Halloween, contraction of All Hallows’ Eve, a holiday observed on October 31, the evening before All Saints’ (or All Hallows’) Day.
The celebration marks the day before the Western Christian feast of All Saints and initiates the season of Allhallowtide, which lasts three days and concludes with All Souls’ Day. In much of Europe and most of North America, observance of Halloween is largely nonreligious.
Halloween is celebrated on October 31.
1517 – Martin Luther posted the 95 Theses on the door of the Wittenberg Palace Church. The event marked the start of the Protestant Reformation in Germany.
1864 – Nevada became the 36th state to join the U.S.
1868 – Postmaster General Alexander Williams Randall approved a standard uniform for postal carriers.
1914 – The Ottoman Empire (Turkey) joined the Central Powers (Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Bulgaria).
1922 – Benito Mussolini became prime minister of Italy.
1926 – Magician Harry Houdini died of gangrene and peritonitis resulting from a ruptured appendix. His appendix had been damaged twelve days earlier when he had been punched in the stomach by a student unexpectedly. During a lecture Houdini had commented on the strength of his stomach muscles and their ability to withstand hard blows.
1940 – The British air victory in the Battle of Britain prevented Germany from invading Britain.
1941 – Mount Rushmore was declared complete after 14 years of work. At the time the 60-foot busts of U.S. Presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln were finished.
1941 – The U.S. Navy destroyer Reuben James was torpedoed by a German submarine near Iceland. The U.S. had not yet entered World War II. More than 100 men were killed.
1952 – The U.S. detonated its first hydrogen bomb.
1954 – The Algerian National Liberation Front (FLN) began a revolt against French rule.
1959 – Defense Department announced elimination of all segregated regiments in the armed forces.
1955 – Britain’s Princess Margaret announced she would not marry Royal Air Force Captain Peter Townsend.
1956 – Rear Admiral G.J. Dufek became the first person to land an airplane at the South Pole. Dufek also became the first person to set foot on the South Pole.
1959 – Lee Harvey Oswald, a former U.S. Marine from Fort Worth, TX, announced that he would never return to the U.S.At the time he was in Moscow, Russia.
1961 – In the Soviet Union, the body of Joseph Stalin was removed from Lenin’s Tomb where it was on public display.
1968 – U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson ordered a halt to all U.S. bombing of North Vietnam.
1969 – Wal-Mart Discount City stores were incorporated as Wal-Mart Stores, Inc
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1981 – Antiqua and Barbuda became independent of Great Britain.
1983 – The U.S. Defense Department acknowledged that during the U.S. led invasion of Grenada, that a U.S. Navy plane had mistakenly bombed a civilian hospital.
1984 – Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated near her residence by two Sikh security guards. Her son, Rajiv, was sworn in as prime minister.
1992 – In Liberia, it was announced that five American nuns had been killed near Monrovia. Rebels loyal to Charles Taylor were blamed for the murders.
1993 – River Phoenix died at the age of 23 after collapsing outside The Viper Room in Hollywood.
1993 – The play “Wonderful Tennessee” closed after only 9 performances.
1994 – 68 people were killed when an American Eagle ATR-72, plunged into a northern Indiana farm.
1997 – Louise Woodward, British au pair, was sentenced to life in prison after being convicted of second-degree murder in the death of 8-month-old Matthew Eappen. She was released after her sentence was reduced to manslaughter.
1998 – Iraq announced that it was halting all dealings with U.N. arms inspectors. The inspectors were investigating the country’s weapons of mass destruction stemming from Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990.
1999 – EgyptAir Flight 990 crashed off the coast of Nantucket, MA, killing all 217 people aboard.
1999 – Leaders from the Roman Catholic Church and the Lutheran Church signed the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification. The event ended a centuries-old doctrinal dispute over the nature of faith and salvation.
2001 – Microsoft and the U.S. Justice Department reached a tentative agreement to settle the antitrust case against the software company.
2007 – Google shares hit $700 for the first time.
