Today in History - October 30
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1270 Oct 30, The
seventh crusade was ended by the treaty of Barbary.
(HN, 10/30/98)
1391 Oct 30, Eduard, [Dom Duarte],
King of Portugal (1433-38) and author, was born.
(MC, 10/30/01)
1485 Oct 30, Henry Tudor
(1457-1509) of England was crowned as Henry VII. This followed his
defeat of King Richard III at Bosworth Field on Aug 22.
(HN, 10/30/98)(DoW, 1999, p.66)
1503 Oct 30, Queen Isabella of
Spain banned violence against Indians.
(MC, 10/30/01)
1583 Oct 30, Pirro Ligorio (83),
Italian architect, painter and archaeologist, died.
(MC, 10/30/01)
1629 Oct 30, King Charles I gave
the Bahamas to Sir Robert Heath.
(MC, 10/30/01)
1632 Oct 30, Henri de Montmorency,
French duke and plotter, was beheaded.
(MC, 10/30/01)
1683 Oct 30, George II, King of
Great Britain (1727-60), was born. [see Oct 30]
(MC, 10/30/01)
1712 Oct 30, Christian Wilhelm
Ernst Dietrich, German painter, was born.
(MC, 10/30/01)
1735 Oct 30, John Adams, second
president of the United States (1797-1801), was born in Braintree
(Quincy), Mass.
(AP, 10/30/97)(HN, 10/30/98)(MC, 10/30/01)
1751 Oct 30 Richard Brinsley
Sheridan (d.1816), Irish-born statesman and dramatist, spent most of
life in England. His plays included “The School for Scandal” with
Georgiana Cavendish as Lady Teazle, "The Rivals” and “the Critic.” He
also wrote the comic opera “The Duenna.” In 1998 Fintan O’Toole wrote
the biography “A Traitor’s Kiss: The Life of Richard Brinsley.”
(SFEC, 11/1/98, BR p.4)(WSJ, 1/7/00, p.W4)(HN,
10/30/00)
1768 Oct 30, 1st Methodist church
in US was initiated at Wesley Chapel, NYC.
(MC, 10/30/01)
1772 Oct 30, Capt Cook arrived
with ship Resolution in Capetown.
(MC, 10/30/01)
1775 Oct 30, Fr. Lasuen founded
Mission San Juan Capistrano, but the site was abandoned after eight
days when they received word of an attack at the San Diego Mission.
They quickly buried the bells for safe keeping and fled to the Presidio
(fort) in San Diego for shelter.
(http://missions.bgmm.com/sanjuanc.htm)
1821 Nov 11, Fyodor Mikhailovich
Dostoevsky (d.1881), Russian novelist who wrote “The Brothers
Karamazov,” was born. “Originality and a feeling of one’s own dignity
are achieved only through work and struggle.”
(AP, 12/9/97)(HN, 11/11/98)
1839 Oct 30, Alfred Sisley
(d.1899), impressionist artist, was born in Paris of English parents.
He studied in London and then in Paris in the studio of Charles Gleyre.
He painted landscapes almost exclusively. His work included “A Turn in
the Road” (1873)..
(DPCP 1984)(HN, 10/30/00)
1843 Oct 30, A. G. Henri Regnault,
French water colors painter, was born.
(MC, 10/30/01)
1853 Oct 30, Pietro Raimondi (66),
Italian composer (Potifar, Giacobbe), died.
(MC, 10/30/01)
1857 Oct 30, Gertrude Atherton,
novelist, was born.
(HN, 10/30/00)
1866 Oct 30, Jesse James gang
robbed a bank in Lexington, Missouri, of $2000.
(MC, 10/30/01)
1870 Oct 30, French National Guard
was defeated at Le Bourget.
(www.marxists.org/history/france/paris-commune/timeline.htm)
1871 Oct 30, Paul Valery (d.1945),
French poet, essayist and critic, was born in Sete. “Two dangers
constantly threaten the world: order and disorder.”
(HN, 10/30/00)(AP, 6/10/00)(SSFC, 6/17/01, p.T10)
1873 Oct 30, P.T. Barnum's circus,
"Greatest Show on Earth," debuted in NYC.
(MC, 10/30/01)
1882 Oct 30, William F. "Bull"
Halsey, Jr., American admiral, was born. He played an instrumental role
in the defeat of Japan during World War II. The Japanese surrender was
signed on his flagship, the USS Missouri.
(HN, 10/30/99)
1885 Oct 30, Ezra Pound (d.1972),
poet and critic, was born in Hailey, Idaho. He wrote “The Cantos.”
Pound met William Carlos Williams at the Univ. of Pennsylvania in 1907
and they remained friends and wrote many letters. “Pound-Williams:
Selected Correspondence” was ed. by Hugh Witemeyer in 1996. Ezra Pound
spent 3 winters with W.B. Yeats (1913-1916) as the poets artistic prod
and secretary. During World War II, Pound was arrested for broadcasting
fascist propaganda to the United States from Rome. He stood trial for
this crime and was judged to be insane. He was incarcerated at St.
Elizabeth's Hospital in Washington from 1946 until his release in 1958.
“Literature is news that stays news.”
(SFC, 6/3/96, BR p.6)(AP, 8/25/98)(HN,
10/30/98)(SFEC, 6/18/00, BR p.10)(MC, 10/30/01)
1888 Oct 30, John J. Loud patented
a ballpoint pen.
(MC, 10/30/01)
1888 Oct 30, In London Jack the
Ripper murdered his last victim. [see Nov 3]
(MC, 10/30/01)
1890 Oct 30, Emperor Meiji issued
the Imperial Rescript on Education to illustrate the moral principles
that each citizen was to follow.
(Econ, 1/22/05,
p.39)(www.danzan.com/HTML/ESSAYS/meiji.html)
1893 Oct 30, Charles Atlas,
[Angelo Siciliano], US bodybuilder, was born.
(MC, 10/30/01)
1894 Oct 30, Peter Warlock,
composer, was born as Philip Heseltine.
(MC, 10/30/01)
1894 Oct 30, Daniel Cooper
patented a time clock.
(MC, 10/30/01)
1896 Oct 30, Ruth Gordon, actress
(Rosemary's Baby, Harold & Maude), was born in Mass.
(MC, 10/30/01)
1896 Oct 30, Kaspar Wicki, Swiss
inventor, received Swiss patent Nr. 13329 for a key configuration for
the concertina, that made fingering identical in any key.
(WSJ, 12/7/07,
p.W4)(www.concertina.com/gaskins/wicki/)
1899 Oct 30, British Morning Post
reporter Winston Churchill reached Capetown.
(MC, 10/30/01)
1899 Oct 30, Two battalions of
British troops were cut off, surrounded and forced to surrender to
General Petrus Joubert's Boers at Nicholson's Nek.
(HN, 10/30/98)
1905 Oct 30, G.B. Shaw's "Mrs.
Warren's Profession," premiered in NYC.
(MC, 10/30/01)
1905 Oct 30, Czar Nicholas II of
Russia issued the October Manifesto, granting civil liberties and
elections in an attempt to avert the burgeoning support for revolution.
Nicholas also accepted the 1st Duma (Parliament)
(HN, 10/30/00)(MC, 10/30/01)
1914 Oct 30, The Allied offensive
at Ypres, Belgium, began.
(MC, 10/30/01)
1918 Oct 30, Ted Williams, hitter
(Red Sox, AL MVP '46, '49; Trip Crown '42,'47), was born.
(MC, 10/30/01)
1918 Oct 30, The Italians captured
Vittorio Veneto and rout the Austro-Hungarian army.
(HN, 10/30/98)
1918 Oct 30, The Slovak National
Council acceded to the Nov 28 Prague proclamation for the creation of
Czechoslovakian state. Slovaks joined the Czechs to form
Czechoslovakia. During World War II, Slovakia existed as puppet state
of Nazi-run Germany.
(www.slovakia.org/history6.htm)(AP, 9/21/02)
1918 Oct 30, Turkey signed an
armistice with the Allies, agreeing to end hostilities at noon October
31.
