On This Day: October 06
Today's History Show Notes - Episode 5
Big Day for Innovation — Instagram Launched in 2010
Instagram launched 13 years ago on this day, and the app has changed our interactions and helped reshape our society. From Investopedia:
“The story of Instagram’s explosive rise reads like a Silicon Valley fairy tale, with the company gaining staggering momentum within just a few short months. The photo and video-sharing social media application took only eight weeks for software engineers to develop before it was launched on Apple’s mobile operating system in October 2010. In less than two years, Facebook (META) had acquired the company for $1 billion in cash and stock.”
There are lots of firsts and discoveries on this day in history, from the 13 Mennonite families founding Germantown, Philadelphia in 1683 to Dr. Charles H Sheppard opening the first US public bath, in Brooklyn, in 1863.
In 1893, Nabisco invented Cream of Wheat, and then on the same day in 1951, Will Keith Kellogg, of Kelloggs cereal fame, passed away. He launched Kelloggs in 1906 as the “Battle Creek Toasted Corn Flake Company.” Apparently by accident.
In 1890, the innovation of polygamy hit a snag when the General Conference of the Latter-day Saints outlawed polygamy, devastating sister wives everywhere.
Today in History
1939: Adolf Hitler Announces Plans to Regulate the “Jewish Problem”
Hilter was courting the French and English in his 1939 Reichstag Speech, during which he called for a new European “Peace Conference,” to “to reach a solution and settlement of the Jewish problem."
Exactly four years later in 1943, Heinrich Himmler called for an acceleration of the “Final Solution,” of which he was the architect, during a speech in the town hall of Posen, in German-occupied Poland. On that same day, American Jewish Rabbis marched on Washington to demand the US defend the European Jews. October 6 marks significant milestones in World War II, as well as in the nuclear arms race and Cold War that followed. From “I Guide You Through the Hague”, in 1945:
“Eisenhower came to The Hague by rail from Frankfurt via Utrecht on a train that clearly proclaimed victory, as it was composed of the salon cars of Hitler, Goering and Goebbels. Not all Nazi symbols had been removed yet. The flowers were in vases decorated with the swastika and the coffee cups also carried this image. The train’s engineer had a special gift for the general: a pair of cufflinks made of old silver quarters and dimes. During the war, making and wearing these objects was a form of passive resistance. This reuse of coins taken out of circulation by the Germans was also a sign of support for the Dutch royal family.”
The same day Eisenhower arrived, Leonardo Conti, a Nazi physician on trial at Nuremberg hung himself. A year later, in 1946, President Harry Truman signed a Mutual Defense Assistance Act for NATO. But the naivete of the peace was apparent by 1951 when, on the same day, Joseph Stalin proclaimed that the Soviet Union obtained the atomic bomb.
By 1961, President Kennedy was advising Americans to build fallout shelters, and the US and USSR took turns conducting nuclear tests, with a few on October 6 in both the US (1962) and USSR (1957, 1967).
Fast-forwarding to 1983, China performed a nuclear test in the PRC, and three years later in 1986, later a Russian nuclear sub K291 sank in the Atlantic Ocean. Busy week for nukes!
1959: Soviet Luna 3 First Craft to Reach Moon
We got the first alleged pictures of the moon on this day in 1959, when the Soviet Luna 3 became “the first spacecraft to reach the surface of the Moon, and the first human-made object to make contact with another celestial body.” You can view the full catalog images here. From NASA:
“Luna 3, an automatic interplanetary station, was the third spacecraft successfully launched to the Moon and the first to return images of the lunar far side. The spacecraft returned very indistinct pictures, but, through computer enhancement, a tentative atlas of the lunar farside was produced. These first views of the lunar far side showed mountainous terrain, very different from the near side, and only two dark regions which were named Mare Moscovrae (Sea of Moscow) and Mare Desiderii (Sea of Dreams). (Mare Desiderii was later found to be composed of a smaller mare, Mare Ingenii (Sea of Ingenuity) and other dark craters.)”
Check out that computer enhancement!
In 1990, both the Solar Polar Orbiter 'Ulysses' launched and Discovery 11 (STS 41) launched, with the latter becoming the US’s 67th manned mission to space. Five years later, 51 Pegasi was discovered to have an orbiting planet, the first major star apart from the Sun to have that distinction.
In other science, Paleoanthropologist Mary Leakey found the first fossilized (partial) skull of Proconsul Africanus in Kenya in 1948. Trust-the-Scientists claim this was an ape that lived from about 23 to 14 million years ago and is related to humans.
