Today In History...

In 1517 Martin Luther begins the Protestant Reformation in Germany when he posts the 95 Theses on the door of the Wittenberg Palace church.

In 1864 Nevada becomes the 36th U.S. state.

In 1922 Benito Mussolini (Il Duce) becomes premiere of Italy.

In 1926 Erich Weiss, better known as Magician Harry Houdini, dies in Detroit of gangrene and peritonitis resulting from a ruptured appendix.

In 1938 Orson Welles expresses "deep regret and bewilderment" on the day after his "War Of The Worlds" program panicked listeners.

In 1941 A German submarine torpedoes U.S. Navy destroyer "Ruben James" off the coast of Iceland killing 115. It was the first American warship to sink during World War II, even though the U.S. had not yet entered the conflict.

In 1952 The U.S. set off the first hydrogen bomb in the Marshall Islands.

In 1955 Britain's Princess Margaret ends weeks of speculation by announcing she would not marry Royal Air Force Captain Peter Townsend.

In 1956 Brooklyn, New York, ends streetcar service.

In 1956 Rear Admiral G.J. Dufek is the first American to land an airplane at South Pole.

In 1959 A former U.S. Marine from Fort Worth, TX, Lee Harvey Oswald, announces in Moscow he will never return to United States.

In 1967 Nguyen Vna Thieu takes the oath as the first president of South Vietnam's second republic.

In 1968 President Lyndon B. Johnson orders a halt to all U.S. bombing of North Vietnam, saying he hoped for fruitful peace negotiations.

In 1980 Julian Nott sets the world hot-air balloon altitude record at 55,900 feet.

In 1982 Pope John Paul II is the first pontiff to visit Spain.

In 1984 Indian Leader, Indira Ghandi is assassinated by two Sikh security guards. Her son, Rajiv, is sworn in as Prime Minister.

In 1985 The president of El Salvador, Jose Napoleon Duarte, meets with President Reagan during a U.S. tour.

In 1986 American mercenary Eugene Hasenfus, captured by Nicaraguan forces, refuses to make a statement before a revolutionary tribunal trying him on charges he'd supplied arms to U.S.-backed Contra rebels.

In 1988 In Lebanon, the kidnappers of Terry Anderson release a videotape in which the AP correspondent read a statement accusing the Reagan administration of block his release. Anderson was freed in December, 1991.

In 1989 President Bush announces he and Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev would hold an early December summit aboard ships in the Mediterranean near Malta.

In 1991 Theatrical producer Joseph Papp dies in New York at age 70.

In 1992 Pope John Paul II formally proclaims that Roman Catholic Church had erred in condemning the astronomer Galileo for holding that the Earth was not the center of the universe.

In 1993 Actor River Phoenix dies of a drug overdose at age 23.

In 1993 Movie director Federico Fellini died in Rome at age 73.

In 1994 An American Eagle ATR-72, en route from Indianapolis to Chicago, plunges into northern Indiana farm field in driving rain, killing all 68 people on board.

In 1995 Presidents Slobodan Milosevic of Serbia, Alija Izetbegovic of Bosnia and Franjo Tudjman of Croatia arrive in Dayton, Ohio, for peace talks.

In 1995 After the secession referendum is defeated, Quebec Premier Jacques Parizeau said he would resign.

In 1996 Brazilian jetliner Flight 402 crashes into a residential neighborhood in Sao Paulo shortly after takeoff, killing all 95 people on board.

In 1996 In Pontiac, MI, Dr. Jack Kevorkian is charged with assisting three suicides since June 1996 (he was later acquitted).

In 1998 Iraq bars UN weapons inspectors from monitoring sites.

In 1998 A genetic study is released suggesting President Thomas Jefferson fathered at least one child by his slave Sally Hemings.

In 1998 Iraq announces it would cut off all dealings with UN weapons inspectors, a move condemned by the Security Council.

In 1999 EgyptAir Flight 990 crashes off the Massachusetts coast, killing all 217 people aboard.

In 2000 A Los Angeles-bound Singapore Airlines jumbo jet went down the wrong runway in Taipei, Taiwan, slamming into construction equipment and bursting into flames, killing 83 of the 179 people aboard.

In 2000 American astronaut Bill Shepherd and two Russian cosmonauts blast into orbit aboard a Soyuz rocket on a quest to become the first residents of the international space station.

In 2001 New York hospital worker Kathy T. Nguyen dies of inhalation anthrax, the fourth person to do so in a wave of bioterrorism.

In 2001 Former Symbionese Liberation Army fugitive Sara Jane Olson pleads guilty in Los Angeles to the attempted murder of police officers (she was later sentenced to 20 years to life in prison).

In 2003 Abdullah Ahmad Badawi is sworn in as Malaysian prime minister, ending Mahathir Mohamad's 22-year reign.

In 2017 All Hallows Eve (you know, Halloween).

In 2017 National UNICEF Day.

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