October 10th
 

1813 ~ Birthday of Giuseppe Verdi, Italian composer.

1845 ~ In Annapolis, Maryland, the Naval School (later renamed the United States Naval Academy) opened with 50 midshipmen students and seven professors.

1875 ~ Death of Aleksey Tolstoy, Novelist & Poet.

1966 ~ Simon and Garfunkel released the album Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme.

1970 ~ A crisis hit Canada when Quebec Vice-Premier Pierre Laporte became the second statesman kidnapped by members of the FLQ terrorist group.

1973 ~ Vice President Spiro T. Agnew pleaded no contest to one count of federal income tax evasion and resigned.

1975 ~ Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor remarried.

1980 ~ UK PM Margaret Thatcher gave a defiant speech at the Tory party conference "… I have only one thing to say: You turn if you want to. The lady's not for turning!"

1985 ~ U.S. Navy F-14s intercepted the plane carrying the “Achille Lauro” cruise ship hijackers and forced it to land at a NATO base in Sicily where they were arrested.

1985 ~ Death of Yul Brynner, Actor and Orson Welles, Director & Actor.

jseal

I thought we had it straight that Yul Brynner was really Orson Welles.

October 11th
 

1809 ~ Death of Meriwether Lewis, explorer.

1844 ~ Birthday of Henry Heinz, food manufacturer.

1896 ~ Death of Anton Bruckner, Austrian composer.

1899 ~ In South Africa, a war between the UK and the Boers of the Transvaal and Orange Free State began.

1958 ~ Pioneer 1 was launched; it failed to go as far as planned, fell back to Earth and burned up in the atmosphere.

1961 ~ Death of Chico Marx, comedian.

1962 ~ Pope John XXIII convened the Second Vatican Council.

1968 ~ Launch of Apollo 7, the first manned Apollo mission.

1976 ~ China's "Gang of Four" was arrested.

2002 ~ The U.S. Senate joined the House in approving the use of America's military might against Iraq.

October 12th
 

1492 ~ Christopher Columbus's first expedition makes landfall in the Caribbean. But where?

1864 ~ Death of U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Roger Taney, author of the Dred Scott decision.

1870 ~ Death of Gen. Robert E. Lee, Leader.

1872 ~ Birthday of Ralph Vaughan Williams, English composer.

1968 ~ Summer Olympics open in Mexico City.

1977 ~ Four Palestinians hijacked a Lufthansa Airlines flight to Somalia and demanded release of 11 members of the Red Army Faction.

1984 ~ UK PM Margaret Thatcher narrowly escaped an IRA bomb attack.

1986 ~ Presidents Reagan and Gorbachev failed to agree on Star Wars at a disarmament summit in Reykjavik.

2000 ~ Terrorists attacked the USS Cole in the Yemeni port of Aden.

2002 ~ A terrorist bomb at a Bali nightclub killed 202 people, mainly Australians.

I was working at Darwin Airport when this happened and watched the Hercs and the medevac bizjets come through. Our hospital was swamped (along with Perth) .

It was a shitty time.

October 13th
 

54 ~ Death of Claudius, Roman Emperor.

1307 ~ All Knights Templar in France were simultaneously arrested by agents of the French king, to be later tortured into admitting heresy.

1812 ~ Death of Sir Isaac Brock, British general (killed in the Battle of Queenston Heights).

1925 ~ Birthday of Margaret Thatcher, UK PM.

1943 ~ Italy changes alliances from the Axis to the Allies.

1954 ~ Birthday of Mordechai Vanunu, Israeli nuclear technician.

1969 ~ Birthday of Nancy Kerrigan, American figure skater.

1982 ~ Birthday of Ian Thorpe, Australian swimmer.

1988 ~ The UK government lost the Spycatcher battle

1992 ~ The UK government announced plans to close one third of the coal mines.

October 14th
 

1894 ~ Birthday of E. E. Cummings, American poet.

1940 ~ Birthday of Cliff Richard, British rock singer.

1944 ~ Given the choice between a public treason trial and a certain death by firing squad or suicide with honor, German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel chose the latter.

1947 ~ Chuck Yeager flew a Bell X-1 faster than the speed of sound, the first man to do so in level flight.

1962 ~ Cuban Missile Crisis began: A U-2 flight over Cuba took photos of Soviet nuclear weapons being installed.

1964 ~ Civil Rights movement leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr became the youngest recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize.

1977 ~ Death of Bing Crosby, Actor & Singer.

