October 29: Day In History

Day in History1390 – First trial for witchcraft in Paris leading to the death of three people.1618 – English adventurer, writer, and courtier Sir Walter Raleigh is beheaded for allegedly conspiring against James I of England.1901 – Capital punishment: Leon Czolgosz, the assassin of U.S. President William McKinley, is executed by electrocution.1921 – Second trial of Sacco and Vanzetti in the United States of America.1922 – King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy, appoints Benito Mussolini as Prime Minister.1923 – Turkey becomes a republic following the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire.

1929 – The New York Stock Exchange crashes in what will be called the Crash of ’29 or “Black Tuesday”, ending the Great Bull Market of the 1920s and beginning the Great Depression.

1941 – The Holocaust: In the Kaunas Ghetto over 10,000 Jews are shot by German occupiers at the Ninth Fort, a massacre known as the “Great Action”.

1942 – The Holocaust: In the United Kingdom, leading clergymen and political figures hold a public meeting to register outrage over Nazi Germany’s persecution of Jews.

1948-The Safsaf massacre occurred on October 29, 1948, when the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) captured the Palestinian Arab village of Safsaf in the Galilee. Safsaf was the first village to fall in Operation Hiram, the aim of which, according to the IDF, was to “destroy the enemy in the central Galilee ‘pocket,’ to take control of the whole of the Galilee and to establish a defense line on the country’s northern border.” Between 52 and 64 villagers were killed.

1956 – Suez Crisis begins: Israeli forces invade the Sinai Peninsula and push Egyptian forces back toward the Suez Canal.

1957 – Israel’s prime minister David Ben-Gurion and five of his ministers are injured when a hand grenade is tossed into Israel’s parliament, the Knesset.

1960 – In Louisville, Kentucky, Cassius Clay (who later takes the name Muhammad Ali) wins his first professional fight.1961 – Syria exits from the United Arab Republic.

1969 – The first-ever computer-to-computer link is established on ARPANET, the precursor to the Internet.

1969 – U.S. Supreme Court said school systems must end segregation “at once” and “operate now and hereafter only unitary schools.” In Mississippi case, Alexander V. Holmes, the Court abandoned the principle of “all deliberate speed.

1972 – The three surviving perpetrators of the Munich massacre are released from prison in exchange for the hostages of hijacked Lufthansa Flight 615.

1974 – Muhammad Ali regains world heavyweight boxing title.

1998 – Apartheid: In South Africa, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission presents its report, which condemns both sides for committing atrocities.

1998 – Hurricane Mitch, the second deadliest Atlantic hurricane in history, makes landfall in Honduras.

1999 – A large cyclone devastates Odisha, India

2002 – Ho Chi Minh City ITC fire, a fire destroys a luxurious department store where 1500 people are shopping. Over 60 people die and over 100 are unaccounted for. It is the deadliest disaster in Vietnam during peacetime.

2004 – The Arabic-language news network Al Jazeera broadcasts an excerpt from a 2004 Osama bin Laden video in which the terrorist leader first admits direct responsibility for the September 11, 2001 attacks and references the 2004 U.S. presidential election.

2005 – Bombings in Delhi kill more than 60.

2012 – Hurricane Sandy hits the east coast of the United States, killing 148 directly and 138 indirectly, while leaving nearly $70 billion in damages and causing major power outages.