(HN, 10/30/98)
1922 Oct 30, Mussolini sent his
black shirts into Rome and formed a government. The Fascist takeover
was almost without bloodshed. [see Oct 28]
(HN, 10/30/98)(MC, 10/30/01)
1925 Oct 30, Scotsman John L.
Baird performed first TV broadcast of moving objects.
(HN, 10/30/98)
1929 Oct 30, Joan Ganz Cooney,
founder (Children's Television Workshop), was born.
(MC, 10/30/01)
1932 Oct 30, Louis Malle, director
(Atlantic City, Black Moon, Viva Maria), was born in France.
(MC, 10/30/01)
1933 Oct 30, Michael S. Dukakis,
(Gov-D-Mass) and presidential candidate (D-1988), was born.
(MC, 10/30/01)
1938 Oct 30, On a Sunday night
Orson Welles and his troupe of actors in the Mercury Theater touched
off mass panic with a CBS dramatic radio adaptation of the 1898 novel
of Martian conquest, "The War of the Worlds" by H.G. Wells. In spite of
pre-broadcast announcements that the production was fiction, about a
million Americans readied their guns for battle, fled and prayed for
deliverance from what they believed was a real threat. Orson Welles
(left), roundly criticized for inciting the hysteria, apologized for
the realistic nature of the radio play and explained that he never
expected such a severe reaction. The War of the Worlds broadcast went
on the air opposite radio's number-one program, The Charlie McCarthy
Show, featuring ventriloquist Edgar Bergen and his dummy. Critic
Alexander Woollcott telegraphed Welles, "This only goes to prove, my
beamish boy, that the intelligent people were all listening to a dummy,
and all the dummies were listening to you."
(HFA, '96, p.40)(TL, 1988, p.111)(AP,
10/30/97)(HNPD, 10/30/98)(HN, 10/30/98)
1939 Oct 30, German U boat failed
in an attack of English battleship Nelson with Winston Churchill,
Dudley Pound and Charles Forbes aboard.
(MC, 10/30/01)
1939 Oct 30, USSR and Germany
agreed on partitioning Poland. Hitler deported Jews.
(MC, 10/30/01)
1940 Oct 30, Cole Porter musical
"Panama Hattie," premiered in NYC.
(MC, 10/30/01)
1942 Oct 30, On the 8th day of
battle at El Alamein a new Australian assault began.
(MC, 10/30/01)
1943 Oct 30, The
Molotov-Eden-Cordell Hull accord over operations at UN.
(MC, 10/30/01)
1944 Oct 30, The Martha Graham
ballet "Appalachian Spring," with music by Aaron Copland, premiered at
the Library of Congress, with Graham in a leading role.
(AP, 10/30/97)
1944 Oct 30, Anne Frank (of Diary
fame) was deported from Auschwitz to Belsen.
(MC, 10/30/01)
1944 Oct 30, Sweden announced its
intention to stay neutral and refused sanctuary in WW II.
(MC, 10/30/01)
1945 Oct 30, The US government
announced the end of shoe rationing, effective at midnight.
(AP, 10/30/07)
1949 Oct 30, Kurt Weill and
Maxwell Anderson's "Lost in the Stars" premiered in NYC.
(MC, 10/30/01)
1950 Oct 30, The First Marine
Division was ordered to replace the entire South Korean I Corps at the
Chosin Reservoir area.
(HN, 10/30/98)
1950 Oct 30, Gen'l. Douglas
McArthur ordered a combined Marine and Army outfit to cross the 38th
parallel and "mop up" remaining North Korean soldiers. 12,000 Marines
found themselves surrounded by 8 Chinese divisions. The marines lost
4,000 men and the Chinese lost 37,500. Joseph Owen later authored
"Colder Than Hell: A Marine Rifle Company at the Chosin Reservoir," a
first person account of the fighting. In 1999 Martin Russ published
"Breakout: The Chosin Reservoir Campaign." The novel “The Marines of
Autumn” by Michael Brady was based on this campaign.
(WSJ, 8/6/99, p.W7)(WSJ, 5/26/00, p.W8)
1952 Oct 30, Dr. Albert Schweitzer
(b.1875) was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize but only received it in
1953. Schweitzer and his wife Hélène had moved to Gabon
(French Equatorial Africa) in 1913 and opened a hospital in
Lambaréné, which he later expanded with money from the
Nobel Peace Prize.
(AP, 10/30/97)(HNPD, 9/4/98)
1952 Oct 30, Clarence Birdseye
sold the 1st frozen pea package.
(MC, 10/30/01)
1953 Oct 30, Gen. George C.
Marshall was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Dr. Albert Schweitzer
received his 1952 Peace Prize.
(AP, 10/30/97)
1953 Aug 30, The first
publicly announced experimental TV broadcast of a network program in
compatible color was presented by NBC: St. George and the Dragon,
starring Burr Tillstrom's Kukla, Fran and Ollie.
(http://kukla.tv/colortest.html)
1954 Oct 30, Linus Pauling won the
Nobel prize in chemistry.
(SFC, 10/8/01, p.A17)(MC, 10/30/01)
1954 Oct 30, US Armed Forces ended
segregation of races.
(MC, 10/30/01)
1960 Oct 30, Guatemala's "La Hora"
reported a plan for the invasion on Cuba.
(MC, 10/30/01)
1961 Oct 30, The Soviet Union
tested a hydrogen bomb, the "Tsar Bomba," with a force estimated at
about 50 megatons. This was the largest explosion ever recorded and
broke a 3-year nuclear test moratorium.
(AP, 10/30/06)(SFC, 2/24/98, p.A22)
1961 Oct 30, The Soviet Party
Congress unanimously approved a resolution ordering the removal of
Josef Stalin's body from Lenin's tomb.
(AP, 10/30/97)
1961 Oct 30, UN unanimously
elected U Thant acting UN Secretary General.
(MC, 10/30/01)
1965 Oct 30, A fireworks
explosions killed 50 in Cartagena, Colombia.
(MC, 10/30/01)
1966 Oct 30, The Zodiac killer
murdered a female college student in Riverside. In 1985 Robert
Graysmith authored "Zodiac" in which he identified the killer with the
pseudonym of "Robert Starr," and later identified him as Arthur Leigh
Allen (d.1992), a convicted child molester from Vallejo. Graysmith
authored "Zodiac Unmasked" in 2002. In 2009 Deborah Perez (47) asserted
that her father, Santa Ana resident Guy Ward Hendrickson (d.1983), was
the Zodiac killer and that she had accompanied him on some of the
killings.
(SFEC, 3/1/98, p.W20)(SSFC, 5/12/02, p.M6)(SFC,
4/30/09, p.A9)
1968 Oct 30, Luis W. Alvarez
(1911-1988) of UC Berkeley won the Nobel Prize in Physics for his work
on the bubble chamber.
(SFC, 10/10/96,
p.A1)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luis_Walter_Alvarez)
1968 Oct 30, Ramon Samaniego
Novarro (b.1899), the 1st successful Latin star in Hollywood (Ben Hur),
was killed by 2 male hustlers. In 2002 Andres Soares authored "Beyond
Paradise: The Life of Ramon Novarro.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramon_Novarro)(SSFC,
1/5/03, p.M4)
1971 Oct 30, Mack Ray Edwards,
California serial killer, hanged himself while on death row. He
admitted to 6 sexually motivated murders in the 1950s and 1960s and
later told a jailer that the number was closer to 20.
(SSFC, 10/12/08,
p.B7)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mack_Ray_Edwards)
1972 Oct 30, 45 people were killed
when an Illinois Central Gulf commuter train collided with another
train in Chicago's South Side.
(AP, 10/30/97)
1974 Oct 30, The film "The Texas
Chainsaw Massacre” was released in Los Angeles. It was narrated by John
Larroquette and was first shown in San Francisco. The film was based on
the story of Edward Gein, a handyman in Plainfield, Wis., who liked to
dig up fresh graves, cut the skin off corpses, wear the skin on his own
body and dance in the moonlight. He was picked up in this year and
evidence showed that he’d been collecting body parts for
years. He had skulls on bedposts, a human heart in a saucepan,
and a lady out in his barn dressed like a deer.
(SFC, 5/18/96, p.E-4)
1974 Oct 30, Muhammad Ali and
George Foreman held their “Rumble In the Jungle” boxing match in Zaire.
