Today in History ...

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1582 – Because of the implementation of the Gregorian calendar this day does not exist in this year in Italy, Poland, Portugal and Spain. 1692 – The Salem witch trials are ended by a letter from Massachusetts Governor William Phips. 1748 – British and Spanish naval forces engage at the Battle of Havana during the War of Jenkins' Ear. 1773 – America's first insane asylum opens for 'Persons of Insane and Disordered Minds' in Virginia. 1792 – First celebration of Columbus Day in the USA held in New York City. 1793 – The cornerstone of Old East, the oldest state university building in the United States, is laid on the campus of the University of North Carolina. 1799 – Jeanne Geneviève Labrosse was the first woman to jump from a balloon with a parachute, from an altitude of 900 meters. 11871 – Criminal Tribes Act (CTA) enacted by British rule in India, which named over 160 local communities 'Criminal Tribes', i.e. hereditary criminals. Repealed in 1949, after Independence of India. 1918 – A massive forest fire kills 453 people in Minnesota. 1959 – At the national congress of APRA in Peru a group of leftist radicals are expelled from the party. They will later form APRA Rebelde. 1960 – Nikita Khrushchev pounds his shoe on a desk at United Nations General Assembly meeting to protest a Philippine assertion of Soviet Union colonial policy being conducted in Eastern Europe 1960 – Television viewers in Japan unexpectedly witness the assassination of Inejiro Asanuma, leader of the Japan Socialist Party, when he is stabbed and killed during a live broadcast. 1962 – Infamous Columbus Day Storm strikes the U.S. Pacific Northwest with record wind velocities; 46 dead and at least U.S. $230 million in damages 1986 – Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh visit the People's Republic of China 1994 – NASA loses radio contact with the Magellan spacecraft as the probe descends into the thick atmosphere of Venus (the spacecraft presumably burned up in the atmosphere). 12005 – The second Chinese human spaceflight, Shenzhou 6, launched, carrying Fèi Jùnlóng and Niè Hǎishèng for five days in orbit. 2013 – Fifty-one people are killed after a truck veers off a cliff in La Convención Province in Peru.