On This Day

October 1881 in History

Events in History

  • Oct 11 David Houston patents roll film for cameras
  • Oct 12 Henry M Stanley signs contract with Congo monarch
  • Oct 13 Revival of Hebrew language as Eliezer Ben-Yehuda & friends agree to use Hebrew exclusively in their conversations
  • Oct 15 1st American fishing magazine, "American Angler" published

Statue of Liberty

Oct 24 Levi P Morton, US ambassador to France drives first rivet in Statue of Liberty

The Statue of Liberty, New York

The Gunfight at OK Corral

Oct 26 Gunfight at the OK Corral: The most famous shootout in the Wild West occurs, between lawmen (including Wyatt Earp) and the Cowboys, with Tom and Frank McLaury and Billy Clanton killed

All guns blazing in the legendary gunfight between the Earp brothers and the Cowboys
  • Oct 29 Judge (U.S. magazine) first published
  • Oct 31 Metropolitan club plays its last game of its non-league season. They win 80 of 151 games (18-43 versus NL teams)

Birthdays in History

William BoeingWilliam Boeing (1881-1956)

Oct 1 American aviation pioneer who founded The Boeing Company, born in Detroit, Michigan

William Boeing
  • Oct 4 Walther von Brauchitsch, German field marshal, born in Berlin, Germany (d. 1948)
  • Oct 5 Otto V. Kuusinen, Finnish politician (founder of the Finnish Communist Party), born in Laukaa, Finland (d. 1964)
  • Oct 7 Mikhail Drozdovsky, Russian general (d. 1918)
  • Oct 11 Hans Kelsen, Austrian legal philosopher and political philosopher, born in Prague, Bohemia, Austria-Hungary (d. 1973)
  • Oct 11 Stark Young, American writer (So Red the Rose), born in Como, Mississippi (d. 1963)
  • Oct 12 William Nigh, American director (Ape, Doomed to Die, Mr Wong), born in Berlin, Wisconsin (d. 1955)

P. G. WodehouseP. G. Wodehouse (1881-1975)

Oct 15 British-American writer (Bertie Wooster novels), born in Guildford, England

P. G. Wodehouse
  • Oct 22 Clinton Davisson, American physicist (Nobel 1937- discovery of electron diffraction in the famous Davisson-Germer experiment), born in Bloomington, Illinois (d. 1958)
  • Oct 24 Paul Basilius Barth, Swiss painter and lithographer, born in Basel, Switzerland (d. 1955)

Pablo PicassoPablo Picasso (1881-1973)

Oct 25 Spanish painter (The Three Dancers, Guernica) and sculptor who co-founded the Cubist movement, born in Malaga, Andalusia, Spain

Pablo Picasso
  • Oct 30 Elizabeth Madox Roberts, American poet and novelist (The Time of Man), born in Perryville, Kentucky (d. 1941)
  • Oct 30 Lena Christ, German writer (The Rumplhanni), born in Glonn, Bavaria (d. 1920)

Deaths in History

  • Oct 3 Orson Pratt, American mathematician and religious leader, dies at 70
  • Oct 26 Billy Clanton, brother of outlaw Ike Clanton, dies in the gunfight at the OK Corral at 19
  • Oct 31 George Washington De Long, American Arctic Explorer whose disastrous expedition provided evidence to support the theory of trans-Arctic oceanic drift, dies during his disastrous expedition to the North Pole at 37

Historical Figures

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