1990 ~ Death of Leonard Bernstein, Composer & Conductor.

1991 ~ Aung San Suu Kyi was named winner of the Nobel Peace Prize.

1994 ~ PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat, Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin shared the Nobel Peace Prize.

October 15th
 

70 BC ~ Birthday of Virgil, Roman poet.

1844 ~ Birthday of Friedrich Nietzsche, Philosopher.

1908 ~ Birthday of John Kenneth Galbraith, Economist.

1917 ~ Mata Hari was executed by firing squad for spying for Germany.

1964 ~ Death of Cole Porter, Composer.

1964 ~ Nikita Khrushchev “retired” as head of USSR.

1990 ~ Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

1991 ~ The Senate confirmed the nomination of Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court.

1993 ~ Nelson Mandela and F.W. de Klerk were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

2003 ~ China launched its first manned spacecraft into orbit, becoming the third country to do so.

October 16th
 

1758 ~ Birthday of Noah Webster, American lexicographer.

1793 ~ Death of Marie Antoinette – guillotined.

1854 ~ Birthday of Oscar Wilde, Irish writer.

1859 ~ In one of the developments towards the American Civil War, John Brown led a raid of the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia.

1916 ~ Planned Parenthood founded by Margaret Sanger.

1925 ~ Birthday of Angela Lansbury, actress.

1964 ~ China detonated its first nuclear weapon.

1970 ~ Anwar Sadat was elected President of Egypt.

1978 ~ Karol Józef Wojtyła became Pope John Paul II. He was the first non Italian to be elevated to the position since 1522.

1981 ~ Death of Moshe Dayan, Israeli general.

October 17th
 

1777 ~ British forces under Gen. John Burgoyne surrendered to American troops in Saratoga, N.Y.

1888 ~ Thomas Edison filed a patent for the Optical Phonograph.

1915 ~ Birthday of Arthur Miller, Playwright.

1931 ~ Al Capone convicted of income tax evasion.

1956 ~ Queen Elizabeth opened the first commercial nuclear power station, at Calder Hall.

1972 ~ Birthday of Eminem, rap music performer.

1973 ~ Arab oil-producing nations announced they would cut back oil exports to Western nations and Japan; the result was a total embargo that lasted until March 1974.

1977 ~ West German commandos stormed a hijacked Lufthansa jetliner on the ground in Mogadishu, Somalia, freeing all 86 hostages and killing three of the four hijackers.

1979 ~ Mother Teresa of India was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her work on behalf of the destitute in Calcutta.

1989 ~ Loma Prieta earthquake hit the San Francisco Bay Area.

October 18th
 

1851 ~ Moby-Dick, a novel by Herman Melville, was first published as The Whale.

1871 ~ Death of Charles Babbage, mathematician and inventor of computing machines.

1919 ~ Birthday of Pierre Trudeau, fifteenth PM of Canada.

1926 ~ Birthday of Chuck Berry, Musician.

1935 ~ Birthday of Peter Boyle, American actor.

1939 ~ Birthday of Lee Harvey Oswald, Assassin.

1954 ~ The Regency Division of Industrial Development Engineering Associates announced the first Transistor radio.

1962 ~ Dr. Watson of the United States, and Drs. Crick and Wilkins of the UK, were named winners of the Nobel Prize for Medicine and Physiology for their work in determining the double-helix molecular structure of DNA.

1989 ~ Erich Honecker was forced to step down as leader of East Germany after 18 years in power.

2006 ~ Death of Anna Russell, English music satirist.

October 19th
 

1745 ~ Death of Jonathan Swift, Author.

1781 ~ Lord Cornwallis surrendered at Yorktown, effectively ending the American War of Independence.

1812 ~ French forces under Napoleon Bonaparte began a retreat from Moscow.

1931 ~ Birthday of John Le Carré, Author.

1943 ~ Streptomycin was isolated; the first antibiotic remedy for tuberculosis.

1950 ~ Death of Edna St. Vincent Millay, Poet.

1954 ~ Metal fatigue was identified as the cause of Comet crashes.

1969 ~ U.S. Vice President Spiro T. Agnew referred to anti-Vietnam War protesters “an effete corps of impudent snobs.”

1987 ~ The DJI fell by 22% (Black Monday).

2005 ~ The trial of Saddam Hussein began.

October 20th
 

1632 ~ Birthday of Sir Christopher Wren, Architect.

1740 ~ Maria Theresa took the throne of Austria.

1803 ~ The U.S. Senate ratified the Louisiana Purchase.

