http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history
Oct 18, 1867: U.S. takes possession of Alaska
On this day in 1867, the U.S. formally takes possession of Alaska after purchasing the territory from Russia for $7.2 million, or less than two cents an acre. The Alaska purchase comprised 586,412 square miles, about twice the size of Texas, and was championed by William Henry Seward, the enthusiasticly expansionist secretary of state under President Andrew Johnson.
Russia wanted to sell its Alaska territory, which was remote, sparsely populated and difficult to defend, to the U.S. rather than risk losing it in battle with a rival such as Great Britain. Negotiations between Seward (1801-1872) and the Russian minister to the U.S., Eduard de Stoeckl, began in March 1867. However, the American public believed the land to be barren and worthless and dubbed the purchase "Seward's Folly" and "Andrew Johnson's Polar Bear Garden," among other derogatory names. Some animosity toward the project may have been a byproduct of President Johnson's own unpopularity. As the 17th U.S. president, Johnson battled with Radical Republicans in Congress over Reconstruction policies following the Civil War. He was impeached in 1868 and later acquitted by a single vote. Nevertheless, Congress eventually ratified the Alaska deal. Public opinion of the purchase turned more favorable when gold was discovered in a tributary of Alaska's Klondike River in 1896, sparking a gold rush. Alaska became the 49th state on January 3, 1959, and is now recognized for its vast natural resources. Today, 25 percent of America's oil and over 50 percent of its seafood come from Alaska. It is also the largest state in area, about one-fifth the size of the lower 48 states combined, though it remains sparsely populated. The name Alaska is derived from the Aleut word alyeska, which means "great land." Alaska has two official state holidays to commemorate its origins: Seward's Day, observed the last Monday in March, celebrates the March 30, 1867, signing of the land treaty between the U.S. and Russia, and Alaska Day, observed every October 18, marks the anniversary of the formal land transfer.
Oct 18, 1931: Edison dies
Thomas Alva Edison, one of the most prolific inventors in history, dies in West Orange, New Jersey, at the age of 84.
Born in Milan, Ohio, in 1847, Edison received little formal schooling, which was customary for most Americans at the time. He developed serious hearing problems at an early age, and this disability provided the motivation for many of his inventions. At age 16, he found work as a telegraph operator and soon was devoting much of his energy and natural ingenuity toward improving the telegraph system itself. By 1869, he was pursuing invention full-time and in 1876 moved into a laboratory and machine shop in Menlo Park, New Jersey.
Edison's experiments were guided by his remarkable intuition, but he also took care to employ assistants who provided the mathematical and technical expertise he lacked. At Menlo Park, Edison continued his work on the telegraph, and in 1877 he stumbled on one of his great inventions—the phonograph—while working on a way to record telephone communication. Public demonstrations of the phonograph made the Yankee inventor world famous, and he was dubbed the "Wizard of Menlo Park."
Although the discovery of a way to record and play back sound ensured him a place in the annals of history, it was just the first of several Edison creations that would transform late 19th-century life. Among other notable inventions, Edison and his assistants developed the first practical incandescent lightbulb in 1879, and a forerunner of the movie camera and projector in the late 1880s. In 1887, he opened the world's first industrial research laboratory at West Orange, where he employed dozens of workers to systematically investigate a given subject.
Perhaps his greatest contribution to the modern industrial world came from his work in electricity. He developed a complete electrical distribution system for light and power, set up the world's first power plant in New York City, and invented the alkaline battery, the first electric railroad, and a host of other inventions that laid the basis for the modern electric world. He continued to work into his 80s and acquired 1,093 patents in his lifetime. He died at his home in New Jersey on October 18, 1931.
Oct 18, 1767: Mason and Dixon draw a line
On this day in 1767, Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon complete their survey of the boundary between the colonies of Pennsylvania and Maryland as well as areas that would eventually become the states of Delaware and West Virginia. The Penn and Calvert families had hired Mason and Dixon, English surveyors, to settle their dispute over the boundary between their two proprietary colonies, Pennsylvania and Maryland.
