Category Archives: Today in history

October 20 Peace Love Art Activism

October 20 Peace Love Art Activism

Feminism

Voting Rights

October 20, 1917: Alice Paul and three colleagues were arrested for picketing the White House on of women’s suffrage. Calling themselves “Silent Sentinels,” the purposefully went to the White House gates when staff were leaving work. A large crowd gathered, with some people cheering and other jeering. [CNN article] (see Oct 22)

October 20 Peace Love Art Activism

BLACK HISTORY

Virginia Legalizes murder

October 20, 1669: the Virginia Colonial Assembly enacted a law that removed criminal penalties for enslavers who killed enslaved people resisting authority. The assembly justified the law on the grounds that “the obstinacy of many [enslaved people] cannot be suppressed by other than violent means.” The law provided that an enslaver’s killing of an enslaved person could not constitute murder because the “premeditated malice” element of murder could not be formed against one’s own property.  [EJI article] (next BH, see Oct 29; next SR, see February 28, 1708; see SR for expanded chronology of slave revolts)

Dyer anti-lynching bill

October 20, 1921: the House Judiciary Committee favorably reported the Dyer anti-lynching bill, imposing heavy penalties on persons involved in mob action resulting in the taking of life. (next BH, see Nov 30 ; see Dyer for expanded story; next Lynching, see Nov 30 or see AL3 for expanded chronology)

”SCOTTSBORO BOYS”

October 20, 1933: The cases were removed from Judge Horton’s jurisdiction and transferred to Judge William Callahan’s court. (SB, see Scottsboro travesty)

“Durham Manifesto”

October 20, 1942: sixty leading Southern Blacks issued “Durham Manifesto” calling for fundamental changes in race relations after a Durham, North Carolina, meeting. (listen NC Museum of History) (see Dec 4)

Tallahassee bus boycott

October 20, 1956: modeled after the Montgomery bus boycott, the Tallahassee bus boycott had begun after a May 17, 1956 incident in which two Florida A&M students were arrested for sitting in the white section of a city bus. Because the city’s buses were primarily patronized by African American residents, the boycott left the vehicles nearly empty. In July 1956, city officials were forced to suspend bus service due to lost revenue. The bus company resumed services in August following an initiative led by the Junior Chamber of Commerce to get more white residents to ride the buses but the boycott continued. The Tallahassee Inter-Civic Council (ICC) led the boycott and organized a carpool to serve as alternative transportation.

In October 1956, 21 carpool drivers, including nine people who comprised the ICC’s executive committee, were arrested for not having “for hire” tags on their vehicles. On October 20, 1956, following a three-and-a-half-day trial, all 21 drivers were convicted. City Judge John Rudd sentenced them to pay a $500 fine or spend 60 days in jail, in addition to a suspended 60-day jail term and one year on probation.

Faced with this legal harassment, the ICC voted to end the carpool two days later. The boycott continued until December, however, ending only after federal courts ruled bus segregation unconstitutional. On January 7, 1957, the Tallahassee City Commission repealed the city’s bus segregation law. [Florida Memory dot com article] (see Nov 13)

Charles Mingus

October 20 Peace Love Art Activism

October 20, 1960: Charles Mingus recorded “Fables of Faubus” with lyrics for his Charles Mingus Presents Charles Mingus album for release on independent label after Columbia Records had refused to release it with lyrics.  The song was written as a direct protest against Arkansas governor Orval E. Faubus  who in 1957 had sent out the National Guard to prevent the integration of Little Rock Central High School by nine African American teenagers. (see Oct 25)

Lyrics:

Oh, Lord, don’t let ’em shoot us!

Oh, Lord, don’t let ’em stab us!

Oh, Lord, don’t let ’em tar and feather us!

Oh, Lord, no more swastikas!

Oh, Lord, no more Ku Klux Klan!

 Name me someone who’s ridiculous, Dannie.

Governor Faubus!

Why is he so sick and ridiculous?

He won’t permit integrated schools.

Then he’s a fool! Boo! Nazi Fascist supremists!

Boo! Ku Klux Klan (with your Jim Crow plan)

 Name me a handful that’s ridiculous, Dannie Richmond.

Faubus, Rockefeller, Eisenhower

Why are they so sick and ridiculous?