1882 ~ Birthday of Bela Lugosi, Actor.

1893 ~ Birthday of Jomo Kenyatta, President of Kenya.

1931 ~ Birthday of Mickey Mantle, athlete.

1983 ~ Grenada's Prime Minister, Maurice Bishop, was assassinated.

1973 ~ In the “Saturday Night Massacre”, President Nixon abolished the office of special Watergate prosecutor, accepted the resignation of the Attorney General, and fired Deputy Attorney General William B. Ruckelshaus.

1973 ~ The Sydney Opera House opened.

1984 ~ Death of Paul Dirac, awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics 1933.

October 21st
 

1772 ~ Birthday of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Poet.

1805 ~ A British fleet led by Admiral Lord Nelson defeated a combined French and Spanish fleet in the Battle of Trafalgar off the coast of Spain.

1805 ~ Death of Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson.

1833 ~ Birthday of Alfred Nobel, Swedish inventor and benefactor of the Nobel Prize.

1854 ~ Florence Nightingale and a staff of 38 nurses were sent to the Crimean War.

1879 ~ Thomas Edison invented a workable electric light.

1917 ~ Birthday of Dizzy Gillespie, Jazz Musician.

1929 ~ Birthday of Ursula K. Le Guin, Science Fiction Author.

1944 ~ The first kamikaze attack: HMAS Australia was hit by a Japanese plane carrying a 200 kg bomb.

1983 ~ The meter was defined as the distance light travels in a vacuum in 1/299,792,458 of a second.

October 22nd
 

741 ~ Death of Charles Martel, leader of the Franks.

1746 ~ Princeton University in New Jersey received its charter.

1836 ~ Sam Houston was inaugurated as the first President of the Republic of Texas.

1844 ~ Birthday of Sarah Bernhardt, Actress.

1906 ~ Death of Paul Cezanne, Painter.

1920 ~ Birthday of Timothy Leary, writer, psychedelic drug advocate.

1943 ~ Birthday of Catherine Deneuve, Actress.

1943 ~ The RAF air raid on Kassel, a city of 236,000 people, killed 10,000, and left 150,000 homeless.

1962 ~ US President Kennedy announced that American spy planes had discovered Soviet nuclear weapons in Cuba, and that he had ordered a naval "quarantine" of the island nation.

1990 ~ The region around the Aral Sea assessed as the world’s worst ecological disaster.

October 23rd
 

4004 BC ~ The start of the universe, according to the Ussher-Lightfoot Calendar.

1892 ~ Birthday of Gummo Marx, actor, comedian (Marx Brothers).

1935 ~ Birthday of Chi Chi Rodriguez, golf champion.

1940 ~ Birthday of Pelé, soccer player Extraordinaire.

1942 ~ In Egypt, British forces begin a major offensive against Axis forces by initiating the Second Battle of El Alamein.

1956 ~ Hungarians took to the streets in to demand an end to Soviet rule. Thousands died.

1958 ~ Belgian cartoonist Peyo introduced a new set of comic strip characters "The Smurfs".

1983 ~ U.S. & French barracks in Beirut hit by truck bombs, killing 241 U.S. servicemen and 58 French.

1993 ~ Toronto Blue Jays outfielder Joe Carter became the second player to end a World Series with a home run - three-run shot that gave Toronto an 8-6 victory over the Philadelphia Phillies in Game 6.

1998 ~ Death of Dr. Barnett Slepian, physician.

October 24th
 

1632 ~ Birthday of Anton van Leeuwenhoek, the “Father of Microbiology".

1799 ~ Death of Karl Ditters von Dittersdorf, Composer.

1929 ~ Death of George Cadbury, Chocolate Manufacturer & Philanthropist.

1929 ~ "Black Thursday" crash of the New York Stock Exchange.

1945 ~ Founding of the United Nations Organisation.

1947 ~ The expression “Cold War” was first used by Bernard Baruch to the U.S. Senate War Investigation Committee.

1948 ~ Death of Franz Lehár, Composer.

1992 ~ In the first real "World" Series, the Toronto Blue Jays became the first non-US team to win the World Series.

2002 ~ John Muhammad and Lee Malvo were arrested in connection with the Washington D.C. area sniper attacks.

2003 ~ The Concorde completed its last commercial flight.

October 25th
 

1400 ~ Death of Geoffrey Chaucer, Poet.

1825 ~ Birthday of Johann Strauss II, Composer.

1838 ~ Birthday of Georges Bizet, Composer.