In 1760, tired of border violence between the colonies' settlers, the British crown demanded that the parties involved hold to an agreement reached in 1732. As part of Maryland and Pennsylvania's adherence to this royal command, Mason and Dixon were asked to determine the exact whereabouts of the boundary between the two colonies. Though both colonies claimed the area between the 39th and 40th parallel, what is now referred to as the Mason-Dixon line finally settled the boundary at a northern latitude of 39 degrees and 43 minutes. The line was marked using stones, with Pennsylvania's crest on one side and Maryland's on the other.
When Mason and Dixon began their endeavor in 1763, colonists were protesting the Proclamation of 1763, which was intended to prevent colonists from settling beyond the Appalachians and angering Native Americans. As the Britons concluded their survey in 1767, the colonies were engaged in a dispute with the Parliament over the Townshend Acts, which were designed to raise revenue for the empire by taxing common imports including tea.
Twenty years later, in late 1700s, the states south of the Mason-Dixon line would begin arguing for the perpetuation of slavery in the new United States while those north of line hoped to phase out the ownership of human chattel. This period, which historians consider the era of "The New Republic," drew to a close with the Missouri Compromise of 1820, which accepted the states south of the line as slave-holding and those north of the line as free. The compromise, along with those that followed it, eventually failed.
One hundred years after Mason and Dixon began their effort to chart the boundary, soldiers from opposite sides of the line let their blood stain the fields of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, in the Southern states' final and fatal attempt to breach the Mason-Dixon line during the Civil War. One hundred and one years after the Britons completed their line, the United States finally admitted men of any complexion born within the nation to the rights of citizenship with the ratification of the 14th Amendment.
Oct 18, 1898: U.S. takes control of Puerto Rico
Only one year after Spain granted Puerto Rico self-rule, American troops raise the U.S. flag over the Caribbean nation, formalizing U.S. authority over the island's one million inhabitants.
In July 1898, near the end of the Spanish-American War, U.S. forces launched an invasion of Puerto Rico, the 108-mile-long, 40-mile-wide island that was one of Spain's two principal possessions in the Caribbean. With little resistance and only seven American deaths, U.S. troops were able to secure the island by mid August. After the signing of an armistice with Spain, the island was turned over to the U.S forces on October 18. U.S. General John R. Brooke became military governor. In December, the Treaty of Paris was signed, ending the Spanish-American War and officially approving the cession of Puerto Rico to the United States.
In the first three decades of its rule, the U.S. government made efforts to Americanize its new possession, including granting full U.S. citizenship to Puerto Ricans in 1917 and considering a measure that would make English the island's official language. However, during the 1930s, a nationalist movement led by the Popular Democratic Party won widespread support across the island, and further U.S. assimilation was successfully opposed. Beginning in 1948, Puerto Ricans could elect their own governor, and in 1952 the U.S. Congress approved a new Puerto Rican constitution that made the island an autonomous U.S. commonwealth, with its citizens retaining American citizenship. The constitution was formally adopted by Puerto Rico on July 25, 1952.
Movements for Puerto Rican statehood, along with lesser movements for Puerto Rican independence, have won supporters on the island, but popular referendums in 1967 and 1993 demonstrated that the majority of Puerto Ricans still supported their special status as a U.S. commonwealth.
Here's a more detailed look at events that transpired on this date throughout history:
707 - John VII ends his reign as Catholic Pope
1009 - The Church of the Holy Sepulchre, a Christian church
in Jerusalem, is completely destroyed by the Fatimid caliph Al-Hakim bi-Amr
Allah, who hacks the Church's foundations down to bedrock.
1016 - Danes defeat Saxons at Battle of Assandun (Ashingdon)
1081 - Battle at Durazzo/Durres: Normans under Robert
Guiscard beat Byzantine
1267 - Battle at Marienholz: Henry III, Otto II van Gelre
beat Keuls archbishop Engelbert III
1356 - Basel earthquake, the most significant historic
seismological event north of the Alps, destroyed the town of Basel,
Switzerland.
1386 - Opening of the University of Heidelberg
1534 - New pursuit of French protestants
1561 - Fourth Battle of Kawanakajima -- Takeda Shingen
defeats Uesugi Kenshin in the climax of their ongoing conflicts.
