0421 – The city of Venice was founded.

1306 – Robert the Bruce was crowned king of Scotland.

1409 – The Council of Pisa opened.

1609 – Henry Hudson left on an exploration for Dutch East India Co.

1634 – Lord Baltimore founded the Catholic colony of Maryland.

1655 – Puritans jailed Governor Stone after a military victory over Catholic forces in the colony of Maryland.

1655 – Christian Huygens discovered Titan. Titan is Saturn’s largest satellite.

1669 – Mount Etna in Sicily erupted destroying Nicolosi. 20,000 people were killed.

1700 – England, France and Netherlands ratify the 2nd Extermination Treaty.

1753 – Voltaire left the court of Frederik II of Prussia.

1774 – English Parliament passed the Boston Port Bill.

1776 – The Continental Congress authorized a medal for General George Washington.

1802 – France, Netherlands, Spain and England signed the Peace of Amiens.

1807 – The first railway passenger service began in England.

1807 – British Parliament abolished the slave trade.

1813 – The frigate USS Essex flew the first U.S. flag in battle in the Pacific.

1814 – The Netherlands Bank was established.

1820 – Greece freedom revolt against anti Ottoman attack

1821 – Greece gained independence from Turkey.

1856 – A. E. Burnside patented Burnside carbine.

1857 – Frederick Laggenheim took the first photo of a solar eclipse.

1865 – The SS General Lyon at Cape Hatteras caught fire and sank. 400 people were killed.

1865 – During the American Civil War, Confederate forces captured Fort Stedman in Virginia.

1879 – Japan invaded the kingdom of Liuqiu (Ryukyu) Islands, formerly a vassal of China.

1895 – Italian troops invaded Abyssinia (Ethiopia).

1898 – The Intercollegiate Trapshooting Association was formed in New York City.

1900 – The U.S. Socialist Party was formed in Indianapolis.

1901 – 55 people died when a Rock Island train derailed near Marshalltown, IA.

1901 – The Mercedes was introduced by Daimler at the five-day “Week of Nice” in Nice, France.

1901 – It was reported in Washington, DC, that Cubans were beginning to fear annexation.

1902 – Irving W. Colburn patented the sheet glass drawing machine.

1902 – In Russia, 567 students were found guilty of “political disaffection.” 95 students were exiled to Siberia.

1904 – E.D. Morel and Roger Casement formed the Congo Reform Association in Liverpool.

1905 – Rebel battle flags that were captured during the American Civil War were returned to the South.

1905 – Russia received Japan’s terms for peace.

1907 – Nicaraguan troops took Tegucigalpa, the capital of Honduras.

1908 – Wilhelm II paid an official visit to Italy’s king in Venice.

1909 – In Russia, revolutionary Popova was arrested on 300 murder charges.

1911 – In New York City, 146 women were killed in fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Company in New York City. The owners of the company were indicted on manslaughter charges because some of the employees had been behind locked doors in the factory. The owners were later acquitted, and in 1914 they were ordered to pay damages to each of the twenty-three families that had sued.

1913 – The Palace Theatre opened in New York City.

1915 – 21 people died when a U.S. F-4 submarine sank off the Hawaiian coast.

1919 – The Paris Peace Commission adopted a plan to protect nations from the influx of foreign labor.

1923 – The British government granted Trans-Jordan autonomy.

1931 – Fifty people were killed in riots that broke out in India. Gandhi was one of many people assaulted.

1931 – The Scottsboro Boys were arrested in Alabama.

1936 – The Detroit Red Wings defeated the Montreal Maroons in the longest hockey game to date. The game lasted for 2 hours and 56 minutes.

1940 – The U.S. agreed to give Britain and France access to all American warplanes.

1941 – Yugoslavia joined the Axis powers.

1941 – The first paprika mill was incorporated in Dollon, SC.

1947 – A coalmine explosion in Centralia, IL, killed 111 people.

1947 – John D. Rockefeller III presented a check for $8.5 million to the United Nations for the purchase of land for the site of the U.N. center.

1953 – The USS Missouri fired on targets at Kojo, North Korea.

1954 – RCA manufactured its first color TV set and began mass production.

1957 – The European Economic Community was established with the signing of the Treaty of Rome.

1960 – A guided missile was launched from a nuclear powered submarine for the first time.

1965 – Martin Luther King Jr. led a group of 25,000 to the state capital in Montgomery, AL.

1966 – The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the “poll tax” was unconstitutional.

1970 – The Concorde made its first supersonic flight.