1854 ~ Battle of Balaklava during the Crimean War. You can listen and follow along to Lord Tennyson as he reads his poem, “The Charge of the Light Brigade”.

1881 ~ Birthday of Pablo Picasso, Painter & Sculptor.

1924 ~ First appearance of "Little Orphan Annie”.

1936 ~ Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini created the Rome-Berlin Axis.

1971 ~ The UN General Assembly seated the People's Republic of China and expelled the Republic of China.

1983 ~ U.S. troops invade Grenada.

1993 ~ Death of Vincent Price, Actor.

October 26th
 

1685 ~ Birthday of Domenico Scarlatti, Composer.

1881 ~ The Gunfight at the O.K. Corral took place at Tombstone, Arizona.

1905 ~ Norway became independent from Sweden.

1918 ~ Erich von Ludendorff was dismissed by Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany for refusing to cooperate in peace negotiations.

1947 ~ The Maharaja of Kashmir agreed to allow his kingdom to join India.

1965 ~ The Beatles were appointed Members of the Order of the British Empire (MBEs).

1972 ~ Death of Igor Sikorsky, helicopter pioneer.

1994 ~ Announcement of Andrew Wiles’ correct proof of Fermat's Last Theorem.

1994 ~ Israel and Jordan made peace.

2001 ~ The USA Patriot Act passed into law.

October 27th
 

1466 ~ Birthday of Erasmus of Rotterdam, Dutch writer and philosopher.

1728 ~ Birthday of James Cook, British Captain and explorer.

1787 ~ The first of the Federalist Papers, a series of essays calling for ratification of the U.S. Constitution, was published.

1811 ~ Birthday of Isaac Singer, inventor of the sewing machine.

1904 ~ New York’s first rapid transit subway opened.

1914 ~ Birthday of Dylan Thomas, British poet and writer. If you’ve never heard Richard Burton read Under Milk Wood, you have a treat in store for you!

1932 ~ Birthday of Sylvia Plath, American poet.

1991 ~ Turkmenistan achieved independence from the Soviet Union.

2002 ~ Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was elected President of Brazil.

2005 ~ Riots begin in Paris after the deaths of two Muslim teenagers.

October 28th
 

1485 ~ Le Morte D'Arthur was published.

1492 ~ Christopher Columbus landed in Cuba.

1726 ~ Gulliver's Travels published.

1886 ~ The Statue of Liberty was dedicated.

1903 ~ Birthday of Evelyn Waugh, Novelist.

1914 ~ Birthday of Dr. Jonas Salk, developer of the first effective polio vaccine.

1926 ~ Birthday of Bowie Kuhn, 5th commissioner of Major League Baseball.

1955 ~ Birthday of Bill Gates, co-founder and Chairman of Microsoft.

1962 ~ Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev informed the U.S. that he had ordered the dismantling of Soviet missile bases in Cuba.

1980 ~ Ronald Reagan asked voters during a debate with Jimmy Carter in Cleveland ''are you better off than you were four years ago?''.

I listened to Richard Burton reading "Under Milk Wood" yesterday and you were absolutely correct jseal, that indeed was a treat. :thumb:

IowaMan,

The man had a wonderful voice. If I can ever find a link to it, I'll try to get his reading of "The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner" posted.

October 29th
 

1911 ~ Death of Joseph Pulitzer, newspaper publisher and journalist.

1923 ~ The dissolution of the Ottoman Empire.

1929 ~ New York Stock Exchange stock prices collapsed amid panic selling.

1947 ~ Birthday of Richard Dreyfuss, American actor.

1948 ~ Birthday of Kate Jackson, American actress.

1957 ~ Death of Louis B. Mayer, film producer. The second “M” in “MGM”.

1969 ~ The first computer-to-computer link was established on ARPANET.

1975 ~ General Franco’s dictatorship of Spain came to an end.

1982 ~ Lindy Chamberlain was found guilty of the murder of her nine-week-old daughter.

2004 ~ Osama bin Laden, in a videotaped statement, directly admitted for the first time that he'd ordered the Sept. 11 attacks.

October 30th
 

1831 ~ Nat Turner was arrested for leading the bloodiest slave revolt in U.S. history.

1839 ~ Birthday of Alfred Sisley, one of the creators of French Impressionism.

1885 ~ Birthday of Ezra Pound, Poet.

1922 ~ Benito Mussolini became Prime Minister of Italy.

1938 ~ Orson Welles’ broadcast of “The War of the Worlds” caused a panic.