 Two, four, six, eight:

They brainwash and teach you hate.

H-E-L-L-O, Hello.

March to Montgomery

October 20, 1965: Roy Reed in the NY Times reported that, ”an all-white jury dominated by self-proclaimed white supremacists was chosen…for the retrial of Collie Leroy Wilkins, Jr, a Ku Klux Klansman charged with the murder of Viola Liuzzo.” (NYT article) (see Liuzzo for expanded story)

Murders of Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner

October 20, 1967: an all-white jury convicted seven conspirators, including the deputy sheriff, and acquitted eight others. It was the first time a white jury convicted a white official of civil rights killings. For three men, including Edgar Rice Killen, the trial ended in a hung jury, with the jurors deadlocked 11–1 in favor of conviction. The lone holdout said that she could not convict a preacher. The prosecution decided not to retry Killen and he was released. None of the men found guilty would serve more than six years in prison. (BH, see Oct 28; see Murders for expanded story)

BLACK & SHOT

October 20, 2014: Officer Jason Van Dyke followed in his car 17-year-old Laquan McDonald before shooting him 16 times in the middle of Pulaski Road on the Southwest Side. It will be more than a year before the video of the incident is released. [Chicago Tribune article] (B & S, see Nov 20; Van Dyke, see November 19, 2015)

October 20 Peace Love Art Activism

The Red Scare

October 20, 1947: the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) on this day opened its famous hearings into alleged Communist influence in Hollywood. The hearings began with a series of “friendly” witnesses who argued that there was Communist influence. The “friendly” witnesses included President of Screen Actors Guild and future U.S. President Ronald Reagan, who testified on October 23, 1947. Ayn Rand testified regarding the pro-communist slant of the film Song of Russia. (see Oct 23)

October 20 Peace Love Art Activism

see October 20 Music et al for more

“Monster Mash”

October 20 – November 2, 1962: “Monster Mash” by Bobby “Boris” Pickett and the Crypt-Kickers #1 Billboard Hot 100.

Peter, Paul, and Mary

October 20 – November 30, 1962: Peter, Paul, and Mary’s Peter, Paul, and Mary is Billboard’s #1 album.

Ken Kesey

October 20 Peace Love Activism

October 20, 1966: Ken Kesey arrested. (NYT article) (see Oct 31)

October 20 Peace Love Art ActivismOctober 20, 1969: John Lennon and Yoko Ono released their third album, Wedding Album.

According to Lennon, It was like our sharing our wedding with whoever wanted to share it with us. We didn’t expect a hit record out of it. It was more of a… that’s why we called it Wedding Album. You know, people make a wedding album, show it to the relatives when they come round. Well, our relatives are the… what you call fans, or people that follow us outside. So that was our way of letting them join in on the wedding.”

Wedding Album commemorated their wedding in Gibraltar on 20 March 1969. Although it was the final installment in their trilogy of avant garde and experimental recordings, the couple continued to document their lives on tape until Lennon’s death in 1980. [Beatles Bible article] (see Nov 1)

John & Yoko

October 20, 1973: John Lennon filed suit asking the court to force the Immigration and Naturalization Service to produce the records under which deportation decisions were made. [NYT article] (see Oct 29)

Mark David Chapman

October 20, 1980: Mark David Chapman quit his security job and signed out for the last time. Instead of the usual “Chappy” he wrote “John Lennon”.

Chapman murdered Lennon on December 8. (see Nov 17)

October 20 Peace Love Art Activism

Vietnam

Benjamin Spock

October 20 Peace Love Art Activism

October 20, 1967: Dr Benjamin Spock turned in a briefcase full of what he said were draft cards to officials at the Justice Department building here and later accused one of them of being “derelict in his duty” for not having arrested him. He said he wanted to be arrested in order to precipitate a “moral, legal confrontation” with the Government over the draft. Justice Department officials said later that the briefcase had contained draft cards and other matter. (Vietnam, see Oct 21 -22; DCB, see January 5, 1968)

October 20 Peace Love Art Activism

Watergate Scandal

October 20, 1973: “Saturday Night Massacre”. Solicitor General Robert Bork fired Watergate Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox at the direction of President Richard Nixon after Attorney General Elliot Richardson and Assistant Attorney General Ruckelshaus had refused and resigned. (see Watergate for expanded story)