1564 - John Hawkins begins 2nd trip to America
1572 - Spanish troops attack Maastricht
1622 - French King Louis XIII & Huguenots sign treaty of
Montpellier
1648 - 1st US labor organization forms (Boston Shoemakers)
1667 - English fleet plunders Suriname plantations
1672 - Poland & Turkey sign Peace of Buczacz
1685 - French King Louis XIV revokes Edict of Nantes
cancelling rights of French Protestants
1685 - Louis XIV revokes Edict of Nantes, outlaws
Protestantism
1748 - Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, ends War of Austrian
Succession
1752 - Premiere of Rousseau's opera "Le Devin du
Village"
The Sun King Louis XIVThe Sun King Louis XIV 1767 - Boundary
between MD & PA, Mason Dixon line, agreed upon
1775 - African-American poet Phillis Wheatley freed from
slavery.
1776 - In a NY bar decorated with bird tail, customer orders
"cock tail"
1776 - Battle of Pelham: Col John Glover & Marblehead
regiment meet British Forces in Bronx
1855 - Franz Liszt's "Prometheus," premieres
1860 - The Second Opium War finally ends at the Convention
of Peking with the ratification of the Treaty of Tientsin, an unequal treaty.
1862 - Morgan's raiders capture federal garrison at
Lexington, KY
1863 - Battle of Charlestown, WV
1867 - US takes formal possession of Alaska from Russia
($7.2 million)
1869 - Henrik Ibsen's "De Unges Forbund,"
premieres in Christiania (Oslo)
1873 - 1st football game between Toronto Argonauts &
Hamilton Tigers
1873 - Columbia Princeton Rutgers & Yale set rules for
collegiate football
1878 - Edison makes electricity available for household
usage
1887 - Start of Sherlock Holmes adventure "A Case of
Identity" (BG)
1889 - 1st all NYC World Series NY Giants (NL) play Bkln
(AA)
Composer/Pianist Franz LisztComposer/Pianist Franz Liszt
1890 - John Owen is 1st man to run 100 yd dash in under 10 seconds
1891 - 1st international 6-day bicycle race in US (Madison
Square Garden, NYC) begins
1892 - 1st commercial long-distance phone line opens
(Chicago-NY)
1898 - American flag raised in Puerto Rico
1901 - Belgium's Louise of den Plas begins activities
towards women rights
1904 - Gustav Mahler's 5th symphony premieres in Cologne
1908 - Belgium annexes Congo Free State
1909 - Comte de Lambert of France sets airplane altitude
record of 300 m
1910 - Edward Forster publishes "Howards End"
1912 - Beginning of 1st Balkan War
1912 - Italo-Turkish war ends
1913 - Austrian-Hungary demands that Serbia & Albania
leave
1914 - The Schoenstatt Movement is founded in Germany.
1915 - 3rd Italians offensive at Isonzo
1918 - Czechoslovakia declares Independence from
Austro-Hungarian Empire
1918 - NHL's Quebec Bulldogs sold to a Toronto businessman P
J Quinn
1918 - Russian 10th Army drives out White armies of
Tsaritsyn (Stalingrad)
1922 - British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) forms
1924 - Harold "Red" Grange, finest collegiate
football game (4 long TD runs)
1924 - Notre Dame beats Army 13-7, NY Hearld Tribune dubs
them (4 Horsemen)
1925 - -20] French Gen Sarrail bombs Damascus
1925 - Salt Lake City (PCL) Tony Lazzeri hits his 60th HR of
the season
Marxist Revolutionary Vladimir LeninMarxist Revolutionary
Vladimir Lenin 1926 - Frankfurter Zeitung publishes Lenins political testament
1929 - Women are considered "Persons" under
Canadian law.