1971 – The Boston Patriots became the New England Patriots.

1972 – Bobby Hull joined Gordie Howe to become only the second National Hockey League player to score 600 career goals.

1975 – King Faisal of Saudi Arabia was shot to death by a nephew. The nephew, with a history of mental illness, was beheaded the following June.

1981 – The U.S. Embassy in San Salvador was damaged when gunmen attacked using rocket propelled grenades and machine guns.

1981 – The Down Jones industrial avarage of selected stocks on the New York Stock Exchanged closed at its highest level in more than eight years.

1982 – Wayne Gretzky became the first player in the NHL to score 200 points in a season.

1983 – The U.S. Congress passed legislation to rescue the U.S. social security system from bankruptcy.

1985 – It was reported that a U.S. Army Major stationed in East Germany had been shot and killed by a Soviet Border Guard.

1986 – U.S. President Ronald Reagan ordered emergency aid for the Honduran army. U.S. helicopters took Honduran troops to the Nicaraguan border.

1988 – Robert E. Chambers Jr. pled guilty to first-degree manslaughter in the death of 18-year-old Jennifer Levin. The case was known as New York City’s “preppie murder case.”

1989 – In Paris, the Louvre reopened with I.M. Pei’s new courtyard pyramid.

1990 – A fire in Happy Land, an illegal New York City social club, killed 87 people.

1990 – Estonia voted for independence from the Soviet Union.

1991 – Iraqi President Saddam Hussein launched a major counter-offensive to recapture key towns from Kurds in northern Iraq.

1992 – Soviet cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev returned to Earth after spending 10 months aboard the orbiting Mir space station.

1993 – President de Klerk admitted that South Africa had built six nuclear bombs, but said that they had since been dismantled.

1994 – United States troops completed their withdrawal from Somalia.

1995 – Boxer Mike Tyson was released from jail after serving 3 years.

1996 – An 81-day standoff by the antigovernment Freemen began at a ranch near Jordan, MT.

1996 – The U.S. issued a newly redesigned $100 bill for circulation.

1998 – A cancer patient was the first known to die under Oregon‘s doctor-assisted suicide law.

1998 – The FCC nets $578.6 million at auction for licenses for new wireless technology.

1998 – Quinn Pletcher was found guilty on charges of extortion. He had threatened to kill Bill Gates unless he was paid $5 million.

2002 – The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) dismissed complaints against Walt Disney Co.’s ABC network broadcast of a Victoria’s Secret fashion show in November 2001.

2004 – The U.S. Senate voted (61-38) on the Unborn Victims of Violence Act (H.R. 1997) to make it a separate crime to harm a fetus during the commission of a violent federal crime.

1570 – England’s Queen Elizabeth I was excommunicated by Pope Pius V.

1751 – Edward Willet displayed the first trained monkey act in the U.S.

1791 – First Bank of the United States (The President, Directors and Company, of the Bank of the United States) was chartered by the U.S. Congress and signed by President Washington.

1793 – The department heads of the U.S. government met with U.S. President Washington for the first Cabinet meeting on U.S. record.

1836 – Samuel Colt received U.S. Patent No. 138 (later 9430X) for a “revolving-cylinder pistol.” It was his first patent.

1901 – The United States Steel Corp. was incorporated by J.P. Morgan.

1913 – The 16th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified. It authorized a graduated income tax.

1919 – The state of Oregon became the first state to place a tax on gasoline. The tax was 1 cent per gallon.

1928 – The Federal Radio Commission issued the first U.S. television license to Charles Jenkins Laboratories in Washington, DC.

1930 – The bank check photographing device was patented.

1933 – The aircraft carrier Ranger was launched. It was the first ship in the U.S. Navy to be designed and built from the keel up as an aircraft carrier.

1837 – Thomas Davenport patented the first commercial electrical motor. There was no practical electical distribution system available and Davenport went bankrupt.

1940 – The New York Rangers and the Montreal Canadiens played in the first hockey game to be televised in the U.S. The game was aired on W2WBS in New York with one camera in a fixed position. The Rangers beat the Canadiens 6-2.

1948 – Communists seized power in Czechoslovakia.

1950 – “Your Show of Shows” debuted on NBC.

1956 – Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev criticized the late Josef Stalin in a speech before a Communist Party congress in Moscow.

1972 – Germany gave a $5 million ransom to Arab terrorists who had hijacked a jumbo jet.

1986 – Filippino President Ferdinand E. Marcos fled the Philippines after 20 years of rule after a tainted election.