Ali knocked out George Foreman in the eighth round of a 15-round bout
in Kinshasa, Zaire, to regain his world heavyweight title, that was
taken from him for refusing military service.
(SFC, 2/10/97, p.E3)(WSJ, 2/14/97, p.A12)(AP,
10/30/97)
1975 Oct 30, The New York Daily
News ran the headline "Ford to City: Drop Dead" a day after President
Ford said he would veto any proposed federal bailout of New York City.
(HN, 10/30/98)
1975 Oct 30, Martha Moxley,
15-years-old, was bludgeoned to death with a gulf club in Greenwich,
Conn., on Halloween eve. The last person to see her was 17-year-old
Thomas Skakel, a nephew of Ethel Kennedy. No one has ever been charged.
Michael (15) and Thomas (17) Skakel were suspects. Michael Skakel was
charged with the killing in 2000. The 1993 novel "A Season in
Purgatory" by Dominick Dunne, and "Murder in Greenwich" by Mark Fuhrman
in 1998 were based on this murder. In 2002 a jury found Skakel guilty
of murder. He was sentenced 20 years to life in prison.
(WSJ, 5/6/96, p.A-11)(SFC, 10/17/98, p.A6)(SFC,
6/8/02, p.A1)(WSJ, 8/29/02, p.A1)
1975 Oct 30, Juan Carlos (37)
assumed power in Spain after General Franco, near death, gave him
control.
(http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/october/30/newsid_2464000/2464945.stm)
1978 Oct 30, Uganda troops
attacked Tanzania. Uganda under Idi Amin went on to annex a
700-square-mile section of Tanzania. Pres. Nyerere sent Tanzanian
soldiers and Ugandan exile volunteers to push back Amin's forces.
(SFC, 10/15/99,
p.D7)(www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/08/16/1060936102425.html)
1979 Oct 30, President Carter
announced his choice of federal appeals judge Shirley Hufstedler to
head the newly created Department of Education.
(AP, 10/30/97)
1980 Oct 30, New Jersey Dem. Sen.
Harrison Williams (d.2001 at 81) was indicted in the Abscam sting
operation and later convicted.
(WSJ, 11/20/01, p.A1)
1983 Oct 30, Argentina held
general elections. The democratic government of Raul Alfonsin replaced
the 7-year-old military junta and formed a national human rights
commission. The first act of the government was to annul the amnesty
rushed through by the junta just before it fell.
(www.cidh.oas.org/annualrep/83.84.eng/chap.4.htm)(SFC, 8/25/00,
p.D4)(Econ, 4/14/07, p.40)
1984 Oct 30, Police in Poland
found the body of kidnapped pro-Solidarity priest Father Jerzy
Popieluszko, whose death was blamed on four security officers.
(AP, 10/30/04)
1985 Oct 30, The launch of the
space shuttle “Challenger” was witnessed by schoolteacher Christa
McAuliffe, who was fated to die when the spacecraft exploded after
liftoff the following January.
(AP, 10/30/00)
1985 Oct 30, American Brands was
removed as a component of the Dow Jones. It had begun as American
Tobacco in 1890.
(WSJ, 5/28/96, p. R-45)
1987 Oct 30, President Reagan
announced that Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev would visit
Washington the following December for a summit, during which the two
leaders would sign a treaty banning intermediate-range nuclear
missiles.
(AP, 10/30/97)
1988 Oct 30, Responding to
Republican attempts to pin the term liberal on him, Democrat Michael
Dukakis declared on the campaign trail, "Yes, I am a liberal, in the
tradition of Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman and John Kennedy."
(AP, 10/30/98)
1989 Oct 30, Mitsubishi Estate
Co., a major Japanese real estate concern, announced it was buying 51
percent of Rockefeller Group Inc. of New York.
(AP, 10/30/99)
1990 Oct 30, The Iraqi News Agency
quoted Saddam Hussein as saying Iraq was making final preparations for
war, and that he expected an attack by the United States and its allies
within days.
(AP, 10/30/00)
1990 Oct 30, In the Persian Gulf,
ten American sailors died when a steam pipe ruptured aboard the USS
“Iwo Jima”; in Saudi Arabia, a Marine was killed in an accident while
driving in the desert.
(AP, 10/30/00)
1991 Oct 30, The Middle East peace
conference in Madrid, Spain, opened with addresses to the delegates by
President George Bush and Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev.
(AP, 10/30/01)
1991 Oct 30, BET Holdings Inc.,
became the first African-American company listed on the New York Stock
Exchange.
(HN, 10/30/98)
1992 Oct 30, Iran-Contra special
prosecutor Lawrence E. Walsh released an excerpt of notes taken by
former Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger in January 1986 which
suggested then-Vice President Bush was fully aware of the Reagan
administration's arms-for-hostages deal with Iran. (Bush said despite
the notes, he was not aware until December 1986 that the arrangement
was an actual arms-for-hostages swap.)
(AP, 10/30/97)
1993 Oct 30, Martin Fettman,
America's first veterinarian in space, chopped the heads off six rats
and performed the world's first animal dissections in space, aboard the
shuttle Columbia.
(AP, 10/30/98)
1993 Oct 30, Hernan Heleno Castro,
El Salvadorian guerilla leader, was murdered.
(http://tinyurl.com/br5h7)
1993 Oct 30, A United Nations
deadline for ousted Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide to return
to power passed with the country's military still in control.
(AP, 10/30/03)
1994 Oct 30, The National Museum
of American Indian opened in NYC.
(http://tinyurl.com/a6f5y)
1994 Oct 30, Pope John Paul II
named 30 new cardinals, including the archbishops of Baltimore and
Detroit and the first-ever from Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina and two
former East-bloc states, Albania and Belarus.
(AP, 10/30/99)
1995 Oct 30, The people of Quebec
rejected an independence referendum by a very narrow margin, 50.6% to
49.4%. It was the 2nd defeat in 15 years. The margin was 50,000 votes
out of 5 million cast.
(WSJ, 11/1/95, p.A-1)(SFC, 11/9/96, p.A12)(WSJ,
10/3/00, p.A26)
1996 Oct 30, After a four-hour
trial, a Chinese court sentenced pro-democracy activist Wang Dan to 11
years in prison for "conspiring to subvert the Chinese government."
Wang was freed in April 1998 and sent into exile in the United States.
(AP, 10/30/901)
1997 Oct 30, A jury in Cambridge,
Mass., convicted British au pair Louise Woodward of second-degree
murder in the death of 8-month-old Matthew Eappen. The judge, Hiller B.
Zobel, later reduced the verdict to manslaughter and set Woodward free.
(AP, 10/30/98)
1997 Oct 30, Confronting some of
his harshest critics, Chinese President Jiang Zemin defended his
country's human rights record before members of Congress. He also
promised the US to cut its average tariff to 10% by 2005.
(WSJ, 10/31/97, p.A20) (AP, 10/30/98)
1997 Oct 30, In Livermore, CA., a
shutdown began of the “plutonium building” at the National Laboratory
due to safety violations.
(SFEC, 1/11/98, p.D7)
1997 Oct 30, Movie director Samuel
Fuller died in Hollywood at age 86.
(AP, 10/30/98)
1997 Oct 30, In Algeria some
30,000 marched in Algiers in protest over the elections and called for
the resignation of Prime Minister Ahmed Ouyahia.
(SFC,10/31/97, p.D2)
1997 Oct 30, In Ireland Mary
McAleese, a lawyer and academic from Belfast, was elected as president
to succeed Mary Robinson.
(SFC,10/31/97, p.D3)
1998 Oct 30, The Group of Seven
industrial nations endorsed Pres. Clinton’s plan to protect healthy
nations from currency and stock market upheavals with a new IMF
strategy.
(SFC, 10/31/98, p.A12)
1998 Oct 30, Four abortion clinics
in 3 states, Indian, Kentucky and Tennessee, received letters claiming
to contain deadly anthrax bacteria. The letters were tested and found
to be free of anthrax.
(SFC, 10/31/98, p.A3)(SFEC, 11/1/98, p.A11)
1998 Oct 30, David Bower (86) of
the US and Mikhail Budyko of Russia won the $427,600 Blue Planet Prize,
awarded by the Asahi Glass Foundation of Japan for their work in
solving environmental problems.
