October 4
Sculpting begins on the face of Mount Rushmore in the Black Hills National Forest of South Dakota, which is completed 12 years later. – 1927
Thirty-seven striking black Louisiana sugar workers are murdered when Louisiana militia, aided by bands of so-called prominent citizens, shoot unarmed workers trying to get a dollar-per-day wage. Two strike leaders were lynched. – 1887.
The Soviet Union inaugurates the Space Age with its launch of Sputnik, the world’s first artificial satellite. -1957.
October 5
American David Kunst completes the first round-the-world journey on foot, which took four years and 21 pairs of shoes to complete the 14,500-mile journey across the land masses of four continents. During the long journey, he took on sponsors and helped raise money for UNICEF. – 1974.
October 6
The surprise attack by Egyptian and Syrian forces on Israel in October 1973, called the Yom Kippur War, throws the Middle East into turmoil and threatens to bring the United States and the Soviet Union into direct conflict for the first time since the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. – 1973.
Some 1,700 female flight attendants win 18-year, $37 Million suit against United Airlines. They had been fired for getting married. – 1986.
October 7
The most devastating fire in United States history is ignited in Wisconsin. Over the course of the next day, 1,200 individuals lose their lives and 2 Billion trees were consumed by flames. – 1871.
A U.S.-led coalition begins attacks on Taliban-controlled Afghanistan with an intense bombing campaign by American and British forces. The invasion of Afghanistan was the opening salvo in the president George W. Bush-led United States war on terrorism and a response to the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the U.S. East Coast. – 2001.
October 8
Flames spark in the Chicago barn of Patrick and Catherine O’Leary and ignite a two-day blaze that kills between 200 and 300 residents, destroys 17,450 buildings, leaves 100,000 homeless, and causes an estimated $200 Million, equivalent of $3.8 Billion in today’s dollars, in damages. – 1871.
A massive 7.6-magnitude earthquake strikes the Kashmir border region between India and Pakistan. An estimated 70,000 persons were killed and 70,000 more were injured. More than 3 Million were left homeless and damages exceeded $5 Billion. – 2005.
The U.S. House of Representatives votes to proceed toward impeaching president Bill Clinton on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice in alleged involvement in several scandals, including allegedly improper Arkansas real-estate deals, suspected fundraising violations, claims of sexual harassment, and accusations of cronyism involving the firing of White House travel agents. – 1998.
October 9
Harnessing the power of the mighty Colorado River, Hoover Dam begins to send electricity over transmission lines spanning 266 miles to Los Angeles. – 1936.
Socialist revolutionary and Cuban guerilla leader, Che Guevara, 39, is killed by the Bolivian army. – 1967.
Michelle Knapp is watching television in her parents’ living room in Peekskill, N.Y. when she hears a thunderous crash in the driveway. A sizable hole is in the rear end of her car from what looked like an ordinary, bowling-ball-sized rock. The next day it was confirmed that the object was a genuine meteorite. – 1992.
October 10
A powerful storm slams the islands of the West Indies and kills more than 20,000 and is known as the Great Hurricane of 1780. – 1780.
Six days into a cotton field strike by 18,000 Mexican and Mexican-American workers in Pixley, Calif., four strikers are killed and six wounded; eight growers were indicted and charged with murder. – 1933.
A former U.S. postal worker kills his former supervisor with a three-foot samurai sword, shoots the supervisor’s fiance, and shoots two former co-workers to death at the post office in Ridgewood, N.J.. His violent outburst was one of several high-profile attacks by postal workers that resulted in the addition of the phrase “going postal” to the American lexicon. – 1994.
• “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” —George Santayana, Philosopher
Sources: History.com, Toil and Trouble, by Thomas R. Brooks; American Labor Struggles, by Samuel Yellen; IWW calendar, Solidarity Forever; Historical Encyclopedia of American Labor, edited by Robert E. Weir and James P. Hanlan; Southwest Labor History Archives/George Meany Center; Geov Parrish’s Radical History; workday Minnesota; Andy Richards and Adam Wright, AFL-CIO Washington DC Metro Council.