Sunday, October 20, 2013

On This Day in History - October 20 40th Anniversary of Sydney Opera House/ Louisiana Purchase Ratified/ Members of Lynyrd Skynyrd Killed in Plane Crash

Once again, it should be reiterated, that this does not pretend to be a very extensive history of what happened on this day (nor is it the most original - the links can be found down below). If you know something that I am missing, by all means, shoot me an email or leave a comment, and let me know!

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history


Oct 20, 1973: Sydney Opera House opens       

After 15 years of construction, the Sydney Opera House is dedicated by Queen Elizabeth II. The $80 million structure, designed by Danish architect Jørn Utzon and funded by the profits of the Opera House Lotteries, was built on Bennelong Point, in Sydney, Australia. Famous for its geometric roof shells, the structure contains several large auditoriums and presents an average of 3,000 events a year to an estimated two million people. The first performance in the complex was the Australian Opera's production of Sergei Prokofiev's War and Peace, which was held in the 1,547-seat Opera Theatre. Today, the Opera House remains Sydney's best-known landmark. 







Oct 20, 1803: U.S. Senate ratifies the Louisiana Purchase

On this day in 1803, the U.S. Senate approves a treaty with France providing for the purchase of the territory of Louisiana, which would double the size of the United States.  

At the end of 18th century, the Spanish technically owned Louisiana, the huge region west of the Mississippi that had once been claimed by France and named for its monarch, King Louis XIV. Despite Spanish ownership, American settlers in search of new land were already threatening to overrun the territory by the early 19th century. Recognizing it could not effectively maintain control of the region, Spain ceded Louisiana back to France in 1801, sparking intense anxieties in Washington, D.C. Under the leadership of Napoleon Bonaparte, France had become the most powerful nation in Europe, and unlike Spain, it had the military power and the ambition to establish a strong colony in Louisiana and keep out the Americans.  

Realizing that it was essential that the U.S. at least maintain control of the mouth of the all-important Mississippi River, early in 1803 President Thomas Jefferson sent James Monroe to join the French foreign minister, Robert Livingston, in France to see if Napoleon might be persuaded to sell New Orleans and West Florida to the U.S. By that spring, the European situation had changed radically. Napoleon, who had previously envisioned creating a mighty new French empire in America, was now facing war with Great Britain. Rather than risk the strong possibility that Great Britain would quickly capture Louisiana and leave France with nothing, Napoleon decided to raise money for his war and simultaneously deny his enemy plum territory by offering to sell the entire territory to the U.S. for a mere $15 million. Flabbergasted, Monroe and Livingston decided that they couldn't pass up such a golden opportunity, and they wisely overstepped the powers delegated to them and accepted Napoleon's offer.  

Despite his misgivings about the constitutionality of the purchase (the Constitution made no provision for the addition of territory by treaty), Jefferson finally agreed to send the treaty to the U.S. Senate for ratification, noting privately, "The less we say about constitutional difficulties the better." Despite his concerns, the treaty was ratified and the Louisiana Purchase now ranks as the greatest achievement of Jefferson's presidency.







Oct 20, 1977: Three members of the southern rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd die in a Mississippi plane crash

In the summer of 1977, members of the rock band Aerosmith inspected an airplane they were considering chartering for their upcoming tour—a Convair 240 operated out of Addison, Texas. Concerns over the flight crew led Aerosmith to look elsewhere—a decision that saved one band but doomed another. The aircraft in question was instead chartered by the band Lynyrd Skynyrd, who were just setting out that autumn on a national tour that promised to be their biggest to date. On this day in 1977, however, during a flight from Greenville, South Carolina, to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Lynyrd Skynyrd's tour plane crashed in a heavily wooded area of southeastern Mississippi during a failed emergency landing attempt, killing band-members Ronnie Van Zant, Steve Gaines and Cassie Gaines as well as the band's assistant road manager and the plane's pilot and co-pilot. Twenty others survived the crash.  

