Hankering For History: Events that happened today in history, October 29th!

Some of the great historical events that happened today in history, on October 29th!

1618	Sir Walter Raleigh is executed. After the death of Queen Elizabeth, Raleigh’s enemies spread rumors that he was opposed the accession of King James.
1682	The founder of Pennsylvania, William Penn, landed at what is now Chester, Pa.
1787	Mozart’s opera Don Giovanni opens in Prague.
1813	The Demologos, the first steam-powered warship, launched in New York City.
1891	Broadway star Fanny Brice was born Fanny Borach in Newark, N.J.
1901	President William McKinley’s assassin, Leon Czolgosz, was electrocuted.
1923	The Republic of Turkey was proclaimed.
1929	Stock prices collapsed on the New York Stock Exchange amid panic selling. Thousands of investors were wiped out.
1940	The United States America began its first peacetime military draft.
1945	The first ball-point pen goes is sold by Gimbell’s department store in New York for a price of $12.
1947	Frances Cleveland Preston, the widow of President Grover Cleveland, died at age 83.
1949	Alonzo G. Moron of the Virgin Islands becomes the first African-American president of Hampton Institute, Hampton, Virginia.
1952	French forces launch Operation Lorraine against Viet Minh supply bases in Indochina.
1956	Israel invaded Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula during the Suez Canal crisis.
1956	“The Huntley-Brinkley Report” premiered as NBC’s nightly TV newscast.
1962	The Beach Boys’ debut album, “Surfin’ Safari,” was released.
1964	Thieves steal a jewel collection–including the world’s largest sapphire, the 565-carat “Star of India,” and the 100-carat DeLong ruby–from the Museum of Natural History in New York. The thieves were caught and most of the jewels recovered.
1966	The National Organization for Women was founded.
1967	The musical “Hair” opened off-Broadway.
1969	The U.S. Supreme Court orders immediate desegregation, superseding the previous “with all deliberate speed” ruling.
1972	Palestinian guerrillas kill an airport employee and hijack a plane, carrying 27 passengers, to Cuba. They force West Germany to release 3 terrorists who were involved in the Munich Massacre.
2004	Osama bin Laden, in a videotaped statement, directly admitted for the first time that he had ordered the Sept. 11 attacks.
2004	European Union leaders signed the EU’s first constitution.

Today’s historical facts are from various sites including, but not limited too: the History Channel, The New York Times, WHG Historynet.com, HistoryOrb.com, and On This Day blogs from my blogroll.