Albert Sabin announced his polio vaccine was ready for testing on this day in 1956. Then 65 years later, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus recommended the world's first Malaria vaccine for children after a pilot program was alleged to be effective in Africa. That same day in 2021, Los Angeles voted in some of the strictest COVID-19 vaccine mandates in the country.
October 6 became more serious and less colorful in 1966 when the state of California declared LSD illegal. Other states would follow, and the following year the hippies held a mock funeral to mark the end of the summer of love. From the University of California at Santa Cruz:
“Death of Hippie was a mock funeral staged on October 6, 1967 meant to signal the end of the Summer of Love. Organized by the Diggers to convince the media to stop covering the Haight, attendees burned underground newspapers and hippie clothing. Leaders carried a coffin down Haight Street and the crowd stopped for a “kneel-in” at the corner of Haight and Ashbury.”
Okay, maybe not more serious, but definitely less colorful.
1993: Michael Jordan Announces Retirement
Michael Jordan played nine seasons and won three Championships with the Chicago Bulls, and announced his retirement on this day in 1993. It only lasted a couple years. He returned in march of 1995 and led Bulls to another three NBA titles.
Speaking of 1995, the Colorado Avalanche played their first NHL game – and won – on this day. Here is a clip of their first ever goal. Other milestones in sports on October 6:
1926: Babe Ruth becomes the first MLB player to hit three home runs in a World Series.
1976 John Hathaway completes 50,600 mile bicycle tour of every continent
1983 NY Jets announce they are leaving Shea for Meadowlands
1889: Thomas Edison’s First Motion Picture
Most of us think about Thomas Edison as the inventor of the lightbulb, but he showed his first motion picture. On the same day, same year, Moulin Rogue opened in Paris.
Years later, in 1927, the "The Jazz Singer" was released as the first film with a soundtrack, marking the death of silent film. It received an Honorary Academy Award in 1928. Spartacus was also released in 1960.
In music, The Supremes released the single, "I Hear a Symphony in 1965, and George Michael released “Faith” in 1987, becoming Billboard’s Song of the Year in 1988. It was also a day of musician scandals, with Mick Jagger apologizing for racist lyrics in “Some Girls” in 1978, and Johnny Rotten of the Sex Pistols was sentenced to three years in prison for assault on this day in 1980.
1976: 73 die in Cubana Flight 455 crash
Reportedly this crash happened when two bombs, placed by terrorists with connections to the CIA, exploded after taking off from Barbados. A few years later in 1981, 17 died when a Fokker Fellowship plane crashed in the Netherlands.
There were other major transportation disasters as well. In 1918, 425 died when US ship Otranto sank between Scotland and Ireland. Then 208 died in 1972 when a 22-car train carrying 2,000 pilgrims derailed in Mexico and, in 2018, 50 died in the Democratic Republic of Congo when an oil tanker collided with a car.
The day has a high death count in natural disasters as well. 53 died in the Great Fire of Newcastle and Gateshead in 1854, and 100,000 died in an Earthquake in the Turkmen Soviet Socialist Republic in 1948.
In man’s evil, the 2013 Arab Spring saw 53 dead in political clashes in Egypt. By far the worst occurrence was in 2022 when 37, including 23 children, were murdered by a former police officer at a daycare in Thailand.
Other Notables
1853 4th National Women's Rights Convention opens in Cleveland Ohio
1861 Naval Engagement at Charleston, South Carolina, USS Flag vs BR Alert
1866 1st train robbery in US (Reno Brothers take $13,000)
1973 Yom Kippur War begins as Syria & Egypt attack Israel
1996 Bob Dole and President Bill Clinton meet in their 1st debate
2018 Brett Kavanaugh is confirmed and sworn into the US Supreme Court
2019 Tens of thousands of Hong Kong protesters march against ban on face masks
Births
1955: Tony Dungy, American football coach
1995: Jessica Lunsford, American kidnapping victim (d. 2005)
2000: Jazz Jennings, American transgender activist
Obituary
1536: William Tyndale, Burned at Stake (Bible Translator)
1989: Bette Davis, Breast Cancer (Actress)
2020: Eddie Van Halen, Throat Cancer (Musician)
On This Day is published Monday through Friday. Watch the Today’s History podcast weekdays at 12PM ET! Don’t forget to visit bootlegproducts.com and use coupon code ASHE1776!
Breezing through so many events of the past, reminds us don't take things too seriously, life is marching on!!
Thanks for these fascinating summaries...