October 20 Peace Love Art Activism

Iran hostage crisis

October 20, 1979: the U.S. government allowed the deposed Shah of Iran to travel to New York for medical treatment. [NYT article] (see Nov 4)

October 20 Peace Love Art Activism

US Labor History

October 20, 1980: Presidential candidate Ronald Reagan wrote to PATCO President Robert Poli with this promise: if the union endorsed Reagan, “I will take whatever steps are necessary to provide our air traffic controllers with the most modern equipment available and to adjust staff levels and work days so that they are commensurate with achieving a maximum degree of public safety.” He got the endorsement. Nine months after the election (see August 5, 1981) he fired the air traffic controllers for engaging in an illegal walkout over staffing levels and working conditions. (see June 12, 1981)

Weather Underground

October 20, 1981: the 1981 Brink’s robbery was an armed robbery and three related murders committed by several Black Liberation Army members and four former members of the Weather Underground, now associated with the May 19th Communist Organization. The plan called for the BLA members to carry out the robbery, with the M19CO members — David GilbertJudith Alice ClarkKathy Boudin, and Marilyn Buck — to serve as getaway drivers in switchcars.

The conspirators stole $1.6 million in cash from a Brink’s armored car at the Nanuet Mall, in Nanuet, New York, killing a Brink’s guard, Peter Paige, seriously wounding Brink’s guard Joseph Trombino, slightly wounding Brink’s truck driver guard, James Kelly, subsequently killing two Nyack police officers, Edward O’Grady and Waverly Brown, and seriously wounding Police Detective Artie Keenan. [Wikipedia article] (next WU, see )

AIDS

October 20, 2000: Robert D Ray (see August 28, 1987) died. (next AIDS related entry, see July 7 > 12, 2002)

LGBTQ

October 20, 2010: Barack Obama’s administration announced it would also appeal the judge’s ruling on the constitutionally of Don’t ask, don’t tell even though Obama announced earlier in the year that he wished to end the policy. (see Nov 1)

Nuclear/Chemical News

October 20, 2018: President Trump said he would pull out of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty with Russia. The treaty limited the number of missiles in each country.

Trump said Moscow had violated Treaty and he would halt the agreement.

Trump said the U.S. would pull out “and then we are going to develop the weapons” unless Russia and China agree to a new deal, though China isn’t currently a party of the agreement.

“Russia has violated the agreement. They have been violating it for many years,” the president said. “And we’re not going to let them violate a nuclear agreement and go out and do weapons and we’re not allowed to.” [USA Today article] (see Nov 1)

Space

October 20, 2020: NASA’s OSIRIS-REX spacecraft touched the surface of an asteroid  200 million miles away to gather a sample of rocks and dirt. The operation proceeded smoothly. The sampling mechanism set down partly on a rock about 8 inches wide. [NYT article] (next Space, see Oct 23; asteroid, see September 24, 2023)

October 20 Peace Love Art Activism

Fair Housing

October 20, 2022: three real estate companies operating in Washington, DC, were ordered to pay record-breaking penalties in a suit brought by the city for illegally discriminating against tenants who use Section 8 vouchers and other forms of housing assistance.

The attorney general for the District of Columbia, Karl Racine, announced a settlement for $10 million. While fair housing cases involving lenders have resulted in larger compensation payouts, $10 million was the largest civil penalty ever levied in a housing discrimination case. [Bloomberg article] (next FH, see January 20, 2023)

October 20 Peace Love Art Activism

Women’s Health

October 20, 2022:  in a move that cames as many states had rolled back access to abortion since the overturning of Roe v. Wade, the Pentagon announced that it would pay for service members to travel for such care.

Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin directed the department in a memo  to adopt a suite of reproductive health care policies in response to the Supreme Court’s June decision to end the federal right to abortion.