(SFC, 10/31/98, p.A8)
1998 Oct 30, The UN extended its
460-member peacekeeping force in the Western Sahara over land contested
between Morocco and the Algerian-based Polisario Front.
(SFC, 10/31/98, p.A15)
1998 Oct 30-1998 Nov 1, Hurricane
Mitch caused a major mud slide in Nicaragua when the Casita Volcano
crater lake in Posoltega overflowed. The death toll was estimated in
the thousands. In Honduras Mayor Cesar Castellanos of Tegucigalpa and 3
others were killed in a helicopter crash while surveying the flood
damage where hundreds were estimated killed.
(SFC, 11/2/98, p.A1,17)(AP, 10/30/99)
1998 Oct 30, In Pakistan Prime
Minister Sharif dismissed the Sindh provincial government and imposed
federal rule following a fallout between the Pakistan Muslim League and
the Muttaheda Qami Movement over the recent killing of Hakim Said, a
critic of the MQM and a leading physician.
(SFC, 10/31/98, p.A14)
1998 Oct 30, Spanish judges ruled
that Spain has the legal right to bring criminal charges against
Augusto Pinochet and to seek his extradition from Britain.
(SFC, 10/31/98, p.A12)
1998 Oct 30, In Turkey
anti-terrorist squads shot an airline hijacker to death and freed 38
passengers.
(SFC, 10/30/98, p.A18)
1999 Oct 30, In China the
government approved new laws against superstitious sects and secret
societies with prison terms of 7 years or more.
(SFC, 11/1/99, p.A11)
1999 Oct 30, In Kenya it was
reported that thousands of residents were feared to have been exposed
to radiation from a thorium compound used in roadway construction
materials in Msambweni
(SFC, 10/30/99, p.A8)
1999 Oct 30, In Mexico police
reported that Juan Jose Quintero Payan (57), a Juarez Cartel boss, was
arrested in Guadalajara.
(SFC, 11/1/99, p.A13)
1999 Oct 30, In Inchon, South
Korea, a fire killed 54 young people, mostly teenagers, at a karaoke
bar. Another 75 were injured.
(SFEC, 10/31/99, p.A2)
2000 Oct 30, Steve Allen, TV
entertainer, died at his home in Encino at age 78. He was the creator
of the “Tonight Show,” had recorded 49 albums, wrote 53 books and
starred in and appeared in numerous TV shows.
(SFC, 11/1/00, p.A1)
2000 Oct 30, A heavy storm swept
over Western Europe and at least 8 people were killed.
(SFC, 10/31/00, p.A14)
2000 Oct 30, In Indonesia at least
43 people died in landslides on Java due to heavy rains.
(SFC, 10/31/00, p.A14)
2000 Oct 30, Israel fired rockets
from helicopter gunships in the West Bank and Gaza as a warning against
the use of guerrilla tactics. The death rose to 133 Palestinians and 10
Israelis.
(SFC, 10/31/00, p.A12)
2000 Oct 30, In Peru a revolt of
renegade troops drew to a close as most of those involved were rounded
up. Lt. Col Humala and 7 soldiers remained at large.
(SFC, 10/31/00, p.A13)
2000 Oct 30, In Madrid, Spain, a
car bomb killed Supreme Court magistrate Jose Francisco Querol (69),
his driver and an escort. 35 were wounded and the ETA was blamed.
(SFC, 10/31/00, p.A12)(WSJ, 10/31/00, p.A1)
2001 Oct 30, The New York Yankees
won game three of the World Series, 2-1, cutting the Arizona
Diamondbacks' games lead to 2-1.
(AP, 10/30/02)
2001 Oct 30, Ford Motor Co.
chairman William Clay Ford Jr. took over as chief executive after the
ouster of Jacques Nasser.
(AP, 10/30/02)
2001 Oct 30, NASA's 2001 Mars
Odyssey snapped its first picture of Mars, one week after the
spacecraft safely arrived in orbit around the Red Planet.
(AP, 10/30/02)
2001 Oct 30, The Pentagon reported
that a small number of US ground forces were operating in northern
Afghanistan.
(SFC, 10/31/01, p.A3)
2001 Oct 30, Yasser al-Siri, an
Egyptian activist, was charged in London in connection with the
assassination in Afghanistan of Ahmed Shah Massood, a Northern Alliance
leader. [see Egypt, Nov 25, 1993]
(SFC, 10/31/01, p.A4)(WSJ, 10/31/01, p.A16)
2001 Oct 30, A 5th day of rain on
Caribbean coast force 25,000 people from their homes in Honduras. 4
people were reported killed. Heavy damage was also reported from
Nicaragua with 12 people missing.
(SFC, 10/31/01, p.C2)(SFC, 11/1/01, p.C7)
2001 Oct 30, In Tbilisi, Georgia,
the state security ministry sent 30 agents to the independent Rustavi 2
TV station, ostensibly for a tax investigation. The director refused
the examination of financial files and put the standoff on the air
which prompted 5-10 thousand people to gather in protest. Security
Minister Vakhtang Kutateladze was later fired by Pres. Shevardnadze.
(SFC, 11/2/01, p.D2)
2001 Oct 30, In Israel Shimon
Peres reportedly prepared a peace initiative with plans to dismantle
Israeli settlements in the Gaza Strip and the creation of a Palestinian
state.
(SFC, 10/31/01, p.C3)
2001 Oct 30, In the Philippines
Marvin Deonzon (27) was arrested following the weekend bomb attack.
Deonzon claimed to be part of the al Qaeda network and warned of
another 40 bombs planted around Zamboanga.
(WSJ, 11/1/01, p.A17)
2001 Oct 30, In Russia some 300
young people stormed a Moscow market in a racist rampage that left 2
Caucasus vendors dead.
(SFC, 11/1/01, p.C7)
2001 Oct 30, Ukraine destroyed its
last nuclear missile silo, fulfilling a pledge to give up the vast
nuclear arsenal it had inherited after the breakup of the former Soviet
Union.
(AP, 10/30/02)
2002 Oct 30, In Minnesota Walter
Mondale took the ballot place of the late Sen. Wellstone. Mondale ended
up losing to Republican Norm Coleman.
(WSJ, 10/31/02, p.A1)(AP, 10/30/03)
2002 Oct 30, DJ Jam Master Jay
(Jason Mizell), rap artist, was shot to death in Queens, NYC.
(SFC, 11/1/02, p.A1)
2002 Oct 30, Allied warplanes
bombed Iraqi defense systems in the northern no-fly zone over Iraq
after being fired upon during routine patrols.
(AP, 10/30/02)
2002 Oct 30, In Belarus
authorities reported the discovery of a mass grave on a military base
at Slutsk with the remains of up to 12,000 people killed during World
War II. Some 800,000 Jew of Belarus were killed by Nazis.
(AP, 10/31/02)
2002 Oct 30, In Sao Paulo, Brazil,
Suzanne von Richtofen (22) let her lover Daniel Cravinhos (21) and his
brother, Christian (26) into her house, and checked to make sure her
parents were sleeping. Then the brothers sneaked into the parents'
bedroom and bludgeoned them to death with iron bars. In 2006 all 3 were
tried for murder. Each was convicted and sentenced to 40 years in
prison. Daniel Cravinhos said he beat Manfred and Marisa von Richtofen
to death with an iron bar as they slept at home in a wealthy district
of Sao Paulo because the couple's daughter, Suzanne von Richtofen,
persuaded him to do it.
(AP, 6/5/06)(AP, 7/17/06)(AP, 7/22/06)
2002 Oct 30, Freeview TV, jointly
owned by the BBC, Crown Castle International and BSkyB, was launched in
the UK as an alternative to PayTV.
(www.answers.com/topic/freeview)
2002 Oct 30, Danish police
arrested Akhmed Zakayev (43), a top aide to Aslan Maskhadov, former
Chechen president.
(SFC, 10/31/02, p.A31)
2002 Oct 30, Senior Sinn Fein-IRA
figure Martin McGuinness declared his war has ended in a documentary
broadcast by the British Broadcasting Corp.