2008 – Distribution Video Audio, Inc. shipped its final shipment of VHS tapes to stores. The company was the last major United States supplier of pre-recorded VHS tapes.
In the U.S., federal law and most state laws prohibit armed federal forces and, in many states, armed local police from standing at polling places, except in narrow, legally defined situations.
Several federal statutes explicitly bar armed federal forces and law enforcement from polling places:
These laws mean that federal military or armed federal law enforcement cannot be stationed at polling places except in extremely narrow, historically rare circumstances Brennan Center for Justice+1.
While each state’s statutes differ, all states have restrictions on behavior at or near polling places to ensure voters can cast ballots without intimidation Katie Couric Media+1. Many states:
If you believe local police are violating these rules, you can document the incident and contact the Washington State Department of Elections or the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division.
When carbon dioxide (CO2) is absorbed by seawater, chemical reactions occur that reduce seawater pH, carbonate ion concentration, and saturation states of biologically important calcium carbonate minerals. These chemical reactions are termed “ocean acidification” or “OA” for short. Calcium carbonate minerals are the building blocks for the skeletons and shells of many marine organisms. In areas where most life now congregates in the ocean, the seawater is supersaturated with respect to calcium carbonate minerals. This means there are abundant building blocks for calcifying organisms to build their skeletons and shells. However, continued ocean acidification is causing many parts of the ocean to become undersaturated with these minerals, which is likely to affect the ability of some organisms to produce and maintain their shells.
Since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, the pH of surface ocean waters has fallen by 0.1 pH units. Since the pH scale, like the Richter scale, is logarithmic, this change represents approximately a 30 percent increase in acidity. Future predictions indicate that the oceans will continue to absorb carbon dioxide and become even more acidic. Estimates of future carbon dioxide levels, based on business as usual emission scenarios, indicate that by the end of this century the surface waters of the ocean could be nearly 150 percent more acidic, resulting in a pH that the oceans haven’t experienced for more than 20 million years.
Ocean acidification is expected to impact ocean species to varying degrees. Photosynthetic algae and seagrasses may benefit from higher CO2 conditions in the ocean, as they require CO2 to live just like plants on land. On the other hand, studies have shown that a more acidic environment has a dramatic effect on some calcifying species, including oysters, clams, sea urchins, shallow water corals, deep sea corals, and calcareous plankton. When shelled organisms are at risk, the entire food web may also be at risk. Today, more than a billion people worldwide rely on food from the ocean as their primary source of protein. Many jobs and economies in the U.S. and around the world depend on the fish and shellfish in our oceans.
The pteropod, or “sea butterfly”, is a tiny sea creature about the size of a small pea. Pteropods are eaten by organisms ranging in size from tiny krill to whales and are a major food source for North Pacific juvenile salmon. The photos below show what happens to a pteropod’s shell when placed in sea water with pH and carbonate levels projected for the year 2100. The shell slowly dissolves after 45 days. Photo credit: David Liittschwager/National Geographic Stock. Used with permission. All rights reserved. National Geographic Images.
In recent years, there have been near total failures of developing oysters in both aquaculture facilities and natural ecosystems on the West Coast. These larval oyster failures appear to be correlated with naturally occurring upwelling events that bring low pH waters undersaturated in aragonite as well as other water quality changes to nearshore environments. Lower pH values occur naturally on the West Coast during upwelling events, but a recent observations indicate that anthropogenic CO2 is contributing to seasonal undersaturation. Low pH may be a factor in the current oyster reproductive failure; however, more research is needed to disentangle potential acidification effects from other risk factors, such as episodic freshwater inflow, pathogen increases, or low dissolved oxygen. It is premature to conclude that acidification is responsible for the recent oyster failures, but acidification is a potential factor in the current crisis to this $100 million a year industry, prompting new collaborations and accelerated research on ocean acidification and potential biological impacts.