“The practical effect of the recent changes was that service members may be forced to travel greater distances, take more time off work and pay more out-of-pocket expenses to access reproductive health care, all of which have readiness, recruiting and retention implications for America’s armed forces,” said Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder, a Pentagon spokesperson, speaking to reporters  [NPR article] (next WH, see Oct 21)

October 20 Peace Love Art Activism

October 19 Peace Love Art Activism

October 19 Peace Love Art Activism

BILL OF RIGHTS

October 19, 1765: The Stamp Act Congress, meeting in New York, drew up a declaration of rights and liberties. (see December 15, 1791)

October 19 Peace Love Art Activism

Emma GoldmanOctober 19 Peace Love Art Activism

October 19, 1890: Goldman spoke in Baltimore to members of the International Working People’s Association in the afternoon. She later spoke in German to the Workers’ Educational Society at Canmakers’ Hall. Michael Cohn and William Harvey also spoke. (see Goldman for expanded story)

  Jessie Wallace Hughan

October 19, 1923: the 48-year-old New York City educator Jessie Wallace Hughan (1875-1955) wrote, “Tracy [Mygatt] to dinner—had hair done—organized real War Resisters League …”

Hughan was describing the formal founding of WRL as the successor organization to the Anti-Enlistment League, which had opposed armed forces enlistment during World War I. [Swarthmore article] (see January 1925)

October 19 Peace Love Art Activism

BLACK HISTORY

NAACP a “threat”

October 19, 1955: the Attorney General of Georgia on this day called the NAACP a “threat” to the state, charging “subversion” in its anti-segregation drive. The civil rights organization was a “threat to the peace, tranquility, government and way of life of our states,” he added. (see Oct 21)

 MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR

October 19, 1960: King was arrested along with students, eventually numbering 280, after conducting mass sit-ins at Rich’s Department Store and other Atlanta stores. The others were freed, but the judge sentenced King to four months in prison. Legal efforts secured his release after eight days. A boycott of the store followed, and by the fall of 1961, Rich’s began to desegregate. (BH, see Oct 20; MLK, see May 13, 1961)

March to Montgomery

October 19, 1965: State Attorney General, Richmond M Flowers, interrupted the second Liuzzo trial and asked the Alabama Supreme Court to purge some jurists, a number of whom stated during jury selection that they believed white civil rights workers to be inferior to other whites.

The request was denied. (see Liuzzo for expanded story)

Stop and Frisk Policy

October 19, 2011: New York City called for a federal probe of the NYPD’s stop and frisk strategy. Speaking at a news conference Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer and state Senator Eric Adams said federal prosecutors needed to step in to protect the rights of minorities.

By December 2011 police had stopped 684,330 New Yorkers  [402,308 were black (59 percent); 176,165 were Latino (26 percent); 62,033 were white (9 percent)] (see February 8, 2012)

October 19 Peace Love Art Activism

The Cold War

October 19, 1960: the United States imposed an embargo on exports to Cuba. (NYT article) (see January 3, 1961)

October 19 Peace Love Art Activism

October 19 Music et al

Simon & Garfunkel

October 19 Peace Love Activism

October 19, 1964: Simon & Garfunkel released Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M. Initially a flop, but after release of their second album, Sounds of Silence in 1966, it hit #30 on the Billboard charts. (see Wednesday for more)

October 19 Peace Love Art Activism

Vietnam  

October 19, 1969: Vice President Spiro T. Agnew referred to anti-Vietnam War protesters “an effete corps of impudent snobs.” (NYT article) (see Nov 3)

October 19 Peace Love Art Activism

Oil embargo

October 19, 1973: President Nixon requested Congress to appropriate $2.2 billion in emergency aid for Israel. Libya, Saudi Arabia and other Arab states proclaim an embargo on oil exports to the United States. (NYT article)

October 19 Peace Love Art Activism

TERRORISM

October 19, 1987: two U.S. warships shelled an Iranian oil platform in the Persian Gulf in response to Iran’s Silkworm missile attack on the U.S. flagged ship MV Sea Isle City.  [LAT article] (see Nov 29)

October 19 Peace Love Art Activism

Iraq War II

October 19, 2003:  a yearlong State Department study predicted many of the problems that have plagued the American-led occupation of Iraq, according to internal State Department documents and interviews with administration and Congressional officials. [NYT, 10/19/03] (see Dec 13)

October 19 Peace Love Art Activism

Cannabis

Ogden memo

October 19, 2009: the Department of Justice issued a memo, known subsequently as the Ogden memo, to “provide clarification and guidance to federal prosecutors in States that have enacted laws authorizing the medical use of marijuana.”  In an effort to make the most efficient use of limited resources, the DOJ announced that prosecutorial priorities should not target “individuals whose actions are in clear and unambiguous compliance with existing state laws providing for the medical use of marijuana.” Specifically, individuals with cancer or other serious illnesses who use medical marijuana and the caregivers who provide the medical marijuana in accordance with state law should not be the focus of federal prosecution.