The original core of Lynyrd Skynyrd—Ronnie Van Zant, Bob Burns, Gary Rossington, Allen Collins and Larry Junstrom—first came together under the name "My Backyard" back in 1964, as Jacksonville, Florida, teenagers. Under that name and several others, the group developed its chops playing local and regional gigs throughout the 1960s and early 1970s, then finally broke out nationally in 1973 following the adoption of the name "Lynyrd Skynyrd" in honor of a high school gym teacher/nemesis named Leonard Skinner. The newly renamed band scored a major hit with their hard-driving debut album (pronounced 'lĕh-'nérd 'skin-'nérd) (1973), which featured one of the most familiar and joked-about rock anthems of all time, "Free Bird." Their follow-up album, Second Helping (1974), included the even bigger hit "Sweet Home Alabama," and it secured the band's status as giants of the southern rock subgenre.  

On October 17, 1977, Lynyrd Skynyrd—now in a lineup that included backup singer Cassie Gaines and her guitarist brother, Steve—released their fifth studio album, Street Survivors, which would eventually be certified double-platinum. Three days later, however, tragedy struck the group when their chartered Convair 240 began to run out of fuel at 6,000 feet en route to Baton Rouge. The plane's crew, whom the National Transportation Safety Board would hold responsible for the mishap in the accident report issued eight months later, radioed Houston air-traffic control as the plane lost altitude, asking for directions to the nearest airfield. "We're low on fuel and we're just about out of it," the pilot told Houston Center at approximately 6:42 pm. "We want vectors to McComb [airfield] poste-haste please, sir." Approximately 13 minutes later, however, the plane crashed just outside of Gillsburg, Mississippi.




Here's a more detailed look at events that transpired on this date throughout history:


1097 - 1st Crusaders arrive in Antioch
1528 - Treaty of Gorinchem (Emperor & church)
1536 - Danish/Norw king Christian III leads reform in Catholic possessions
1576 - Spanish troops occupies & plunder Maastricht
1587 - Battle at Coultras: Henri van Navarra beats Catholic League
1600 - Battle of Sekigahara sets Tokugawa clan as Japan's rulers (shoguns)
1603 - Chinese uprising in Philippines fails after 23,000 killed
1634 - English King Charles I disbands new "Ship Money" tax
1714 - Georg Ludwig von Hannover crowned as English King George I
1740 - Maria Theresa became ruler of Austria, Hungary & Bohemia
1751 - Royal ship Duc de Bourgogne launched at Rochefort
1774 - Continental Congress orders discouragment of entertainment
1781 - Patent of Toleration, providing limited freedom of worship, was approved in Habsburg Monarchy.
1786 - Harvard University organizes 1st astronomical expedition in US
1803 - US Senate ratifies Louisiana Purchase
1813 - German Kingdom of Westphalia abolished
1817 - 1st Mississippi "Showboat," leaves Nashville on maiden voyage
1818 - 49th parallel forms as border between US & Canada
1818 - US & Britain agree to joint control of Oregon country
King George IKing George I 1820 - Spain sells part of Florida to US for $5 million
1822 - 1st edition of London Sunday Times
1827 - Battle at Navarino: Engl/Russ/French fleet beat Turk/Egyptian fleet
1833 - Charles Darwin reaches river mouth of Parana
1835 - HMS Beagle leaves Galapagos Archipelago/sails to Tahiti
1843 - 1st Chinese immigrant arrives in Suriname
1847 - Little William Nelman poisons his grandpa
1856 - Arnhem-Oberhausen railway in Netherlands opens
1862 - Amnesty proclaimed for escaped slaves of Suriname
1864 - US President Lincoln formally establishes Thanksgiving as a national holiday
1873 - P T Barnum Hippodrome featuring "Greatest Show on Earth," opens (NYC)
1877 - Franz Schubert's 2nd Symphony in B, premieres
1880 - Amsterdam Free University opens
1883 - Max Bruch's "Kol Nidre," 1st performed
1883 - Treaty of Ancon, Peru cedes Tarapaca to Chile
Composer Franz SchubertComposer Franz Schubert 1888 - Chicago & All America baseball teams play exhibition in Auckland, NZ
1889 - Gerhart Hauptmann's "Vor Sonnenaufgang," premieres in Berlin
1891 - 1st International 6 day bike race (NY Madison Square Garden) begins
1898 - NC Mutual & Provident Insurance Company forms
1899 - Battle at Talana Hill, Natal: British army vs Boers
1899 - Columbia (US) beats Shamrock (England) in 11th America's Cup
1903 - US wins disputed boundary between District of Alaska & Canada
1905 - Great General Strike in Russia begins; lasts 11 days
1905 - Russian Tsar allows Polish people to speak Polish
1906 - Dr Lee DeForest demonstrated his electrical vacuum tube (radio tube)
1908 - King Leopold II sells Congo to Belgium
1910 - 1st appearance of cork centered baseball in World Series
1910 - Soccer team KFC forms in Alkmaar
1910 - The hull of the RMS Olympic, sister-ship to the ill-fated RMS Titanic, is launched from the Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast, Ireland.
1911 - Helen Hayes Theater (Folies Bergere) opens at 210 W 46th St NYC
Author and Nobel Laureate Gerhart HauptmannAuthor and Nobel Laureate Gerhart Hauptmann 1911 - Roald Amundsen sets out on race to South Pole
1912 - Cort Theater opens at 148 W 48th St NYC
1912 - Hannes Kolehmainen runs world record marathon (2:29:39.2)
1918 - Germans, aimed at an armistice, Germans agree to further concessions
1920 - "1st Year" with Frank Craven premieres in NYC
1922 - Kennelworth in Bronx renamed Dwight Place
1924 - 1st Negro League World Series: KC Monarchs shuts out Hilldales, 5-0
1926 - Hurricane in Cuba, kills 600
1929 - Bayshore Highway opens (SF)
1930 - Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, premiers on NBC radio
1930 - British White Paper restricts Jews from buying Arab land
1931 - Frankie Frisch of the Cards named MVP
1932 - Journalist, Robert Trout, joins CBS
1934 - All-Star team led by Babe Ruth & Connie Mack sails to Hawaii & Japan
1934 - Richard Strauss completes his opera "Die Schweigsame Frau"
Baseball Great Babe RuthBaseball Great Babe Ruth 1935 - 400,000 demonstrators against fascism in Madrid
1935 - Anti-fascist People front forms in Brussels
1935 - Hank Greenberg is named AL MVP by the BBWAA, Wes Ferrell is runner-up
1935 - Mao Tse Tung & his Communist forces ended their "Long March" at Yan'an, in Shaanxi China
1936 - Carl Hubbell, 26-6, edges out Dizzy Dean, 24-13, for MVP honors in NL