1939 ~ Birthday of Grace Slick, singer with Jefferson Airplane.

1961 ~ The Soviet Union detonated the 58 megaton hydrogen bomb "Tsar Bomba".

1974 ~ Muhammad Ali beat George Foreman to regain the World Heavyweight Boxing championship.

1995 ~ Quebec separatists lost a referendum for a mandate to negotiate independence from Canada (vote was 50.6% to 49.4%

2005 ~ The reconsecration of the Dresden Frauenkirche, which was destroyed in the firebombing of Dresden during World War II.

October 31st
 

1517 ~ Protestant Reformation got under way: Martin Luther posted his 95 theses on the door of the Wittenberg Castle Church. For a unique insight to this happening, click here.

1795 ~ Birthday of John Keats, Poet.

1892 ~ Arthur Conan Doyle published "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes".

1926 ~ Death of Harry Houdini, Magician.

1930 ~ Birthday of Michael Collins, the 3rd astronaut of Apollo 11.

1829 ~ Birthday of Alexander Alekhine, the fourth World Chess Champion.

1956 ~ Suez Crisis: The UK and France began bombing Egypt to force the reopening of the Suez Canal.

1984 ~ Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated by two Sikh security guards (riots soon broke out in New Delhi and nearly 2,000 innocent Sikhs were killed).

1987 ~ Death of Joseph Campbell, Author and expert on mythology.

Joe Campbell was one of those who Isaac Asimov attributed with his success.

^^ Very cool! ^^ I was unaware of that. TY :)

November 1st
 

1512 ~ The ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, painted by Michelangelo, was exhibited to the public for the first time.

1604 ~ At Whitehall Palace in London, the William Shakespeare tragedy Othello was presented for the first time.

1755 ~ Lisbon, Portugal was destroyed by a massive earthquake and tsunami, killing between sixty and ninety thousand people.

1923 ~ Birthday of Gordon R. Dickson, Science Fiction author.

1935 ~ Birthday of Gary Player, South African golfer.

1952 ~ The U.S. successfully detonated the first hydrogen bomb, codenamed Mike, at Eniwetok island in the Bikini atoll.

1963 ~ The Arecibo Observatory in Arecibo, Puerto Rico, with the largest radio telescope ever constructed, officially opened.

1972 ~ Death of Ezra Pound, Poet.

1993 ~ The Maastricht Treaty took effect, formally establishing the European Union.

1999 ~ Death of Walter Payton, American athlete.

November 2nd
 

1739 ~ Birthday of Carl Ditters von Dittersdorf, Composer.

1755 ~ Birthday of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France.

1815 ~ Birthday of George Boole, Mathematician & Philosopher.

1930 ~ Haile Selassie was crowned emperor of Ethiopia.

1936 ~ The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation was established.

1950 ~ Death of George Bernard Shaw, Playwright.

1976 ~ Former Georgia Gov. Jimmy Carter defeated incumbent Gerald R. Ford.

1964 ~ In a family coup, King Saud of Saudi Arabia was deposed, and replaced by his half-brother Faisal.

1983 ~ President Reagan signed a bill establishing a federal holiday in honor of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.

1988 ~ The Morris worm was launched from MIT.

November 3rd
 

1801 ~ Birthday of Vincenzo Bellini, Italian opera composer.

1838 ~ The Times of India, the world's largest circulated English language daily broadsheet newspaper was founded.

1903 ~ Panama proclaimed itself independent from Colombia.

1918 ~ Poland declared its independence from Russia.

1936 ~ Incumbent President Franklin D. Roosevelt was re-elected in a landslide over Republican Alfred M. ''Alf'' Landon.

1954 ~ Death of Henri Matisse, French artist.

1957 ~ Sputnik program: The Soviet Union launched Sputnik 2. On board is the first animal to enter space - a dog named Laika.

1964 ~ Incumbent President Lyndon Johnson defeated challenger Barry Goldwater with over 60 percent of the popular vote.

1986 ~ Iran-Contra Affair : The Lebanese magazine Ash-Shiraa reported that the United States had been selling weapons to Iran in secret in order to secure the release of seven American hostages held by pro-Iranian groups in Lebanon.

1992 ~ U.S. presidential election: Challenger Bill Clinton defeated incumbent Republican George H.W. Bush & independent candidate Ross Perot.

1993 ~ Death of Leon Theremin, Russian inventor.

November 4th
 

1847 ~ Death of Felix Mendelssohn, German composer.

1869 ~ The first issue of scientific journal Nature was published.