Photo: Freshly harvested oysters from Yaquina Bay, Oregon (Credit: NOAA)
Many marine organisms that produce calcium carbonate shells or skeletons are negatively impacted by increasing CO2 levels and decreasing pH in seawater. For example, increasing ocean acidification has been shown to significantly reduce the ability of reef-building corals to produce their skeletons. In a recent paper, coral biologists reported that ocean acidification could compromise the successful fertilization, larval settlement and survivorship of Elkhorn coral, an endangered species. These research results suggest that ocean acidification could severely impact the ability of coral reefs to recover from disturbance. Other research indicates that, by the end of this century, coral reefs may erode faster than they can be rebuilt. This could compromise the long-term viability of these ecosystems and perhaps impact the estimated one million species that depend on coral reef habitat. For more information on the impact of ocean acidification on coral, see NOAA’s Coral Reef Watch website.
Ocean acidification is an emerging global problem. Over the last decade, there has been much focus in the ocean science community on studying the potential impacts of ocean acidification. Since sustained efforts to monitor ocean acidification worldwide are only beginning, it is currently impossible to predict exactly how ocean acidification impacts will cascade throughout the marine food chain and affect the overall structure of marine ecosystems. With the pace of ocean acidification accelerating, scientists, resource managers, and policymakers recognize the urgent need to strengthen the science as a basis for sound decision making and action.
~ NOAA
1735 – John Adams, the second President of the United States, was born in Braintree, MA. His son became the sixth President of the U.S.
1817 – The independent government of Venezuela was established by Simon Bolivar.
1831 – Escaped slave Nat Turner was apprehended in Southampton County, VA, several weeks after leading the bloodiest slave uprising in American history.
1875 – The constitution of Missouri was ratified by popular vote.
1893 – The U.S. Senate gave final approval to repeal the Sherman Silver Purchase Act of 1890.
1894 – The time clock was patented by Daniel M. Cooper of Rochester, NY.
1938 – Orson Welles’ “The War of the Worlds” aired on CBS radio. The belief that the realistic radio dramatization was a live news event about a Martian invasion caused panic among listeners.
1943 – In Moscow, a declaration was signed by the Governments of the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, the United States and China called for an early establishment of an international organization to maintain peace and security. The goal was supported on December 1, 1943, at a meeting in Teheran.
1854 – Defense Department announced elimination of all segregated regiments in the armed forces. blackfacts.com
1944 – Martha Graham’s ballet “Appalachian Spring” premiered at the Library of Congress.
1945 – The U.S. government announced the end of shoe rationing.
1953 – General George C. Marshall was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
1961 – The Soviet Union tested a hydrogen bomb with a force of approximately 58 megatons.
1961 – The Soviet Party Congress unanimously approved an order to remove Joseph Stalin’s body from Lenin’s tomb.
1972 – U.S. President Richard Nixon approved legislation to increase Social Security spending by $5.3 billion.
1972 – In Illinois, 45 people were killed when two trains collided on Chicago’s south side.
1975 – Prince Juan Carlos assumed power in Spain as dictator Francisco Franco was near death.
1975 – The New York Daily News ran the headline “Ford to City: Drop Dead.” The headline came a day after U.S. President Gerald R. Ford said he would veto any proposed federal bailout of New York City.
1982 – Portugal’s constitution was revised for the first time since it was ratified on April 25, 1976.
1984 – In Poland, police found the body of kidnapped pro-Solidarity priest Father Jerry Popieluszko. His death was blamed on four security officers.
1989 – Mitsubishi Estate Company announced it would buy 51 percent of Rockefeller Group Inc. of New York.
1993 – Martin Fettman, America’s first veterinarian in space, performed the world’s first animal dissections in space, while aboard the space shuttle Columbia.
1993 – The United Nations deadline concerning ousted Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide passed with country’s military still in control.
1995 – Federalist prevailed over separatists in Quebec in a referendum concerning secession from the federation of Canada.
1998 – The terrorist who hijacked a Turkish Airlines plane and the 39 people on board was killed when anti-terrorist squads raided the plane.
2001 – Michael Jordan returned to the NBA with the Washington Wizards after a 3 1/2 year retirement. The Wizards lost 93-91 to the New York Knicks.
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