(AP, 10/29/02)
2002 Oct 30, Israeli Prime
Minister Ariel Sharon's broad-based coalition collapsed when Cabinet
ministers from the moderate Labor Party resigned in a dispute over
funding for Jewish settlements.
(AP, 10/30/03)
2002 Oct 30, A Palestinian gunman
killed two teenage girls and a woman in a Jewish settlement in the West
Bank before being shot dead in a firefight with soldiers and
residents.
(AP, 10/30/02)
2002 Oct 30, Russia launched a
rocket carrying two cosmonauts and a Belgian astronaut to the
international space station for an eight-day mission.
(AP, 10/30/02)
2002 Oct 30, A series of bomb
blasts rocked the poor township of Soweto, SA, killing one person,
ripping a hole in a mosque and damaging several railway stations and
rail lines running into the nearby city of Johannesburg. The Boeremag
(Afrikaner Power) was believed responsible.
(AP, 10/30/02)(SFC, 11/2/02, p.A7)
2002 Oct 30, Nine people, mostly
Canadian or British tourists, were killed and at least 10 more injured
when their bus crashed in South Africa, police said.
(Reuters, 10/30/02)
2003 Oct 30, The US House approved
an $87.5 billion package for Iraq and Afghanistan.
(AP, 10/30/04)
2003 Oct 30, The US Commerce Dept.
said GDP grew 7.2% over the last quarter.
(SFC, 10/31/03, p.A1)
2003 Oct 30, The US Senate passed
legislation allowing thinning of forests across the West.
(SFC, 10/31/03, p.A1)
2003 Oct 30, A multistory parking
garage under construction at the Tropicana Casino & Resort in
Atlantic City, NJ, collapsed, killing 4 construction workers and
injuring 22 others.
(Reuters, 10/30/03)(SFC, 10/31/03, p.A3)(AP,
10/30/08)
2003 Oct 30, The US and 29 other
countries pledged $18.4 million to create a new war crimes court in
Bosnia that will lighten the load at the U.N. tribunal in the
Netherlands.
(AP, 10/30/03)
2003 Oct 30, In Italy former
Premier Giulio Andreotti was acquitted of charges he ordered the Mafia
killing of a journalist in 1979, wiping out the veteran politician's
previous conviction.
(AP, 10/30/03)
2003 Oct 30, In Panama more than
20,000 teachers and construction workers stayed off the job, staging a
daylong strike to demand that the government retain control over the
country's social security system.
(AP, 10/31/03)
2003 Oct 30, President Vladimir
Putin tightened his grip on the Kremlin by relieving his chief of staff
from duty. Putin named Dmitry Medvedev, the first deputy chief of staff
and the chairman of the Russian natural gas giant Gazprom, to succeed
Alexander Voloshin in the post.
(AP, 10/30/03)
2003 Oct 30, In northeastern
Uganda soldiers clashed with rebels, killing 33 insurgents in three
separate battles over the last 2 days. 3 soldiers were killed.
(AP, 10/31/03)
2003 Oct 30, The UN ordered all
its non-Iraqi staff to leave Baghdad.
(WSJ, 4/19/04, p.A14)
2004 Oct 30, The US Army extended
Iraq tours by 2 months for some 6,500 soldiers.
(SSFC, 10/31/04, p.A10)
2004 Oct 30, Peggy Ryan (80),
actress-dancer died in Las Vegas.
(AP, 10/30/05)
2004 Oct 30, A burst of poisonous
gas in a coal mine in northeast China killed 15 miners at the Xilutian
Mine in Fushun, a city in Liaoning province.
(AP, 10/31/04)
2004 Oct 30, Eight American
Marines were killed in fighting west of Baghdad. A car bomb killed at
least seven people in attack on an Arab television network in Baghdad.
Iraqi troops fired wildly on civilian vehicles, killing at least 14
people.
(AP, 10/30/04)
2004 Oct 30, The decapitated body
of a Japanese backpacker (Shosei Koda) was found wrapped in an American
flag in northwestern Baghdad; the militant group led by Abu Musab
al-Zarqawi later claimed responsibility. In 2006 Hussein Fahmi (28), an
operative for al-Qaida in Iraq, confessed to carrying out 116
beheadings, including that of 24-year-old Japanese backpacker Shosei
Koda.
(WSJ, 11/1/04, p.A1)(AP, 10/30/05)(AP, 3/2/06)
2004 Oct 30, Liberians ventured
back onto the streets of Monrovia during a temporary lifting of a
round-the-clock curfew imposed after at least 7 people were killed in
religious riots.
(AP, 10/30/04)
2004 Oct 30, Rwandan troops
arrived in Sudan's remote Darfur region to join Nigerian soldiers
monitoring a shaky cease-fire in the country's troubled west.
(AP, 10/31/04)
2005 Oct 30, The body of Rosa
Parks arrived at the U.S. Capitol, where the civil rights pioneer
became the first woman to lie in honor in the Rotunda; President Bush
and congressional leaders paused to lay wreaths by her casket.
(AP, 10/30/06)
2005 Oct 30, Microsoft Corp.
founder Bill Gates pledged $258.3 million for research and development
to combat malaria, including new cash to test the world's first vaccine
against the mosquito-borne disease.
(Reuters, 10/31/05)(SFC, 10/31/05, p.A8)
2005 Oct 30, In SF the 10th
running of the Illegal Soapbox Society’s Halloween derby was held in
Bernal Heights.
(SFC, 11/1/05, p.E1)
2005 Oct 30, In Madison,
Wisconsin, police used pepper spray to break up rowdy Halloween
celebrations. Over 400 arrests were made mostly for alcohol-related
offenses.
(SFC, 10/31/05, p.A3)
2005 Oct 30, In SF some 20,000
people gathered in Golden Gate Park for a memorial concert, the Family
Dog’s last Tribal Stomp, to celebrate Chet Helms, who died June 25.
(SFC, 10/31/05, p.B1)
2005 Oct 30, Gordon A. Craig
(b.1913), Scottish-born former Stanford history professor, died in
California. His books included “Europe Since 1815” (1961).
(SFC, 11/9/05, p.B11)
2005 Oct 30, Al Lopez (97),
baseball Hall of Fame catcher and manager died in Tampa, Fla.
(AP, 10/30/06)
2005 Oct 30, The US military said
2 American soldiers have been charged with allegedly assaulting two
detainees at a US-led coalition base in southern Afghanistan.
(AP, 10/30/05)
2005 Oct 30, Congolese troops
rescued four electoral workers from their militia captors in a raid
that set off a battle that killed dozens of militiamen and one soldier.
Some 40 Mayi-Mayi militiamen were killed by the army. One soldier was
killed and three others injured.
(AP, 11/2/05)
2005 Oct 30, Police clashed with
angry youths in a Paris suburb for the fourth straight night, with
accusations over a police teargas grenade thrown into a mosque set to
exacerbate the situation further.
(AP, 10/31/05)
2005 Oct 30, Dresden's $215
million rebuilt Frauenkirche, or Church of Our Lady, was
re-consecrated, 60 years after it was destroyed by Allied bombs in
World War II. The Protestant church was originally built in 1743 and
collapsed after a wave of bombing in February 1945.
(AP, 10/30/05)(SSFC, 10/30/05, p.A16)
2005 Oct 30, It was reported that
the US military had begun tracking the deaths of Iraqi civilians.
Estimates of those killed and wounded averaged 26 per day from early
2004 and rose to 63 per day by the end of August, 2005. Attacks against
Americans and Iraqis were reported to be averaging 85 a day for much of
the past year.
(SSFC, 10/30/05, p.A21)
2005 Oct 30, Insurgents killed
seven Iraqi civilians in scattered attacks. An Iraqi cabinet adviser
was killed when gunmen attacked his car in northern Baghdad, and a
deputy trade minister was wounded in a separate attack. A US Army
soldier was killed by a roadside bomb in central Iraq.
(AP, 10/30/05)(Reuters, 10/30/05)(SFC, 11/1/05, p.A3)
2005 Oct 30, Israeli troops killed
3 Palestinian militants, including the suspected mastermind of a
suicide attack, in a West Bank raid just hours after the two sides had
reached a tentative new truce deal.
(AP, 10/31/05)
2005 Oct 30, Ivory Coast President
Laurent Gbagbo, whose mandate was due to go into extra time following
the west African state's failure to hold elections, pledged to do
everything he could to organize a vote before a one-year deadline set
by the United Nations.