The memo clarified that “prosecution of commercial enterprises that unlawfully market and sell marijuana for profit continues to be an enforcement priority.” It is also explicitly stated that the memo “does not ‘legalize’ marijuana or provide a legal defense to a violation of federal law.”  [DoJ PDF](next Cannabis, see Nov 10 or see CCC for expanded chronology)

Medical marijuana

October 19, 2015: medical marijuana dispensaries scored a major win when Senior District Judge Charles R. Breyer ruled that the Department of Justice cannot prosecute legal providers of medical cannabis.

In his ruling, Breyer lifted an injunction against a California dispensary, the Marin Alliance for Medical Marijuana, and its founder, Lynette Shaw, ruling that a budget amendment Congress approved last year requires the federal government to respect state marijuana laws. The DOJ is thus precluded from criminally prosecuting organizations like MAMM that comply with state regulations. [HuffPost article] (next Cannabis see Nov 9 or see CCC for expanded chronology)

Legalizing marijuana

October 19, 2016: according to a Gallop poll, public support for legalizing marijuana use reached 60% — the highest level since Gallop began the poll in 1969. (see July 5 – 9, 2017)

October 19 Peace Love Art Activism

LGBTQ

October 19, 2010: US Federal Judge Virginia Phillips said that she was inclined to deny the government’s request to allow the Pentagon to enforce its “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy on gay and bisexual members of the military while her injunction against it is being appealed. “My tentative ruling is to deny the application for a stay,” Judge Virginia A. Phillips said at a hearing on the government’s request, (see Oct 20)

October 19 Peace Love Art Activism

Sexual Abuse of Children

October 18, 2018: the US Justice Department opened an investigation into Roman Catholic dioceses in Pennsylvania accused of covering up sex abuse for decades.

It may have been the first statewide investigation by the federal government of the church’s sex abuse problems. And it came two months after the Pennsylvania attorney general’s office released a grand jury report charging that bishops and other church leaders had covered up the abuse of more than 1,000 people over a period of more than 70 years. [NYT article] (see Nov 8)

Environmental Issues

October 19, 2023:  a study, published in Scientific Reports, found that in recent decades Atlantic hurricanes were far more likely to dial up from weak Category 1 to major Category 3 or higher storms in only 24 hours. Storms from 2001 to 2020 had done so at more than twice the rate as the same types of storms between 1970 and 1990. [Smithsonian article] (next EI, see Dec 13)

October 19 Peace Love Art Activism

October 18 Peace Love Art Activism

October 18 Peace Love Art Activism

BLACK HISTORY

Hard Scrabble Riot

October 18, 1824: a white mob attacked black homes in Hard Scrabble (a section of Providence, RI) after a black man refused to get off the sidewalk when approached by some whites. Although the mob claimed to be targeting places of ill-repute, it destroyed buildings indiscriminately. Hundreds of whites destroyed approximately 20 black homes. Four people were tried for rioting, but only one was found guilty.

Hard Scrabble was a predominantly black neighborhood in northwestern Providence in the early 19th century. Away from the town center, its inexpensive rents attracted working class free blacks, poor people of all races and marginalized businesses such as saloons and houses of prostitution. Tensions developed between the residents of Hard Scrabble and other residents of Providence. [Smithsonian article] (see also Snowtown Riot, September 21 -24, 1831)

Nat Turner

In 1825: Nat Turner had a second vision (see Turner In 1821). He saw lights in the sky and prayed to find out what they meant. Then “… while laboring in the field, I discovered drops of blood on the corn, as though it were dew from heaven, and I communicated it to many, both white and black, in the neighborhood; and then I found on the leaves in the woods hieroglyphic characters and numbers, with the forms of men in different attitudes, portrayed in blood, and representing the figures I had seen before in the heavens.” (next BH, March 16, 1827; see NT for expanded chronology)

Jack Johnson

October 18, 1912: boxer Jack Johnson was arrested on the grounds that his relationship with Lucille Cameron violated the Mann Act (see June 25, 1910 ) against “transporting women across state lines for immoral purposes” due to her being an alleged prostitute. Her mother also swore formally that her daughter was insane

Cameron, soon to become his second wife, refused to cooperate and the case fell apart.