1930 - Joseph Sylvester becomes 1st jockey to win 7 races in
1 day
1932 - Belgium government of Renkin falls
1934 - Chinese Red leader under Mao Tse Tung begins Long
March
1939 - R Rodgers & Lorenz Harts "Too Many
Girls," premieres in NYC
1940 - Kaufman & Harts "George Washington Slept
Here," premieres in NYC
1941 - Spy Richard Sorge arrested in Tokyo
1942 - Hitler orders allied commandos to be killed
1943 - US bombing of Bougainville, Solomon Island
1944 - Eisenhower, Bradley & Montgomery confer in
Brussel
1944 - Soviet troops invade Czechoslovakia during WW II
1945 - Nazi war crime trial opens in Nuremberg
1945 - Paul Robeson wins Spingarn Medal for singing &
acting achievements
1946 - Aaron Copland's 3rd Symphony, premieres
Dictator of Nazi Germany Adolf HitlerDictator of Nazi
Germany Adolf Hitler 1948 - Operation 10 Plagues - Israeli offensive against
Egyptian army
1950 - Connie Mack retires as manager of A's after 50 years
1951 - USSR performs nuclear test
1952 - "Buttrio Square" closes at New Century
Theater NYC after 7 perfs
1952 - Vinoo Mankad takes 13 Pakistan wkts to win 1st
India-Pak clash
1953 - WLJT TV channel 11 in Lexington, TN (PBS) begins
broadcasting
1953 - WTVK TV channel 26 in Knoxville, TN (NBC) begins
broadcasting
1953 - Willie Thrower becomes 1st black NFL quarterback in
modern times
1954 - Hurricane Hazel (3rd of 1954) becomes most severe to
hit US
1954 - WBTW TV channel 13 in Florence, SC (CBS/ABC) begins
broadcasting
1954 - WNBC radio changes call letters to WRCA (NYC)
1954 - Texas Instruments announces the first Transistor
radio.
1955 - Track & Field names Jesse Owens all-time track
athelete
1955 - University of California discovers anti-proton
1960 - Casey Stengel retired by NY Yankees (won 10 pennants
in 12 years)
Baseball Legend Connie MackBaseball Legend Connie Mack 1960
- In Britain, News Chronicle & Daily Mail merge, & London Evening Star
merges with Evening News
1961 - Emergency crisis proclaimed in South Vietnam due to
commun attack
1962 - JFK meets Russian minister of Foreign affairs Andrei
Gromyko
1962 - Tony Sheridan & Beat Brothers record "Let's
Dance"
1962 - US launches Ranger 5 for lunar impact; misses Moon
1962 - US performs atmospheric nuclear test at Johnston
Island
1962 - Dr Watson (US) & Drs Crick & Wilkins
(Britain) win Nobel Prize for Medicine for work in determining structure of DNA
1963 - IOC votes Mexico City to host 1968 Olympics
1964 - Marlene Hagge wins LPGA Mickey Wright Golf
Invitational
1966 - "Apple Tree" opens at Shubert Theater NYC
for 463 performances
1967 - Nobel prize for physics awarded to Hans A Bethe
1967 - Soviet Venera 4 becomes 1st probe to send data back
from Venus
1967 - Walt Disney's "Jungle Book" is released
1967 - AL votes to allow Athletics to move from KC to
Oakland & expand league to 12 teams in 1971 with KC & Seattle teams
1968 - Bob Beamon of USA sets long jump record (29 ft. 2½
in.) in Mexico City
Singer-songwriter Tony SheridanSinger-songwriter Tony
Sheridan 1968 - Circus Circus opens in Las Vegas
1968 - John Lennon & Yoko One fined £150 for marijuana
possession
1968 - Lee Evans sets world record of 43.8 seconds in 400
meter dash
1968 - Police find 219 grains of cannabis resin in John
& Yoko's apt
1968 - US Olympic Committee suspends Tommie Smith & John
Carlos for giving "black power" salute as a protest during victory
ceremony
1969 - Federal government bans use of cyclamates artificial
sweeteners
1969 - Jefferson Airplanes Paul Kanter, arrested for
marijuana possession
1969 - Rod Stewart joins Small Faces
1969 - Soyuz 8 returns to Earth
1970 - Kathy Whitworth wins LPGA Quality Chekd Golf Classic