1936 - Spanish government moves to Barcelona
1939 - "All the Things You Are" recorded by Tommy Dorsey Orch
1939 - Pope Pius XII publishes his 1st encyclical Summi pontificatus
1940 - Cheese rationed in Netherlands
1940 - Greenhouse rationing begins in Netherlands
1941 - Nazi occupiers murder 500 inhabitants of Kragujevac Serbia
1942 - "Durham Manifesto" calls for fundamental changes in race relations
1944 - Liquid-gas tanks in Cleveland, Ohio explode, 135 die, 3,600 homeless
1944 - Revolution by workers & students in Guatemala
1944 - Russian/Yugoslavian troops free Belgrade
Baseball Player Hank GreenbergBaseball Player Hank Greenberg 1944 - US 1st army wins battle of Aachen
1944 - US 6th army lands on Leyte, Philippines
1944 - US forces under Gen Douglas MacArthur return to Philippines
1945 - Supreme Court Justice Geoffrey Lawrence opens trial of Neurenberg
1946 - Frank Seno returns kickoff 105 yd, Chicago Cards vs NY Giants
1947 - HUAC opens hearings into alleged Communist influence in Hollywood
1947 - Radio rights for the World Series sell for $475,000 for 3 years
1947 - Robinson Jeffer's "Medea," premieres in NYC
1949 - Eugenie Anderson becomes 1st woman US ambassador (to Denmark)
1951 - The "Johnny Bright Incident" occurred in Stillwater, Oklahoma
1952 - Emergency crisis proclaimed in Kenya
1953 - WRAU (now WHOI) TV channel 19 in Peoria, IL (ABC) begins broadcasting
1954 - "Peter Pan" opens at Winter Garden Theater NYC for 149 performances
1955 - "No Time for Sergeants" opens on Broadway, starring Andy Griffith
1955 - Harry Belafonte records "Day-O" (Banana Boat Song)
WW2 General Douglas MacArthurWW2 General Douglas MacArthur 1955 - Yanks begin 16-game exhibition in Japan
1955 - Publication of The Return of the King, being the last part of The Lord of the Rings.
1956 - 58°F (15°C), Esperanza Station, Antarctica (Antarctic record high)
1956 - Hannes Lindemann begins journey across Atlantic in a 17' craft
1957 - Karachi A (277-0d) beat Sind A by an innings w/o losing a wkt
1957 - Walter Cronkite begins hosting weekly documentary
1959 - Clark Griffith of Senators says team will not move the franchise
1959 - WABG TV channel 6 in Greenwood-Greenville, MS (ABC) 1st broadcast
1960 - 1st fully mechanized post office opened, Providence, RI
1960 - Ralph Houk, 41, replaces Casey Stengel as Yankee manager
1962 - Musical "Mr President" opens at St James Theater New York for 265 performances
1962 - Chinese army lands in India
1962 - US performs atmospheric nuclear test at Johnston Island
1963 - Alec Douglas-Home forms British government
1963 - France performs underground nuclear test at Ecker Algeria
Broadcast Journalist Walter CronkiteBroadcast Journalist Walter Cronkite 1963 - Jim Brown sets NFL single-season rushing record, 1,863 yds
1963 - Kathy Whitworth wins LPGA Hillside Golf Open
1963 - South Africa begins trial of Nelson Mandela & 8 others on conspiracy
1963 - WITV TV channel 7 in Charleston, SC (PBS) begins broadcasting
1964 - "Golden Boy" opens at Majestic Theater NYC for 569 performances
1964 - Mad Dog Vachon beats Verne Gagne in Minneapolis, to become NWA champ
1964 - Riot at Rolling Stones show in Paris (150 arrested)
1965 - 19th NHL All-Star Game: All-Stars beat Montreal 5-2 at Montreal
1965 - Beatles receive a gold record for "Yesterday"
1965 - Mass arrests of communists in Indonesia
1967 - All white federal jury convicts 7 in murder of 3 civil rights workers in Meridan Mississippi
1967 - Charlie Finley names Bob Kennedy 1st manager of Oakland A's
1967 - KMXN (now KJTV) TV channel 34 in Lubbock, TX (IND) begins broadcasting
1967 - A purported bigfoot is filmed by Patterson and Gimlin.
1968 - "Her 1st Roman" opens at Lunt Fontanne Theater NYC for 17 perfs
Anti-apartheid activist/South African President Nelson MandelaAnti-apartheid activist/South African President Nelson Mandela 1968 - Carol Mann wins LPGA Quality Chekd Golf Classic
1968 - Mamo Wolde wins 16th Olympic marathon (2:20:26.4)
1969 - WKYH (now WYMT) TV channel 57 in Hazard, KY (NBC) begins broadcasting
1970 - American Norman Borlaug awarded the Nobel Peace Prize
1970 - Zond 8 Launch (Moon Orbit & Return)
1971 - "Ain't Supposed to Die a Natural Death" opens at Barrymore for 325 per
1971 - West German Chancellor Willy Brandt is awarded Nobel Peace Prize
1971 - The Nepal stock exchange collapses.
1972 - Queen Juliana visits Yugoslavia
1973 - Mariette Hartley appears on Bob Newhart in "Have You Met Miss Dietz"
1973 - OPEC oil embargo begins