Less than a month later, Johnson was arrested again on similar charges. This time, the woman, another alleged prostitute named Belle Schreiber, with whom he had been involved in 1909 and 1910, testified against him. In the courtroom of Kenesaw Mountain Landis, the future Commissioner of Baseball who perpetuated the baseball color line until his death, Johnson was convicted by an all-white jury in June 1913, despite the fact that the incidents used to convict him took place before passage of the Mann Act.

He was sentenced to a year and a day in prison. (BH, see In December; Johnson, see June 25, 1913)

George Armwood lynched

October 18, 1933: a mob of at least 2000 white residents of Princess Anne, Maryland beat, hanged, dragged, and burned George Armwood to death. Armwood, reportedly known to be “feeble-minded,” had been accused of assaulting an 80-year-old woman who was also the mother of a local white policeman. Shortly after being arrested, Armwood was dragged out of the jail and an 18-year-old boy immediately cut off his ear with a butcher knife. The growing mob then beat George Armwood nearly to death and dragged him to a tree, where he was hanged. Afterward, the mob cut down his corpse, dragged it through the streets, hanged it again, and then staged a public burning. The New Journal and Guide reported that “[m]en, women and children, participated in the savage orgy.”

Armwood’s lynching sparked a national outcry and calls for prosecution of the lynchers, yet investigations at the county, state, and federal levels faced obstacles and delays. Inquiries following the lynching were marked by residents’ refusal to identify participants as well as mockery and intimidation of black witnesses. The American Civil Liberties Union, frustrated with the silence, began offering a $1000 reward to people willing to name leaders of the mob.

Even when finally presented with identifying evidence, the county prosecutor refused to act. When the Maryland Attorney General ordered troops to arrest eight named participants, white residents who supported the accused lynchers waged riots of protest. Four white men were ultimately tried for the lynching of George Armwood, and acquitted by all-white juries. [EJI article] (next BH, see January 28, 1934; next Lynching, see January 30, 1934; see AL3 for expanded chronology of early 20th century lynching)

 Irene Morgan

October 18 Peace Love Art Activism

On July 16, 1944,  Irene Morgan (age 27), recovering from a miscarriage and traveling by bus from Virginia to Baltimore for a doctor’s appointment refused to relinquish her seat [as well as another Black woman] to a white couple.

The driver, angered by Morgan’s refusal, drove the bus to the Middlesex County town of Saluda and stopped outside the jail. A sheriff’s deputy came aboard and told Morgan that he had a warrant for her arrest. She continued to refuse and had to be physically subdued. She was jailed for resisting arrest and violating Virginia’s segregation law.

On this date [October 18, 1944} Morgan was convicted. On January 27, 1001, President Bill Clinton awarded her the Presidential Citizens Medal. (BH, see June 3, 1946)

October 18 Peace Love Art Activism

George Whitmore, Jr.

October 18, 1965: prosecutors disclosed that friends of Richard Robles cooperated in the surreptitious recording of conversations in which he admitted the double murder. When confronted with the tapes after his arrest, Robles “freely and voluntarily confessed” in the presence of eight police officers, including Thomas J. Cavanagh Jr., the commander of the Manhattan detective squad. (next BH, see Oct 19; see Whitmore for expanded story)

Tommie Smith and John Carlos

October 18, 1968: the U.S. Olympic Committee suspended Tommie Smith and John Carlos, for giving a “black power” salute as a protest during a victory ceremony in Mexico City. (see “In November“)

October 18 Peace Love Art Activism

 

Technological Milestones

Long distance telephone

October 18, 1892: the first long distance telephone line between Chicago and New York was opened. (see June 21, 1893)

Transistor radio

October 18 Peace Love Art Activism

October 18, 1954: Industrial Development Engineering Associates announced the first practical transistor radio, the Regency TR-1. (see Nov 1)

October 18 Peace Love Art Activism

US Labor History

Feminism

October 18, 1911: New York City agreed to pay women school teachers a rate equal to that of men. (Labor, see Dec 5; Feminism, see January  11 > March 1912)