1999 – William King was sentenced to death for the racial murder of James Byrd Jr in Jasper, TX. Two other men charged were later convicted for their involvement.

1999 – In Moscow, China’s Prime Minister Zhu Rongji and Russia’s President Boris Yeltsin discussed trade and other issues.

2000 – In Albany, NY, a jury acquitted four New York City police officers of second-degree murder and lesser charges in the February 1999 shooting death of Amadou Diallo.

2005 – Dennis Rader was arrested for the BTK serial killings in Wichita, KS. He later pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 10 life prison terms.

Women’s History Month

Harriet Maxwell Converse

Harriet Maxwell was born in 1836 in Elmira, New York, and raised within a family that was fascinated by Native cultures. Both her grandfather and her father were Indian traders who had been adopted by the Seneca Nation; her grandfather, Guy Maxwell, even earned the respected name “Ta-se-wa-ya-ee” (translated as “Honest Trader”).

Not much is known about Harriet’s early years; only that after her mother died, she was sent to live with an aunt in Milan, Ohio, and for a time attended school with Thomas Edison. At the age of 25 Harriet married Frank Converse, a musician best known as “The Father of the Banjo.” His wealth, combined with a fortune Harriet inherited from her father, enabled the couple to spend many years travelling throughout the U.S and Europe. Harriet would devote time not spent on the road to her writing talents, and she became a published poet and regular contributor to national magazines.

By 1881, Harriet and Frank Converse were living on West 46th Street in New York City — not far from the apartment house of Ely and Minnie Parker. A chance social encounter led to a long friendship between the two couples, the deepest bond forming between Ely and Harriet. Parker’s knowledge of the Haudenosaunee rekindled her interest in Native cultures, and with the Sachem’s guidance Harriet began to research and write about the Six Nations. She traveled to reservations in western New York as well as Canada, collecting wampum belts and other cultural artifacts, most of which are held today in the collections of the State Museum at Albany. She also became a political advocate for the Six Nations, writing on their behalf against legislation for citizenship and new financial claims from the Ogden Land Company. In 1884, Harriet teamed with Ely Parker to fundraise the Buffalo Historical Society’s efforts to erect a monument to the Seneca orator Red Jacket. However, their hoped-for design of a barren, knobbed tree was rejected as “horrid,” and another larger-than-life heroic sculpture of Red Jacket now stands in Forest Lawn Cemetery.

The Seneca Nation recognized Harriet’s untiring efforts by adopting her into the Snipe Clan, and giving her the name “Gayaneshaoh.” In September of 1891, Converse became the first white woman ever condoled as a Six Nations Chief. She was invested with the responsibility of the welfare of her adopted people, and given a new name, “Gaiiwanoh,” translated as “The Watcher.”

Harriet Maxwell Converse died in November of 1903, just a few weeks after her husband passed away. Her collection of essays entitled Myths and Legends of the New York State Iroquois was published 5 years later, edited by Ely Parker’s grand-nephew, Arthur C. Parker.

Resources:    on-this-day.org      pbs.org

1st woman U.S. senator selected….

Item # 565217

October 4, 1922

THE NEW YORK TIMES, New York, October 4, 1922

* Rebecca Latimer Felton
* 1st United States Woman senator
* Historic political item

This 48 page newspaper has one column headlines on the front page that include: “GEORGIA WOMAN, 87, IS NAMED AS SENATOR”, “Mrs. W.H. Felton Is Appointed by Governor Hardwick to Fill Watson’s Place”, “FIRST OF SEX SO HONORED” and more. (see)

Tells of the very 1st United States female senator being officially chosen. A historic item on the beginnings of Women in politics.

Other news of the day. Usual browning with some margin wear and tear, otherwise good. Should be handled with care.

wikipedia notes: Rebecca Ann Latimer Felton (June 10, 1835 – January 24, 1930) was a white supremacist American writer, teacher, reformer, and briefly a politician who became the first woman to serve in the United States Senate, filling an appointment on November 21, 1922, and serving until the next day. At 87 years old, 9 months and 22 days, she was also the oldest freshman senator to enter the Senate. As of 2009, she is also the only woman to have served as a Senator from Georgia.

In 1922, Governor Thomas W. Hardwick was a candidate for the next general election to the Senate, when Senator Thomas E. Watson died prematurely. Seeking an appointee who would not be a competitor in the coming special election to fill the vacant seat, and a way to secure the vote of the new women voters alienated by his opposition to the 19th Amendment, Hardwick chose Felton to serve as Senator on October 3, 1922.

 

Source: rarenewspapers.com