon has lost 60,000 men of his 190,000 strong army. After three days of raging battle against 320,000 Russians, Prussians, Swedes and Austrians, the question now is how long can he continue to struggle?

Germany- 1878
Bismarck passes an anti-socialist law placing many restraints on socialist meetings and banning trade union activities.

October 20th
 

The first fully-automated Post Offices opened in Rhode Island in 1960


Today in 1968, the late President John F. Kennedy's widow, Jackie, stunned the American people by marrying Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis


British children's TV favourites, singing piglet puppets Pinky & Perky, were first televised today in 1957. At the height of their "fame", they received almost as much fan-mail as The Beatles!! (If you've never seen/heard of Pinky & Perky, this is VERY sad!)


When Admiral Codrington destroyed the Turkish fleet at the Battle of Navarino in 1827, he wasn't praised, but lambasted for leaving the area vulnerable to Russian encroachment. (Ain't it always the way.. can't do right, for doin' wrong!)



In 1977, three members of the Southern rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd died in a fiery 'plane crash. The three were ~ Ronnie Van Zant, Steve Gaines and Cassie Gaines. "Freebirds" live forever!


DM

Chile- 20 October 1883

The treaty of Ancon finally ends the war between Chile, Peru and Bolivia fot land in the Atacama desert which ius rich in nitrates. By the treaty Peru cedes Tarapaca to Chile and Chile also keeps Tacna and Arica for a period of then years.




(long day. just made it):)

(Just making it would have been 11:59 :) )

October 21st
 

In 1966, 144 people, mostly children, died when a mountain of waste coal collapsed, engulfing the infant school in Aberfan, South Wales.


In 1982, Sinn Fein's Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness were elected to the the new Ulster Assembly with more than 10% of the votes. They declined to take their seats.


Sir Ernest Dunlop Swinton, the battlefield tactician and inventor who originated the word "tank" for the tracked, armoured fighting vehicle, was born today in 1868


Rum is known in the (Royal) Navy as 'Nelson's Blood', as the Little Admiral's body was sent home from Trafalgar today in 1805 in a barrel of rum, that sailors subsequently discovered and drank! (Now that's what you might call "dying for a drink!")

On Oct. 21, 1879, Thomas Edison invented a workable electric light at his laboratory in Menlo Park, N.J.

NIAGARA FALLS, Ontario (Oct. 21, 2003) - A man survived a plunge over Niagara Falls with only the clothes on his back, witnesses said, the first person known to have done it without safety devices and lived.

Man waits at the shoreline after plunge. (Terry McMullen, AP)

Witnesses described seeing the man float by Monday in the swift Niagara River, go head-first over the churning 180-foot waterfall and then pull himself out of the water onto rocks below.

''He just looked calm. He just was gliding by so fast. I was in shock really that I saw a person go by,'' Brenda McMullen told WIVB-TV in Buffalo.

Water rushes over the falls at a rate of 150,000 gallons per second.

''I saw him disappear over the edge of the falls,'' McMullen's husband, Terry McMullen, said. The Columbus, Ohio, tourists snapped photographs afterward, showing the man dressed in street clothes, apparently lying on the shoreline at the base of the Canadian Horseshoe Falls.

''The guy just basically jumped in the Falls,'' said witness Diedre Love, of Largo, Md., who was at the Falls with her husband to celebrate their first wedding anniversary. ''I saw him go over. He didn't yell or anything.''

Only one other person known to have survived a plunge over the Canadian falls without a barrel or other apparatus was a 7-year-old boy wearing a life preserver who was thrown into the water in a 1960 boating accident.

No one has ever survived a trip over the narrower and rockier American falls.

Video shown by the Buffalo television station showed officers walking from the scene with a shirtless man in handcuffs and a blanket covering his face.

''At this point, there does not appear to be any evidence of foul play,'' the Niagara Parks Police said in written statement.

Officers would not release the man's name nor would they comment on why the man went over the Falls. He did not appear to have serious injuries as he was led away.

Lynda Satelmajer, of Brampton, Ontario, said she and her family watched the man as he prepared to get in the water and then watched him go over the Falls, all in smiles.

''He seemed a bit edgy, kind of jumping around,'' she said. ''He walked over to where we were standing and he jumped and slid down on his backside and went over the brink.''

''It was really freaky, actually. He was smiling.''

About a dozen daredevils have taken the plunge in barrels or other protective chambers since 1901. About half have survived.

Suicides are not uncommon at Niagara Falls, although police are reluctant to give numbers.

Parks Police said emergency crews responded to a report of a man going over the Canadian falls around 12:45 p.m. Rescuers descended the gorge in a tourist elevator to an observation deck and reached him from there.

He was taken to Greater Niagara General Hospital for treatment, said police.

“Just making it” is what I have in my hand and squirted on your picture smarty. :p



Florida- 21 October 1837

Under a flag of truce and during peace talks, US troops seized the Indian Seminole Chief Osceola.

October 22nd
 

A range of lockets launched at the 1996 National Funeral Directors' Convention allowed the wearer to carry someone's ashes around their necks.


England goalkeeper Gordon Banks lost an eye in a car crash in 1972, ending his football career.


Andre-Jacques Garnerin made the first parachute jump from a balloon above Paris in 1797, but was airsick on the way down as his invention lacked the hole in the top, to steady it!


The Duke & Duchess of Windsor met Adolf Hitler in 1937, on a trip to study 'Social Conditions' in Germany, and came away saying they had been "Thoroughly charmed". (Well, it's well known even MONSTERS can be charming!

DM

Texas- 22 October 1836

General Sam Houston is sworn in as president of the Texas republic.

October 23rd
 

In 1983 a suicide truck-bombing in Lebanon killed 241 U.S. soldiers; a near-simultaneous attack on French forces killed 58 Paratroopers


In 1922, Conservative party leader Andrew Bonar Law became Prime Minister; he left the post after 209 days due to ill-health, the shortest term for a British premier in the 20th Century


Julie Andrews made her debut today in 1947, at the age of 12, in the London Hippodrome revue Starlight Roof singing am operatic Aria, the Polonaise from "Mignon"



In 1980, worried Police had to warn motorists on the M5 motorway to beware of swans trying to land on the wet carriageway, thinking it was a river!!

October 24th
 

In Buenos Aires in 1988, a dog fell from a 13th floor window, killing a woman below. A bus driver swerved to avoid her and ran over another woman.... then a man WATCHING it all, died of a heart attack! (Lucky white heather..... get your lucky white heather here!! :))


In 1976, third place in the Japanese Grand Prix was enough for James Hunt, i his McLaren-Ford, to clinch his only world title from Niki Lauda... by ONE point!


The expression "Cold War" was first used by industrialist and statesman Bernard Baruch in a statement in 1948, to the U.S. Senate War Investigation Committee.


Pleas by Chancellor Lloyd George and other ministers could not stop suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst being jailed in 1908, for "inciting the public to rush the House of Commons"



Special today ~ History in the making! Today, in THIS year (2003) the last EVER flight of the British Airways/Air France 'Concorde', BA002 from New York, touched down at Heathrow Airport in London at 16:03 hours, British Summer Time. It will never fly commercial flights again. :(