Colin Kaepernick

October 18, 2017: at the next day of the NFL meetings, NFL Houston Texan owner Robert McNair, in response to some players supporting Colin Kaepernick’s kneeling in 2016 with their own associated protests, said, ” “We can’t have the inmates running the prison,”

NFL executive Troy Vincent, a former player, later stood up and said he was offended by McNair’s characterization of the players as “inmates.” Vincent said that in all his years of playing in the NFL — during which, he said, he had been called every name in the book, including the N-word — he never felt like an “inmate.” (Labor , see Oct 27; Free Speech & CK, see Oct 29)

October 18 Peace Love Art Activism

October 18 Music et al

Quarry Men

October 18 Peace Love Art Activism

October 18, 1957: The Quarry Men performed at the New Clubmoor Hall (Conservative Club), Norris Green, Liverpool. This was Paul McCartney’s first appearance with the group. The line-up for The Quarry Men was John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Eric Griffiths, Colin Hanton, and Len Garry. Paul McCartney, suffering from a case of the stage jitters, flubs his guitar solo on the song “Guitar Boogie”. Upset with his playing, Paul tries to make amends by showing John a song he had written, “I Lost My Little Girl”. John then shows Paul some songs that he has composed. The two start writing songs together from that moment, which marks the birth of the Lennon-McCartney songwriting partnership. Pete Shotton, out of the group by this time, had no real musical ability and knew it; he was almost relieved when, during a drunken argument, John Lennon had smashed Pete’s washboard over Pete’s head. That was the end of Pete Shotton’s career as a Quarry Man. (see January 24, 1958)

WNEW-FM

October 18, 1967:  press release from WNEW-FM announcing that Rosko will be joining station on October 31. (see Oct 29)

Rolling Stone magazine

October 18, 1967: the first issue of Rolling Stone magazine released with a cover dated Nov 9 and featuring a photograph of John Lennon in the film How I Won the War. (see Dec 22)

John & Yoko arrested

October 18 Peace Love Art Activism

October 18, 1968:  the Drug Squad arrested John Lennon and Yoko Ono. Lennon and Ono were temporarily living at Ringo Starr’s flat at 34 Montagu Square, London. Following a tip-off from a newspaper journalist friend, they had thoroughly cleaned the flat to make sure it was free of drugs.

Lennon related: All of a sudden, there was this knock on the door and a woman’s voice outside, and I look around and there is a policeman standing in the window, waiting to be let it. We’d been in bed and our lower regions were uncovered. Yoko ran into the bathroom to get dressed with her head poking out, so they wouldn’t think she was hiding anything. Then I said, ‘Ring the lawyer, quick,’ but she went and rang Apple. I will never know why…. That thing was set up. The Daily Express was there before the cops came. In fact, Don Short had told us, ‘They’re coming to get you,’ three weeks before. So, believe me, I’d cleaned the house out, because Jimi Hendrix had lived there before in the apartment, and I’m not stupid. I went through the whole damn house. (see Nov 1)

“I Can’t Get Next To You”

October 18 – 31, 1969: “I Can’t Get Next To You” by The Temptations #1 on the Billboard Hot 100.

October 18 Peace Love Art Activism

The Cold War

Cuban Missile Crisis

October 18 Peace Love Activism

October 18, 1962: President Kennedy met with Soviet Minister of Foreign Affairs, Andrei Gromyko, who claimed the weapons were for defensive purposes only. Not wanting to expose what he already knew, and wanting to avoid panicking the American public, Kennedy did not reveal that he was already aware of the missile build-up. (see Cuban missile crisis)

October 18 Peace Love Art Activism

Vietnam & DRAFT CARD BURNING

David Miller

October 18, 1965: the FBI arrested David Miller for burning draft card on October 15. (Vietnam, see Oct 30; Draft Card, see Nov 6)

Peace Negotiations

October 18, 1972:  Henry Kissinger began discussions with President Thieu. In Paris, a spokesman for the North Vietnamese delegation, Nguyen Thanh Le, denounced the United States position as “erroneous and intransigent.” (see Oct 20)