(AP, 10/30/05)
2005 Oct 30, Hurricane Beta
pounded Nicaragua's east coast with heavy rains and powerful winds as
thousands sought protection in boarded-up homes or government shelters.
(AP, 10/30/05)
2005 Oct 30, Nigeria reported that
its inflation rate rose to 15.5% in the 12 months ending in August, up
14.2% from the month before according to the Federal Office of
Statistics (FOS).
(AP, 10/30/05)
2005 Oct 30, Pakistan and India
made an unprecedented agreement to open their heavily militarized
border in disputed Kashmir to aid the flow of relief goods and reunite
divided families in the aftermath of South Asia's colossal earthquake.
(AP, 10/30/05)
2005 Oct 30, Palestinian officials
said they have agreed with Israel to halt nearly a week of fighting
after militant groups pledged to halt rocket fire on southern Israeli
towns.
(AP, 10/30/05)
2005 Oct 30, Zanzibar police and
ruling party militia chased opposition supporters through the streets
as voters chose between the socialists who have ruled semiautonomous
state for more than 30 years and an opposition group promising
wholesale change. Voting in national and regional elections on mainland
Tanzania was postponed to Dec. 18 because of a vice presidential
candidate's death. Official results named incumbent Amani Karume of the
ruling Party of the Revolution (CCM) the winner with 53% of the vote.
(AP, 10/30/05)(Econ, 11/5/05, p.51)
2006 Oct 30, Mass. Sen. John Kerry
told a California college audience that young people who didn't study
hard might "get stuck in Iraq," prompting harsh Republican criticism;
Kerry later said it was a botched joke against President Bush's
handling of the war.
(AP, 10/30/07)
2006 Oct 30, A new ranking
compiled by Morgan Quitno Press listed St. Louis as the most dangerous
city in the USA, leading a trend of violent crimes rising much faster
in the Midwest than in the rest of nation. The study looked at crime
only within St. Louis city limits, with a population of about 330,000
under Mayor Francis Slay. The safest city in 2005 was Brick, N.J., with
a population about 78,000, followed by Amherst, N.Y., and Mission
Viejo, Calif. The second most dangerous city was Detroit, followed by
Flint, Mich., and Compton, Calif.
(AP, 10/30/06)
2006 Oct 30, In southern
Afghanistan NATO troops fought a six-hour battle with insurgents in a
firefight that left 55 militants and one NATO soldier dead. ISAF
warplanes killed 12 insurgents in the southern province of Kandahar.
(AP, 10/30/06)(AFP, 10/31/06)
2006 Oct 30, In Algeria 3 people
were killed and 24 wounded in near-simultaneous truck bomb attacks
overnight on two police stations in Reghaia town, 30 km (20 miles) east
of the capital, and the eastern Algiers suburb of Dergana. Witnesses
called it the most elaborate assault by Islamist rebels in several
years.
(Reuters, 10/30/06)
2006 Oct 30, Sir Nicholas Stern,
head of Britain’s government economic service, issued a report on
climate change that said world output could be up to a fifth lower over
the next century or two due to climate change.
(Econ, 11/4/06, p.14)(Econ, 12/16/06, p.80)
2006 Oct 30, In London 6 men from
remote Pitcairn Island lost their final appeal against their
convictions for a string of sex attacks dating back 40 years.
(AP, 10/30/06)
2006 Oct 30, Counting from Congo's
election proceeded swiftly. Rioters destroyed 43 polling stations and
thousands of ballot papers were burned in the east after a soldier
killed two election officials.
(AP, 10/30/06)(WSJ, 10/31/06, p.A1)
2006 Oct 30, Hutomo Mandala Putra
(44), the youngest son of former dictator Suharto, was paroled from
prison after serving less than a third of his 15-year sentence for
ordering the assassination of a Supreme Court judge.
(AP, 10/30/06)
2006 Oct 30, In Iraq at least 81
people were killed or found dead, including 33 victims of a bomb attack
on laborers lined up to find a days work in Baghdad's Sadr city Shiite
slum. Essam al-Rawi, a leading Iraqi academic and prominent hardline
Sunni political activist, was fatally shot by three gunmen as he was
leaving his Baghdad home.
(AP, 10/30/06)(SFC, 10/31/06, p.A3)
2006 Oct 30, The Israeli Cabinet
voted overwhelmingly to bring into the government a hawkish party that
opposes ceding territory to the Palestinians and wants to redraw
Israel's borders to exclude many Israeli Arabs.
(AP, 10/30/06)
2006 Oct 30, An Italian court
ordered former Premier Silvio Berlusconi to stand trial on charges of
corruption along with David Mills, the estranged husband of Britain's
culture minister.
(AP, 10/3o/06)
2006 Oct 30, In Amman, Jordan, a
delegation of Iraq lawmakers met with a newly formed group of Iraqi
political activists and agreed to hold a national reconciliation
conference next month.
(AP, 10/3o/06)
2006 Oct 30, The Mexican
government authorized the extradition of ex-Guatemalan President
Alfonso Portillo (2000-2004) to face embezzlement charges in his
country.
(AP, 10/31/06)
2006 Oct 30, In Morocco the
world's five leading nuclear powers and eight other nations kicked off
a new program aimed at keeping nuclear weapons beyond the reach of
terrorists. Morocco became the first Arab state to join a global
initiative led by Russia and the United States to combat nuclear
terrorism.
(AP, 10/31/06)(Reuters, 10/31/06)
2006 Oct 30, Nigeria and China
signed a 8.3 billion dollar contract for the construction of a railway
line from the economic capital Lagos to Kano, the largest commercial
city in the north.
(AFP, 10/30/06)
2006 Oct 30, Northern Ireland
began demolition of the Maze prison for a sports complex.
(WSJ, 10/31/06, p.A1)
2006 Oct 30, Pakistani troops
backed by helicopters raided a religious school purportedly being used
as an al-Qaida training center, killing 80 people in the country's
deadliest strike ever against suspected Islamic militants. The attack
happened about two miles from the Bajur tribal town of Damadola.
(AP, 10/30/06)
2006 Oct 30, Palestinian gunmen
abducted a Spanish aid worker in the Gaza Strip. Roberto Vila (34) was
released after a few hours.
(AP, 10/31/06)
2006 Oct 30, Typhoon Cimaron swept
across the northern Philippines, killing more than 15 people in a
barrage of landslides, uprooted trees and flooding.
(AP, 10/30/06)
2006 Oct 30, In Moscow top Russian
and US military officers signed a cooperation agreement that lays out
plans for joint activities for the coming year.
(AP, 10/30/06)
2006 Oct 30, A Russian company won
a bid to construct a second nuclear plant in Bulgaria.
(AP, 10/31/06)
2006 Oct 30, Somali Islamic
leaders banned youthful Somalis from marrying without the consent of
their parents, saying such unions violate Islam.
(AP, 10/31/06)
2006 Oct 30, South African miner
Gold Fields announced it was listing on the Dubai International
Financial Exchange (DIFX), becoming the first African company to list
shares on the fledgling Gulf market.
(AP, 10/30/06)
2006 Oct 30, The first shipment of
US beef in nearly three years arrived in South Korea on Monday after
the country lifted an import ban triggered by fears of mad cow disease.
(AP, 10/30/06)
2007 Oct 30,
Mike McConnell, US Director of National Intelligence, said the
government spent $43.5 billion on intelligence this year.
(SFC, 10/31/07, p.A6)
2007 Oct 30,
The US Supreme Court halted a Mississippi execution, their 3rd
reprieve since agreeing to rule on Kentucky’s lethal injection
procedure.
(WSJ, 10/31/07, p.A1)
2007 Oct 30, It was reported that
John Murtha, US Democratic Congressman from Johnstown, Pa., and
chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense, had
steered at least $600 million in earmarks to his district over the past
4 years. Since 1992 he has sent some $2 billion to his home district.
(WSJ, 10/30/07, p.A1)
2007 Oct 29, Democrats Barack
Obama and John Edwards sharply challenged Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's
candor, consistency and judgment in a televised debate in Philadelphia.
