Moments in Time 10/13/11

MOMENTS IN TIME

The History Channel

• On Oct. 29, 1618, Sir Walter Raleigh, English adventurer and favorite courtier of Queen Elizabeth I, is beheaded in London, under a sentence brought against him 15 years earlier. He had been released to establish a gold mine in South America.

• On Oct. 27, 1873, an Illinois farmer named Joseph Glidden submits an application to the U.S. Patent Office for his design for a fencing wire with sharp barbs. Glidden’s two-strand barb wire design changed the face of the American West.

• On Oct. 28, 1886, President Grover Cleveland dedicates The Statue of Liberty, a gift of friendship from the people of France to the people of the United States, in New York Harbor. Originally known as “Liberty Enlightening the World,” the statue was to commemorate the Franco-American alliance during the American Revolution.

• On Oct. 24, 1901, a 63-year-old schoolteacher named Annie Edson Taylor becomes the first person to take the plunge over Niagara Falls in a barrel. Taylor reached the shore alive, if a bit battered, 20 minutes after her journey began.

• On Oct. 30, 1938, Orson Welles causes a nationwide panic with his broadcast of “War of the Worlds” — a realistic radio dramatization of a Martian invasion of Earth. The radio hoax included an announcement of a large meteor crash in New Jersey and the annihilation of 7,000 National Guardsmen.

• On Oct. 25, 1944, during the Battle of the Leyte Gulf, the Japanese deploy kamikaze suicide bombers against U.S. warships for the first time. More than 1,321 Japanese pilots crash-dived their planes into Allied warships during World War II.

• On Oct. 26, 1986, Red Sox first baseman Bill Buckner lets an easy ground ball dribble between his legs and roll down the right-field line during the 10th inning of the sixth game of the World Series. The game was tied and, thanks to Buckner’s error, the runner on third had time to score, winning the game for the Mets and forcing a tiebreaking seventh game — which, in the final innings, the Mets also won.

(c) 2011 King Features Synd., Inc.