October 18 Peace Love Art Activism

Environmental Issues

October 18, 1972: Congress passed the Clean Water Act, overriding President Richard M. Nixon’s veto. (see December 28, 1973) (NYT Clean Water Act article)

October 18 Peace Love Art Activism

CLINTON IMPEACHMENT

October 18, 1999: Robert Raysworn in as the successor to Independent Counsel Ken Starr, inheriting a highly controversial investigation and the duty to write the special prosecutor’s final report. (see Clinton for expanded story)

October 18 Peace Love Art Activism

LGBTQ

October 18, 2012: the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan became the second in the nation to strike down the Defense of Marriage Act as unconstitutional. The decision upheld a lower court judge who ruled that the 1996 law that defines marriage as involving a man and a woman was unconstitutional. The three-judge panel said the law violates equal protection. A federal appeals court in Boston earlier in the year also found it unconstitutional. (NYT article) (next LGBTQ+ see Oct 23 or see December 13, 2022 re DoMA)

New Jersey

October 18, 2013: NJ state Supreme Court ruled that  the state must begin granting same-sex marriage licenses on October 21 (Monday) (see Oct 21) (NYT article)

October 18 Peace Love Art Activism

Newsweek

October 18, 2012, Newsweek magazine, in print publication since February 17, 1933, announced that would end print publication at the end of the year. (NYT article)

October 18 Peace Love Art Activism

Sexual Abuse of Children

Boy Scouts of America

October 18, 2012: thousands of pages of internal documents, police files and newspaper clippings were released about how the Boy Scouts of America had policed the ranks of its scoutmasters and other volunteers to guard against sexual predators — and how they had often failed. The files were put together over a 20-year period in states across the nation on 1,247 men who were accused of abuse between 1965 and 1985, often with multiple victims. The release of the documents creates, for the first time, a public database on specific abuse accusations. (Sexual abuse, see Dec 21; BSA, see January 28, 2013) (NYT article)

Pennsylvania investigation

October 18, 2018: the US Justice Department opened an investigation into Roman Catholic dioceses in Pennsylvania accused of covering up sex abuse for decades.

It may have been the first statewide investigation by the federal government of the church’s sex abuse problems. And it came two months after the Pennsylvania attorney general’s office released a grand jury report charging that bishops and other church leaders had covered up the abuse of more than 1,000 people over a period of more than 70 years. (see Nov 8)

October 18 Peace Love Art Activism

SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE

October 18, 2017: the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of secularists in a challenge of an enormous cross in the middle of a public roadway in Maryland.

The Bladensburg cross was a massive Latin cross displayed on government property in the center of one of the busiest intersections in Prince George’s County, Md. The religious structure, a claimed war memorial, had been maintained with thousands of dollars in government funds.

The Court of Appeals concluded  that the monumental cross — a universal hallmark symbol of Christianity — entangled the government with religion.

“One simply cannot ignore the fact that for thousands of years, the Latin cross has represented Christianity,” wrote the court in its opinion. “Even in the memorial context, a Latin cross serves not simply as a generic symbol of death, but rather a Christian symbol of the death of Jesus Christ.” (see April 15)

October 18 Peace Love Art Activism

Feminism & Space

October 18, 2019: NASA astronauts Jessica Meir and Christina Koch conducted the first all-female spacewalk outside of the International Space Station.  (next Feminism, see January 15, 2020 ; next Space, see February 6, 2020)

October 18 Peace Love Art Activism

Immigration History

October 19. 2019: Health and Human Services official Cmdr. Jonathan White told U.S. District Judge Dana Sabraw he believed a “final accounting” would show at least 1,250 additional children had been separated from their parents before Sabraw issued an injunction stopping the family separation practice.

The additional separations would likely be confirmed before an October. 25 deadline set on April 25 by Sabraw in the expanded family separation class action he was presiding over in the Southern District of California.

The government had 6 months to account for all additional families it separated after a January 2019 report by the Office of Inspector General raised the alarm that thousands more children may have been separated than previously thought.

The American Civil Liberties Union also alerted the court during the summer about hundreds more families that had been separated despite Sabraw’s order ceasing the practice. The government had separated those families due to parental criminal history for minor crimes including misdemeanors. (next IH, see Oct 24; next Judge Sabraw, see January 13, 2020)

October 18 Peace Love Art Activism