1973 - President Nixon proclaims Jim Thorpe greatest athlete of 1st ½ century
1973 - Queen Elizabeth II opens Sydney Opera House
1973 - US president Nixon fires Watergate accuser Archibald Cox
1973 - Solicitor Gen Bork, AG Richardson & Deputy AG Ruckelshaus resigned
Queen of the United Kingdom Elizabeth IIQueen of the United Kingdom Elizabeth II 1973 - The Family Station Inc buys shortwave Radio Station WNYW, changes calls to WYFR & moves station from NYC to Scituate Mass
1974 - 1st broadcast of "Derrick" on ZDF
1974 - Bard's presentation of "Richard III" opens at Lincoln Center NYC
1975 - Supreme Court rules teachers could spank their pupils after warning
1976 - 70 die as Norwegian tanker Frosta collides with George Prince
1976 - NY Nets Julius "Dr J" Erving sold to Phila 76ers
1977 - David Mamet's "Life in the Theater," premieres in NYC
1977 - Hamilton Deane & John Balderstons "Dracula," premieres in NYC
1977 - Six killed in Lynyrd Skynyrd plane crash in McComb, Mississippi including band members Ronnie Vanzant, Steve Gains, Cassie Gaines and Dean kilpatrick
1978 - Paul Vanden Boeynants forms Belgium government
1978 - Police's 1st US concert (NY's CBGBs)
1978 - US dollar devalued below Dutch Ÿ2
1979 - Bob Dylan appears on Saturday Night Live
1979 - John F Kennedy Library dedicated in Boston
1979 - John Tate beats Gerrie Coetze in 15 for heavyweight boxing title
Singer-Songwriter Bob DylanSinger-Songwriter Bob Dylan 1981 - 1st NBA game at Meadowlands Arena, NJ Nets lose to NY Knicks 103-99
1981 - 3 members of Weather underground arrested for armored truck robbery
1981 - Bomb attack on Antwerp Belgium synagogue, 1 dead, 80 injured
1982 - Billy Martin fired as manager of Oakland A's
1982 - Nobel prize for economy awarded to George Stigler
1982 - Sri Lanka President Jayewardene re-elected
1982 - St Louis Cards beat Milwaukee Brewers, 4 games to 3 in 79th World Series
1982 - During the UEFA Cup match between FC Spartak Moscow and HFC Haarlem, 66 people are crushed to death in the Luzhniki disaster.
1983 - IBM-PC DOS Version 2.1 released
1984 - Cleveland Metroparks' Valley Parkway All Purpose Trails are completed
1984 - Islander's Mike Bossy's 30th career hat trick-4 goals
1984 - The Monterey Bay Aquarium opens in Monterey Bay, California.
1986 - Tupolev-134 crashes in Southern Africa
1987 - 10 die as US Air Force jet crashed into a Ramada Inn near Indianapolis
1987 - Dow-Jones increases 102.27 pts/608,120,000 shares traded (record)
1987 - Subway gunman Bernhard Goetz sentenced to 6 months in jail
1988 - "Les Miserables," opens at Forrest Theatre, Phila
1988 - Britain ends suspects' right to remain silent in crackdown on IRA
1988 - Gastineau sacks Jets, retires from football "for personal reasons"
1988 - LA Dodgers beat Oakland A's in baseball's 85th World Series 4 games to 1
1988 - Man armed with explosives blows himself up in 125 St subway station (NYC)
1988 - Reggie Rogers, Det Lion's # 1 pick, kills 3 by driving intoxicated
1989 - Pakistan win Sharjah Trophy over India & WI on round-robin
1989 - US Senate impeaches US District Judge Alcee L Hastings
1990 - 3 members of 2 Live Crew acquitted on obsenity charges in Florida
1990 - Antiwar protest marches begin in 20 US cities (US-Iraq)
1990 - Cincinnati Reds sweep Oakland A's in 86th World Series
1991 - "Andre Heller's Wonderhouse" opens at Broadhurst NYC for 9 perfs
1991 - 6.1-7.1 earthquake in Uttar Kashi, India, about 670 die
1991 - Formal opening ceremony of Intl One Mind Zen center in Crestone, Colo
1992 - 1st World Series game outside of US - Toronto beats Atlanta
1992 - David Houghton scores Zimbabwe's 1st Test hundred (121 v India, debut)
1992 - Mr Johnson surrenders Monrovia, Liberia & is exiled to Nigeria
1993 - Highest scoring World Series game Blue Jays 15, Phillies 14 in 4h14m
1995 - STS 73 (Columbia 18), launches into orbit
1995 - Sri Lanka beat West Indies to win Sharjah Champions Trophy final
1996 - "Summer & Smoke" closes at Criterion Theater NYC
1996 - Annika Sorenstam wins LPGA Samsung World Championship of Women's Golf
1996 - Braves Andruw Jones is youngest player to homer in World Series
1996 - Wasim Akram & Saqlain Mushtaq gets cricket Test record 313 for 8th wkt
1996 - Wasim Akram scores cricket 257 v Zimbabwe at Sheikhupura, 12 sixes
1997 - Richard Gnida, Limo driver in Detroit Red Wings crash, pleads guilty
1997 - US accuses Microsoft of violating pact forcing IE browser on computers
2004 - Boston Red Sox come back from 0-3 to defeat the New York Yankees 4-3 to win baseball's American League