(AP, 10/30/08)
2007 Oct 30, In California Orange
County Sheriff Michael S. Carona was indicted on seven counts,
including conspiracy, mail fraud and witness tampering, according to a
sweeping indictment unsealed a day earlier. Carona and others allegedly
accepted $350,000 in gifts and cash in exchange for political favors in
a scheme that began as early as 1998, the year he was first elected. On
Jan 16, 2009, a jury convicted Carona on one count of witness-tampering
and acquitted him of bribery charges.
(AP, 10/31/07)(SFC, 10/31/07, p.A3)(SFC, 1/17/09,
p.A3)
2007 Oct 30,
Stan O’Neal, CEO of Merril Lynch, left the company with $161.5
million in stock, options and retirement benefits, following the recent
investment bank’s largest ever quarterly loss.
(SFC, 10/31/07, p.C1)
2007 Oct 30, In Sunnyvale, Ca.,
Todd David Burpee kidnapped and raped a 17-year-old girl. He was
arrested 2 days later. In 2009 Burpee (22) was convicted of kidnapping
and sexual assault and was sentenced 43 years to life in prison.
(SFC, 5/30/09, p.B2)(SFC, 9/12/09, p.C3)
2007 Oct 30,
The San Francisco Bay area's largest earthquake in nearly two
decades rattled homes and nerves. The magnitude-5.6 temblor on the
Calaveras Fault caused no serious damage or injuries.
(AP, 10/31/07)(SFC, 10/31/07, p.A1)
2007 Oct 30, NASA said US
astronomers have discovered the biggest black hole orbiting a star 1.8
million light-years from Earth in the constellation Cassiopeia, with a
record-setting mass of 24 to 33 times that of our Sun.
(AFP, 10/31/07)
2007 Oct 30, It was reported that
a floating mass of trash some 1,000 miles west of SF
and 1,000 miles north of Hawaii covered an area about the size of Texas
with an estimated mass of 3 million tons, mostly made up of plastic
chips.
(SFC, 10/30/07, p.A1)
2007 Oct 30,
Robert Goulet (73), whose Broadway debut in "Camelot" launched an
award-winning stage and recording career, died in Los Angeles. Goulet
also performed in movies ranging from the animated "Gay Purr-ee" (1962)
to "Underground" (1970) to "The Naked Gun 2 1/2" (1991). He played a
lounge singer in Louis Malle's acclaimed 1980 film "Atlantic City."
(AP, 10/31/07)
2007 Oct 30,
American journalist Harry W. Morgan (73), founder of the World
Press Institute (1961), died in Romania. Morgan had moved to Romania in
1994, when the government invited him to help develop journalism
schools at the universities of Bucharest, Sibiu and Timisoara.
(AP, 10/30/07)
2007 Oct 30, Linda Stein (62), a
pioneer in the punk music scene and later known as a real estate
“broker to the stars,” was found murdered in her Manhattan apartment.
On Nov 9 police arrested Natavia Lowery (26), Stein’s personal
assistant, who bludgeoned her boss to death because Stein “just kept
yelling at her.”
(SFC, 11/2/07, p.E2)(SFC, 11/10/07, p.E2)
2007 Oct 30, Washoe the chimp
(42), who had learned American sign Language, died at Central
Washington Univ. in Ellensburg, Wa. Cognitive researchers had adopted
the 10-month-old chimp from military researchers in 1966.
(SFC, 11/1/07, p.A2)
2007 Oct 30,
An Azerbaijani newspaper editor was sentenced to 8 1/2 years in
prison over an article alleging that the former Soviet republic could
support a US attack on neighboring Iran. The Court for Grave Crimes
convicted Eynulla Fatullayev, the founder and editor of two independent
newspapers that stopped publication this spring amid government
pressure, on charges of making a terrorist threat and inciting
interethnic conflict.
(AP, 10/30/07)
2007 Oct 30, Nordin Benallal (27),
a Belgian gangster dubbed "The Eel" for his skill at slipping away from
Belgian prison authorities, was caught in the Netherlands two days
after his latest jailbreak.
(AP, 10/31/07)
2007 Oct 30, In London Saudi
Arabia's King Abdullah received a lavish welcome from Queen Elizabeth
II as he started a state visit amid angry protests and headlines after
accusing Britain of anti-terrorism failures. The Policy Exchange, an
independent think tank, said Agencies linked to the Saudi government
have distributed extremist literature to mosques and Islamic centers in
Britain.
(AP, 10/30/07)
2007 Oct 30,
Canada's Conservative government vowed to slash corporate and
personal taxes and still pay down C$10 billion in debt this year.
(Reuters, 10/30/07)
2007 Oct 30, German Chancellor
Angela Merkel met India's leadership at the start of a state visit
aimed at boosting trade and security links.
(AP, 10/30/07)
2007 Oct 30, An Indonesian court
dismissed a legal challenge to the death penalty brought by lawyers for
members of an Australian drugs gang on death row for heroin smuggling.
(AFP, 10/30/07)
2007 Oct 30, In Baghdad, gunmen in
a speeding car tossed a hand grenade into a crowd of shoppers in
eastern Baghdad, killing one person and wounding five. At least four
mortar rounds slammed into a village near Saddam Hussein's hometown of
Tikrit, killing a woman and wounding five other civilians. Three US
soldiers were killed after their patrol was struck by an explosive and
small arms fire in Salman Pak.
(AP, 10/30/07)(AP, 11/2/07)
2007 Oct 30,
Israeli aircraft hit a Hamas-run police station in the southern
Gaza city of Khan Younis, killing at least four people.
(AP, 10/30/07)
2007 Oct 30, In Italy Giovanna
Reggiani (47) was brutally attacked as she returned home in northern
Rome. She died 2 days later. Nicolae Mailat, a Romanian Gypsy, admitted
to snatching her bag but denied her murder. Her attack triggered a
public outcry.
(Econ, 11/10/07, p.63)
2007 Oct 30,
Myanmar's military government freed seven members of Aung San Suu
Kyi's pro-democracy party, who had been held for more than a month.
Human Rights Watch charged that Myanmar’s military government is
recruiting children as young as 10 into its armed forces.
(AP, 10/30/07)(WSJ, 10/31/07, p.A1)
2007 Oct 30,
Patricia Etteh, the speaker of Nigeria's House of
Representatives, resigned, just hours after saying she would step aside
temporarily to enable lawmakers to debate a report indicting her over a
contract scam. A panel's report found Etteh did not follow due process
before awarding contracts worth several million dollars to equip and
renovate her official residence and that of her deputy.
(AFP, 10/30/07)
2007 Oct 30, In Pakistan a suicide
attacker set off a bomb at a checkpoint a quarter-mile from the
military headquarters in Rawalpindi where President Gen. Pervez
Musharraf was staying, killing 3 officers and 4 civilians.
(AP, 10/30/07)
2007 Oct 30, Paraguay's Supreme
Court annulled the mutiny conviction of former army Gen. Lino Cesar
Oviedo, clearing the way for him to compete in April's presidential
election.
(AP, 10/31/07)
2007 Oct 30, In Puerto Rico
federal authorities arrested more than two dozen people in a crackdown
on fraudulent medical licenses on the island.
(AP, 10/30/07)
2007 Oct 30, Somalia's president
named Salim Aliyow Ibrow, a former deputy prime minister, as a
caretaker prime minister, a day after the outgoing premier lost a power
struggle in the government and resigned.
(AP, 10/30/07)
2007 Oct 30, The US Navy boarded a
North Korean flagged ship at its invitation with a small team of
medics, security personnel and an interpreter. The 22-person North
Korean crew already had regained control of the ship and detained all
the Somali pirates.
(AP, 11/1/07)
2007 Oct 30, Switzerland's largest
bank, UBS, reported its first quarterly loss in five years after its
third quarter results were hit in the financial crisis caused by the
ailing US home loans market.
(AP, 10/30/07)
2007 Oct 30, Thailand's
military-installed government lifted martial law in more than half of
the 400 districts where it remained after being imposed during a coup
last year.
(AP, 10/30/07)
2007 Oct 30, Turkish Cobra attack
helicopters blasted suspected Kurdish rebel targets near the
southeastern border with Iraq in a second day of fighting in the area.
