October 30^th is

National Candy Corn Day

Checklist Day *

Create a Great Funeral Day *

Haunted Refrigerator Night *

World Audio Drama Day *

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MORE! Cecil Rhodes, Martha Grahame and War of the Worlds, click

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WORLD FESTIVALS AND NATIONAL HOLIDAYS

Australia – Sydney:
Q Station Ghostly Sleepover

Canada – Toronto ON:
Halloweek Block Party

Nepal – Tihar Festival
(Nepalese name for Deepawali)

Northern Ireland – Derry:
Banks of the Foyle Hallowe’en Carnival

United Kingdom – London:
The London Dungeon

United States –
Jackson MI:
..Michigan Theatre Devil’s Night Masquerade
New Orleans LA:
..Voodoo Music & Arts Experience
Salem MA:
..Salem Witches’ Halloween Ball

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On This Day in HISTORY

1735 – John Adams, ‘founding father’ and 2nd U.S. President, is born in Braintree MA

1817 – The independent government of Venezuela is established by Simón Bolívar

1831 – In Southampton County, Virginia, escaped slave Nat Turner is captured and arrested for leading the bloodiest slave rebellion in U.S. history

1863 – Danish Prince Vilhelm arrives in Athens to assume his throne as George I, King of the Hellenes.

1864 – Helena, Montana founded after 4 prospectors discover gold at “Last Chance Gulch”

1886 – Zoë Akins born, Pulitizer Prizing-winning playwright – she reworked her comedy The Greeks Has a Word for It as the movie How to Marry a Millionaire

1888 – In the Rudd Concession, King Lobengula of Matabeleland grants exclusive mining rights to agents of Cecil Rhodes led by Charles Rudd

1894 – Daniel Cooper received first U.S. patent for a time clock

1894 – Philip Heseltine is born in London, wrote combative music criticism and papers on early music under his own name, while composing song cycles and choral works inspired by folk and Celtic music as alter-ego Peter Warlock – dies of coal gas poisoning in 1930, the doors and window bolted on his London flat, possible suicide

1905 – Czar Nicholas II issues the October Manifesto, granting the Russian peoples basic civil liberties and the right to form a duma (legislative assembly)

1925 – John Logie Baird creates Britain’s first television transmitter

1935 – A Model 299 prototype for the Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress crashed during takeoff at Wright Field in Dayton, Ohio, because of a gust lock that was still engaged. This led to aviation checklists, from preflight through post-landing, which have saved countless lives and aircraft.  Checklist Day * honors that safety innovation

1938 – Orson Welles radio play of H.G.Welles classic, War of the Worlds, is broadcast – some people tuning in after the start are fooled that it’s a real newscast

1941 – Franklin D. Roosevelt approves U.S. $1 billion in Lend-Lease aid, including food, fuel, weapons, warships, and airplanes, to the Allied nations engaged in WWII, in return for leases on Allied army and navy bases

1944 – Martha Graham’s ballet Appalachian Spring, with music by Aaron Copeland, premieres at the Library of Congress

1945 – Jackie Robinson of the Kansas City Monarchs signs a contract for the Brooklyn Dodgers to break the professional baseball color line

1947 – General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), to regulate international trade, is signed by 23 nations at Geneva during the U.N. Conference on Trade and Employment

1953 – U.S. President Eisenhower approves the top secret document National Security Council Paper No. 162/2, that the United States’ arsenal of nuclear weapons must be maintained and expanded to counter the communist threat, and U.S. General George Marshall is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize

1960 – Michael Woodruff performs the first successful kidney transplant in the United Kingdom at the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary

1961 – The U.S.S.R. detonates hydrogen bomb ‘Tsar Bomba’ over Novaya Zemlya in the Arctic Ocean; at 50 megatons of yield, it is the largest explosive device ever detonated

1961 – The Soviet Party Congress unanimously approves an order to remove Joseph Stalin’s body from Lenin’s tomb

1972 – U.S. President Nixon approves increasing Social Security spending by $5.3 billion

1973 – The Bosphorus Bridge in Istanbul, Turkey is completed between the continents of Europe and Asia over the Bosphorus Strait

1975 – Prince Juan Carlos becomes Spain’s acting head of state, taking over for the country’s ailing dictator, General Francisco Franco.

1983 –First democratic elections in Argentina after seven years of military rule are held

1985 – Space Shuttle Challenger lifts off for its final successful mission before the Challenger disaster

1988 – Metallica releases their single, “Eye of the Beholder”

1993 – Ulster Defence Association paramilitary carries out a mass shooting at a Greysteel, Northern Ireland Halloween party, killing 8 civilians and leaving 13 wounded

1995 – Quebec citizens narrowly vote (50.58% to 49.42%) in favour of remaining a province of Canada in their second referendum on national sovereignty.

1999 – Stephanie Allen West starts Create a Great Funeral Day. * When her significant other died suddenly in 1988, she faced the overwhelming responsibility of his funeral completely unprepared. Then ten years later, her husband went through a similar struggle with his mother’s funeral, who had left no directions or final wishes. So Allen West decided to encourage people to think about how they would like their life to be celebrated by friends and family, and then let their loved ones know their wishes.

2005 – The rebuilt Dresden Frauenkirche (historic Lutheran church destroyed in WWII firebombing of Dresden) is reconsecrated after a thirteen-year rebuilding project

2010 – Haunted Refrigerator Night * is started by Thomas and Ruth Roy of Wellcat as a reminder to clear out that spooky stuff at the back of your fridge

2013 – The 75^th anniversary of the Mercury Theatre on the Air’s radio broadcast of War of the Worlds, the first World Audio Drama Day * is celebrated

2014 – Sweden is first E.U. member country to officially recognize the State of Palestine

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Visuals

• Airplane graphic for Checklist day
• International flags
• John Adams with facts quote
• USAF photo of crashed Model 299 prototype of Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress 
• George Marshall, Nobel Peace Prize recipient
• The Bosporus Bridge in Istanbul, Turkey
• Dresden Frauenkirche 2005 reconsecration
• World Audio Drama Day header

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