1970 - Sachio Kinugasa begins 2,215 cons game streak for
Hiroshima Carp
1973 - "Raisin" opens at 46th St Theater NYC for
847 performances
1973 - Congress authorizes bi-centennial quarter,
half-dollar & dollar coin
1973 - Judd Woldon & Robert Brittens musical
"Raisin," premieres in NYC
1973 - Nobel prize for economy awarded to Wassily Leontief
Singer Rod StewartSinger Rod Stewart 1974 - 1st NBA game at
Market Square Arena - Pacers beat Spurs 129-121
1974 - Andre van de Louw appointed mayor of Rotterdam
1974 - Wings (Country Hams) release "Walking in the
Park with Eloise"
1974 - Chicago Bull Nate Thurmond becomes 1st in NBA to
complete a quadruple double-22 pts, 14 rebounds, 13 assists & 12 blocks
1975 - Simon & Garfunkel reunite on Saturday Night Live,
sing "My Little Town"
1975 - USSR performs nuclear test at Novaya Zemlya USSR
1976 - Nobel prize for chemistry awarded to William N
Lipscomb Jr
1977 - 1st Islander 0-0 tie-Kings at Nassau-25th time
shutout-Resch's 15th
1977 - NY Yankees win their 21st World Championship, 4 games
1977 - W German commandos liberate Boeing 737, 86 hostages
at Mogadishu
1977 - Reggie Jackson hits 3 consecutive homers tying Ruth's
series record
1977 - Yanks beat Dodgers 8-4 for 21st world championship,
1st in 15 years
1978 - 1st daughter Susan Ford announces engagement to
Charles F Vance
1978 - NY Islanders 1st scoreless tie, vs LA Kings
1979 - "Beatlemania" opens in London
1979 - Iranian Ayatollah Khomeini orders mass executions to
stop
1979 - USSR performs nuclear test at Novaya Zemlya USSR
1979 - USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern
Kazakh/Semipalitinsk USSR
1980 - Brooke Alexander, 18, of Hawaii, crowned Miss World
USA
1980 - Detroit blocks 21 Atlanta shots setting NBA record
(double OT)
1981 - Andreas Papandreous' PASOK wins Greek elections
1981 - NY Giant Joe Danelo ties NFL record of 6 field goals
in a game
1981 - Poland General Jaruzelski elected party leader
1984 - Discovery moves to Vandenberg AFB for mating of STS
51A mission
1984 - USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern
Kazakh/Semipalitinsk USSR
1988 - Israel's supreme court uphold's ban on Kahane`s Kach
Party as racist
1988 - USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern
Kazakh/Semipalitinsk USSR
1989 - East German state/party leader Erich Honecker,
resigns
1989 - Hungary revises constitution
1989 - US 62nd manned space mission STS 34 (Atlantis 5)
launches into orbit
1990 - "Once on this Island" opens at Booth
Theater NYC for 469 performances
1991 - "Most Happy Fella" closes at NY State
Theater NYC
1991 - US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
1992 - "Oba Oba '93" closes at Marquis Theater NYC
after 22 performances
1992 - 1st non-US team to win a World Series Game; Toronto
5, Atlanta 4
1992 - 6.6 earthquake hits Colombia with no fatalities
1992 - Phila Eagle Randall Cunningham sets NFL QB scramble
record of 3,683
1992 - Start of Zimbabwe's 1st Test match, v India at Harare
1993 - STS-58 (Columbia) launches into orbit
1995 - NHL Winnipeg Jets sold to Americans who plan to move
them to Phoenix
1998 - Samsung World Championship of Women's Golf
2003 - Bolivian Gas War: President Gonzalo Sánchez de
Lozada, is forced to resign and leave Bolivia.
Pakistani Politican Benazir BhuttoPakistani Politican
Benazir Bhutto 2007 - After 8 years in exile, Benazir Bhutto returns to her
homeland Pakistan. The same night, suicide attackers blow themselves up near
Bhutto's convoy, killing over 100 in the cheering crowd, including 20 police
officers. Bhutto escaped uninjured.
2011 - Gilad Shalit is released.