2011 - The former leader of Libya, Muammar Gaddafi, and his son Moatassem Gaddafi are killed shortly after the battle of Sirte (2011) while in the custody of NTC fighters.




1740 - Maria Theresa became the ruler of Austria, Hungary and Bohemia with the death of her father, Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI.   1774 - The new Continental Congress, the governing body of America’s colonies, passed an order proclaiming that all citizens of the colonies "discountenance and discourage all horse racing and all kinds of gaming, cock fighting, exhibitions of shows, plays and other expensive diversions and entertainment."   1803 - The U.S. Senate approved the Louisiana Purchase.   1818 - The U.S. and Great Britain established the boundary between the U.S. and Canada to be the 49th parallel.   1827 - The Battle of Navarino took place during the Greek War for Independence.   1873 - A Hippodrome was opened in New York City by showman Phineus T. (P.T.) Barnum.   1892 - The city of Chicago dedicated the World's Columbian Exposition.   1903 - A joint commission ruled in favor of the U.S. concerning a dispute over the boundary between Canada and the District of Alaska.   1910 - A baseball with a cork center was used in a World Series game for the first time.   1930 - "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes" debuted on NBC radio.   1935 - Mao Zedong arrived in Hanoi after his Long March that took just over a year. He then set up the Chinese Communist Headquarters.   1942 - Pierre Laval told the French labor that they must serve in Germany.   1944 - Allied forces invaded the Philippines.   1944 - During World War II, the Yugoslav cities of Belgrade and Dubrovnik were liberated.   1947 - Hollywood came under scrutiny as the House Un-American Activities Committee opened hearings into alleged Communist influence within the motion picture industry.   1952 - The Mau Mau uprising against white settlers began in Kenya.   1955 - "No Time for Sergeants" opened on Broadway.   1957 - Walter Cronkite began hosting "The 20th Century." The show aired until January 4, 1970.   1968 - Jackie Lee Bouvier Kennedy married Aristotle Onassis.   1979 - The John F. Kennedy Library in Boston was dedicated.   1984 - The U.S. State Department reduced the number of Americans assigned to the U.S. embassy in Beirut, Lebanon.   1993 - Attorney General Janet Reno warned the TV industry to limit the violence in their programs.   1995 - Britain, France and the U.S. announced a treaty that banned atomic blasts in the South Pacific.   2003 - A 40-year-old man went over Niagara Falls without safety devices and survived. He was charged with illegally performing a stunt.   2009 - European astronomers discover 32 exoplanets.



1803 The Senate ratified the Louisiana Purchase. 1944 Gen. Douglas MacArthur returned to the Philippines, 30 months after he said "I shall return." 1947 The U.S. House Un-American Activities Committee opened meetings about alleged Communist infiltration in the Hollywood film industry. 1964 The 31st president of the United States, Herbert Hoover, died in New York at age 90. 1968 Jacqueline Kennedy married Aristotle Onassis. 1973 During the Watergate scandal, Attorney General Elliot L. Richardson and Deputy Attorney General William B. Ruckelshaus resigned and special prosecutor Archibald Cox was dismissed by President Nixon in what came to be known as the "Saturday Night Massacre." 1973 The Sydney Opera House was opened by Queen Elizabeth II. 2011 Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi is killed by rebel troops in Surt, Libya, his hometown.


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/oct20.htm

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history

http://www.infoplease.com/dayinhistory

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