Today in History (October 20th):
1632: Birthdays: English astronomer and architect Christopher Wren.
1818: The United States and Britain agreed to establish the 49th parallel as the official boundary between the United States and Canada.
1854: Birthdays: French poet Arthur Rimbaud.
1856: Birthdays: James Robert Mann, Illinois congressman and author of the White Slave Traffic Act, also known as the Mann Act.
1859: Birthdays: Educator John Dewey.
1874: Birthdays: Composer Charles Ives.
1882: Birthdays: Actor Bela Lugosi (Dracula) Actor Margaret Dumont.
1905: Birthdays: Mystery writer Ellery Queen (Frederic Dannay).
1907: Birthdays: TV personality Arlene Francis.
1910: Birthdays: Long-time Yankee Stadium announcer Bob Sheppard.
1913: Birthdays: Country singer Grandpa (Louis Marshall) Jones.
1918: Germany accepted U.S. President Woodrow Wilson’s terms to end World War I.
1925: Birthdays: Humorist Art Buchwald.
1931: Birthdays: Baseball Hall of Fame member Mickey Mantle.
1932: Birthdays: Actor William Christopher.
1935: Birthdays: Actor Jerry Orbach.
1937: Birthdays: Baseball Hall of Fame member Juan Marichal.
1940: Birthdays: Poet Robert Pinsky.
1942: Birthdays: Actor Earl Hindman.
1944: U.S. Army Gen. Douglas MacArthur kept his promise to return to the Philippines Islands when he landed with U.S. forces during World War II.
1946: Birthdays: Writer Lewis Grizzard.
1947: The U.S. House of Representatives Un-American Activities Committee opened public hearings into alleged communist influence in Hollywood.
1950: Birthdays: Rock ‘n’ roll Hall of Fame member Tom Petty.
1956: Birthdays: Film director Danny Boyle.
1958: Birthdays: Actor Viggo Mortensen.
1970: Birthdays: Political commentator Michelle Malkin.
1971: Birthdays: Rapper Snoop Dogg.
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1973: During the Watergate scandal, U.S. President Richard Nixon fired two officials for refusing to fire special prosecutor Archibald Cox. The incident became known as the Saturday Night Massacre. The landmark Sydney Opera House opened in Australia.
1977: Members of the rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd, including lead singer Ronnie Van Zant and guitarist Steve Gaines, killed in plane crash.
1982: The world’s worst soccer disaster occurred in Moscow when 340 fans were crushed to death in an open staircase during a game between Soviet and Dutch players.
1990: The rap group 2 Live Crew was acquitted in Miami of obscenity charges arising from a performance of selections from the album As Nasty As They Wanna Be.
1992: One of Europe’s leading environmentalists, Germany’s Greens Party founder Petra Kelly, was found shot to death by her companion, Gert Bastian, who committed suicide.
1994: Hollywood heavyweight Burt Lancaster died at the age of 80.
2000: A former U.S. Army sergeant pleaded guilty to joining in a terrorist plot against the United States, linking Saudi fugitive Osama bin Laden to the bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi, Kenya.
2004: Margaret Hassan, chief of operations for the British CARE charity, was kidnapped on her way to work in Iraq by armed militants. CARE suspended its work in Iraq soon after. Retired Gen. Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono was sworn in as Indonesia’s sixth president after winning the country’s first direct elections for head of state.
2005: Former U.S. House of Representatives Republican leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, was jailed in Houston after his indictment on conspiracy and money laundering charges. Pakistan set the official death toll of the Oct. 8 quake at 47,000 but various aid officials claim it was closer to 80,000. Three million people were reported without shelter.
2009: Afghan election officials ruled President Hamid Karzai had won 49.7 percent of the vote in his bid for another term, just less than the 50 percent needed to avoid a runoff. 57 percent of respondents to an ABC-Washington Post poll voiced support for a public option in the healthcare reform debate, one of its most contentious features.
2010: More than 1 million ballots in the Afghan parliamentary election were disqualified for fraud, electoral officials said two days after the vote. The U.S. Defense Department said homosexuals can openly enlist in the armed forces after a judge struck down the don’t ask, don’t tell law but warned a government appeal could change the situation again.
2011: Deposed Libyan dictator Moammar Gaddafi was killed as he tried to escape from his home town hideout in the coastal city of Sirte while transitional troops and NATO forces closed in. Ousted from power in a massive revolt two months earlier, Gaddafi, 69, had ruled Libya for 42 years. The Basque separatist group known as ETA, blamed for more than 820 deaths in its fight for independence in Spain and France, announced it was renouncing violence and would seek a just democratic solution for the centuries-old political conflict.
Quotes
“The surest test of discipline is its absence.” – Clara Barton, American Red Cross founder
Arthur Rimbaud (1854-1891) French writer:
And again: No more gods! no more gods! Man is King, Man is God! – But the great Faith is Love!”
“But, truly, I have wept too much! The Dawns are heartbreaking. Every moon is atrocious and every sun bitter.”
“I am the slave of my baptism. Parents, you have caused my misfortune, and you have caused your own.”
“I believe that I am in hell, therefore I am there.”
“I is another.”
“I saw that all beings are fated to happiness: action is not life, but a way of wasting some force, an enervation. Morality is the weakness of the brain.”
“Idle youth, enslaved to everything; by being too sensitive I have wasted my life.”
“Life is the farce which everyone has to perform.”
“One evening I sat Beauty on my knees – And I found her bitter – And I reviled her.”