2012 - Syrian military airstrikes kill 40 people in Maaret
al-Numan
2012 - Google stock trading is suspended after a premature
release of a quarterly report indicating a 20% drop in profits and a 9% fall in
share price
1469 - Ferdinand of Aragon married Isabella of Castile. The marriage united all the dominions of Spain. 1685 - King Louis XIV of France revoked the Edict of Nantes, which had established the legal toleration of the Protestant population. 1767 - The Mason-Dixon line was agreed upon. It was the boundary between Maryland and Pennsylvania. 1842 - Samuel Finley Breese Morse laid his first telegraph cable. 1860 - British troops burned the Yuanmingyuan at the end of the Second Opium War. 1867 - The U.S. took formal possession of Alaska from Russia. The land was purchased of a total of $7 million dollars (2 cents per acre). 1873 - The first rules for intercollegiate football were drawn up by representatives from Rutgers, Yale, Columbia and Princeton Universities. 1892 - The first long-distance telephone line between Chicago, IL, and New York City, NY, was opened. 1898 - The American flag was raised in Puerto Rico only one year after the Caribbean nation won its independence from Spain. 1929 - The Judicial Committee of England’s Privy Council ruled that women were to be considered as persons in Canada. 1943 - The first broadcast of "Perry Mason" was presented on CBS Radio. The show went to TV in 1957. 1944 - Czechoslovakia was invaded by the Soviets during World War II. 1944 - "Forever Amber", written by Kathleen Windsor, was first published. 1950 - Connie Mack announced that he was going to retire after 50 seasons as the manager of the Philadelphia Athletics. 1956 - NFL commissioner Bert Bell disallowed the use of radio-equipped helmets by NFL quarterbacks. 1958 - The first computer-arranged marriage took place on Art Linkletter's show. 1961 - Henri Matiss' "Le Bateau" went on display at New York's Museum of Modern Art. It was discovered 46 days later that the painting had been hanging upside down. 1967 - The American League granted permission for the A's to move to Oakland. Also, new franchises were awarded to Kansas City and Seattle. 1968 - Two black athletes, Tommie Smith and John Carlos, were suspended by the U.S. Olympic Committee for giving a "black power" salute during a ceremony in Mexico City. 1969 - The U.S. government banned artificial sweeteners due to evidence that they caused cancer. 1970 - Quebec's minister of labor was found strangled to death after eight days of being held captive by the Quebec Liberation Front (FLQ). 1971 - After 34 years, the final issue of "Look" magazine was published. 1977 - Reggie Jackson tied Babe Ruth's record for hitting three homeruns in a single World Series game. Jackson was only the second player to achieve this. 1983 - General Motors agreed to hire more women and minorities for five years as part of a settlement with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. 1985 - South African authorities hanged black activist Benjamin Moloise. Moloise had been convicted of murdering a police officer. 1989 - Egon Krenz became the leader of East Germany after Erich Honecker was ousted. Honeker had been in power for 18 years. 1989 - The space shuttle Atlantis was launched on a mission that included the deployment of the Galileo space probe. 1990 - Iraq made an offer to the world that it would sell oil for $21 a barrel. The price level was the same as it had been before the invasion of Kuwait. 1997 - A monument honoring U.S. servicewomen, past and present, was dedicated at Arlington National Cemetery. 2006 - Microsoft released Internet Explorer 7.0.
1685 Louis XIV revoked the Edict of Nantes. 1767 The boundary between Maryland and Pennsylvania, the Mason-Dixon line, was agreed upon. 1867 The United States took possession of Alaska from Russia. 1912 The first Balkan War broke out. 1931 Inventor Thomas Alva Edison died in West Orange, N.J., at age 84. 1968 The U.S. Olympic Committee suspended two black athletes for giving a "black power" salute during a victory ceremony at the Mexico City games. 2011 Gilad Shalit, a 25-year-old Israeli soldier, is released after being held for more than five years by Hamas. He is exchanged for 1,000 Palestinian prisoners. Shalit had been held in Gaza since Palestinian militants kidnapped him in 2006.
The following links are to web sites that were used to complete this blog entry:
http://www.historyorb.com/today/events.php
http://on-this-day.com/onthisday/thedays/alldays/oct18.htm
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history
http://www.infoplease.com/dayinhistory
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