PM Erdogan said an escalation of military action was unavoidable.
(AP, 10/30/07)
2007 Oct 30, The UN General
Assembly voted for the 16th straight year to urge the United States to
end its trade embargo against Cuba, whose foreign minister accused the
US of stepping up its "brutal economic war" to new heights.
(AP, 10/30/07)
2008 Oct 30, The US government
reported that the economy shrank in the summer, the strongest signal
yet that a recession may have already begun. The Commerce Department
reported that the gross domestic product, the broadest measure of
economic health, fell at an annual rate of 0.3% in the July-September
period, a significant slowdown after growth of 2.8% in the prior
quarter.
(AP, 10/30/08)
2008 Oct 30, In California Randall
Cover (46), a former city of Sonoma Water Department supervisor, was
indicted by a federal grand jury in SF for receiving $102,795 in
kickbacks from Underground Express. In November a suit was filed
against 2 former employees of San Francisco’s Public Utilities
Commission for taking thousands of dollars in kickbacks from Sheldon
Morris and his Novato plumbing company, Underground Express. In 2009
Morris was sentenced to nearly 3 years in federal prison.
(SFC, 11/1/08, p.B2)(SFC, 11/25/08, p.B1)(SFC,
5/30/09, p.B2)
2008 Oct 30, In Florida the son of
former Liberian President Charles Taylor was found guilty by a US court
in Miami of torture in the first prosecution under a 14-year-old law
that allows citizens to be prosecuted for such crimes committed abroad.
Charles Taylor Jr. was arrested at Miami International Airport in 2006
and pleaded guilty to a charge of lying about his father's identity on
a passport application.
(Reuters, 10/30/08)
2008 Oct 30, In Iowa US federal
agents arrested Sholom Rubashkin, a former senior executive of the
Agriprocessors, a kosher meatpacking plant in Postville, for employing
illegal immigrants for commercial gain and helping them secure fake
documents. A day earlier Iowa labor authorities levied some $10 million
in fines against Agriprocessors for labor violations.
(WSJ, 10/31/08, p.A3)
2008 Oct 30, Taliban militants
stormed a government building in the center of Kabul and one of them
blew himself up inside, killing five people. 4 police were killed in
Panjwayi district of Kandahar province, after their patrol vehicle
struck a newly planted mine.
(AP, 10/30/08)
2008 Oct 30, In Australia 4
teenagers were charged with attacking an almost blind greater flamingo
at Adelaide Zoo. The bird is believed to be the oldest of its kind in
the world.
(AFP, 10/30/08)
2008 Oct 30, The Economist
magazine presented its annual innovation awards. Winners included
Martin Evans, for stem cell research at Cardiff Univ.; Jimmy Wales of
Wikipedia for the promotion online public collaboration; Matti
Makkonen, a Finnish engineer, for the development of Short Message
Service (SMS), better known as text messaging; Steve Chen and Chad
Hurley of YouTube, for the creating of an easy way to share video;
Arthur Rosenfeld of Lawrence Berkeley for his promotion of energy
efficiency; Sumio Iijima for the discovery of carbon nanotubes; Bill
and Melinda Gates for the developing a philanthropic support platform;
and Nokia Corp. For its ability to respond to social and technological
trends.
(Econ, 12/6/08, TQ p.13)
2008 Oct 30, Westfield London
mall, London's biggest mall, opened despite the gloomy economic climate
that threatens to dampen vital Christmas sales.
(AP, 10/30/08)
2008 Oct 30, China’s state media
reported that the industrial chemical melamine is commonly added to
animal feed in China to make it appear higher in protein. This appeared
to be a tacit admission by the government that contamination is
widespread in the country's food supply.
(AP, 10/30/08)
2008 Oct 30, In China 12 people
died after an elevator plunged at the Sunshine City construction site
in east Fujian province.
(AP, 10/30/08)
2008 Oct 30, Laurent Nkunda, the
rebel general besieging Congo's eastern provincial capital Goma, said
he wants direct talks with the government about ending fighting in the
region and his objections to a $5 billion deal that gives China access
to the country's vast mineral riches in exchange for a railway and
highway. Nkunda said he sent a letter to the UN peacekeeping mission in
Goma saying he will set up an "urgent humanitarian corridor" for
refugees and humanitarian aid. Refugees have continued fleeing the
war-torn eastern province for neighboring Uganda.
(AP, 10/30/08)(AFP, 10/30/08)
2008 Oct 30, An Ecuadorean
presidential commission concluded that US intelligence services
infiltrated the Andean nation's military and police and supported a
cross-border incursion by Colombian troops that killed a top rebel
commander.
(AP, 10/31/08)
2008 Oct 30, In Germany the last
flight lifted off from Berlin's Tempelhof Airport, bringing an end to
an era of aviation that spanned World War II, the Cold War and the
rebirth of the German capital.
(AP, 10/30/08)
2008 Oct 30, In India a series of
11 coordinated blasts tore through northeast Assam state, killing at
least 77 people and sending police scrambling to find any unexploded
bombs in a province troubled by years of separatist violence and ethnic
tensions. The next day the "Islamic Security Force-Indian Mujahedeen"
took responsibility and warned such attacks would continue in Assam
state.
(AP, 10/30/08) (AFP,
10/31/08)(SFC, 10/31/08, p.A2)
2008 Oct 30, Indonesia's
parliament passed a bill banning pornography, ignoring opposition from
lawmakers and rights groups who worry it will be used to justify
attacks on artistic, religious and cultural freedom.
(AP, 10/30/08)
2008 Oct 30, Murat Zyazikov (51),
the unpopular leader of Russia's violence-plagued republic of
Ingushetia, said he has resigned. Pres. Medvedev named an apparent
unknown, Yunus-Bek Yevkurov, to take over as the republic's acting
president.
(AP, 10/30/08)
2008 Oct 30, An Iraqi opposition
lawmaker claimed that thousands of his countrymen are being mistreated
in detention centers outside the official prison system. A car bomb
exploded near a market in north Baghdad, killing one person and
wounding five.
(AP, 10/30/08)
2008 Oct 30, Japan unveiled a
$51.5 billion stimulus package to buttress its economy against the
fallout of the global financial crises.
(WSJ, 10/31/08, p.A9)
2008 Oct 30, Morocco’s
Interior Minister Chakib Benmoussa said flooding over the last week has
killed 28 people and caused major damage in various parts of the
country.
(AFP, 10/30/08)
2008 Oct 30, Palestinian militants
in the Gaza Strip fired a rocket into southern Israel in violation of a
4-month-old truce, but the strike did not cause any injuries or damage.
The Israeli Defense Ministry responded by snapping shut cargo crossings
into Gaza until further notice.
(AP, 10/30/08)
2008 Oct 30, In South Korea a
court ruled that a law that allows only visually impaired people to
become licensed masseurs does not violate the constitution, in a
victory for the blind. South Korea's Constitutional Court upheld a ban
on adultery, rejecting complaints that the 55-year-old law is outdated
and constitutes an invasion of privacy.
(AP, 10/30/08)
2008 Oct 30, A powerful car bomb
exploded at a university in the northern Spanish city of Pamplona,
wounding 17 people and setting a building on fire in an attack blamed
on Basque separatists.
(AP, 10/30/08)
2008 Oct 30, A Swiss court
convicted 2 brothers from Kosovo of running a massive drug smuggling
ring that prosecutors said supplied Western Europe with up to half of
its heroin. Ragip and Kemal Shabani channeled 1.5 tons of heroin
through Europe from the mid-1990s until 2003, when they were shut down.
(AP, 10/30/08)
2008 Oct 30, In Thailand
assailants threw a grenade into a crowd of anti-government protesters
occupying a bridge, wounding 10 people ahead of a demonstration outside
the British Embassy in Bangkok.
(AP, 10/30/08)
2008 Oct 30, Zambians voted for a
successor to the late President Levy Mwanawasa in an election the main
opposition leader accused the ruling party of rigging. Zambia's main
opposition candidate was ahead in early presidential election results,
but his lead was slowly narrowing. Banda ended up winning 40% of the
vote and opposition leader Michael Sata secured 38%.
(Reuters, 10/30/08)(AP, 10/31/08)(AP, 11/2/08)
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