1900 ~ Sigmund Freud's The Interpretation of Dreams was published.

1922 ~ British archaeologist Howard Carter and his men found the entrance to King Tutankhamen's tomb in the Valley of the Kings.

1924 ~ Death of Gabriel Fauré, French composer.

1948 ~ T.S. Eliot won the Nobel Prize in Literature.

1956 ~ Soviet troops invaded Hungary to crush the Hungarian revolution that started on October 23. Thousands were killed, more were wounded, and nearly a quarter million left the country.

1979 ~ Students storm the US embassy in Tehran and took 90 hostages.

1980 ~ Ronald Reagan won the White House, defeating President Jimmy Carter by a wide margin.

1995 ~ The Israeli Prime Minister, Yitzhak Rabin, was assassinated at a peace rally in Tel Aviv.

November 5th
 

1605 ~ A plot to blow up the English Houses of Parliament was foiled when Guy Fawkes was discovered in a cellar below the building.

1872 ~ Suffragist Susan B. Anthony voted for the first time. She was fined $100 for the privilege.

1892 ~ Birthday of J. B. S. Haldane, Geneticist.

1911 ~ Birthday of Roy Rogers, American actor.

1930 ~ Sinclair Lewis was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.

1942 ~ The Second Battle of El Alamein was won by the British in El Alamein, Egypt.

1977 ~ Death of Guy Lombardo, Conductor.

1979 ~ Ayatollah Khomeini declares the USA to be "the great Satan".

1989 ~ Death of Vladimir Horowitz, Pianist.

1999 ~ Federal Judge Thomas Jackson declared Microsoft Corp. a monopoly, saying the software giant's aggressive actions were ''stifling innovation'' and hurting consumers.

Remember, remember the fifth of November.

Oldfart,

It s interesting to note that Mr. Fawkes would, if judged by contemporary standards, be judged a terrorist, perhaps even a jihadist. Way back in the 20th century, many ... most ... in the West assumed religion was becoming marginal to public life. Throughout the world zealotry again seems all too relevant to public policy.

jseal,

It was largely about British oppression of the Irish, the aftermath of the failed Jacobite rebellion.

The perspective of the terrorist/freedom fighter blurs.

Had the American revolution failed or the War of 1812 won by the Brits, the American revolutionaries would have been treated like Fawkes.

Oldfart,

Well, perhaps, but history records that Fawkes converted to Catholicism around the age of 16. He enlisted in the army of Archduke Albert of Austria in the Netherlands and fought with the armies of Catholic Spain against the Protestant United Provinces.
So we have a religious convert who traveled to a foreign country where he learned how to use explosives, and returned to his home country where he joined a plot to blow up a civilian target.

These seem to me to be interesting similarities between this 16th century Catholic and some 21st century Muslims.

November 6th
 

1789 ~ Pope Pius VI appointed Father John Carroll as the first Roman Catholic bishop in the United States.

1854 ~ Birthday of John Philip Sousa, composer of the official march of the U.S., The Stars and Stripes Forever (requires RealPlayer)

1861 ~ Jefferson Davis was elected president of the Confederate States of America.

1861 ~ Birthday of James Naismith, inventor of basketball.

1869 ~ Rutgers University defeats Princeton University, 6-4, in the first official intercollegiate American football game.

1893 ~ Death of Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Composer.

1913 ~ Mahatma Gandhi was arrested while leading a march of Indian miners in South Africa.

1962 ~ The UN General Assembly passed a resolution condemning South Africa's racist apartheid policies and called for all member states to cease military and economic relations with the nation.

1999 ~ Australians voted to keep the British queen as their head of state.

2000 ~ Death of L. Sprague De Camp, Science Fiction writer.

jseal,

A freedom fighter has to learn his fighting skills somewhere, lest he become a martyr on the first attempt.

We vilify the human bombs the Islamists are using, but praise the dutch kids who walked into bars filled with Gemans with grenades in their pockets.

How we see things is a function of our culture. There are no absolutes.

Our republic.

Yes, our options in 1999 were ill defined, and it's easier to get rid of the Brit queen later than to change a mode of Government that has become entrenched.


PF, I don't want to know why the Germans had grenades in their pockets.

Oldfart,

In re the musings of a frustrated republican, be careful what you ask for - sometimes you get it. :)

If, by the Dutch kids, you are referring to the WWII resistance movement, I would suggest that their political motivation can be clearly distinguished from the religious ones displayed by the Gunpowder Plotters and Muslim Jihadists.