On This Day:
Monday September 30, 2013 This is the 273rd day of the year, with 92 days remaining in 2013. Fact of the Day: forks The word fork comes from Latin furca "pitchfork." The two-pronged twig was probably the first fork. In Egyptian antiquity, large bronze forks were used at religious ceremonies to lift sacrificial offerings. One of the earliest dinner forks is attributed to the people of Constantinople, around 400 AD. By the seventh century, small forks were being used in Middle Eastern courts. The fork was censured for being an "affront to God's intention for fingers" and was slow to gain re-acceptance because it was considered a feminine utensil. The modern table setting is attributed to Charles I of England who in 1633 declared, "It is decent to use a fork." Special forks have been designed in various periods for eating specific foods such as berries, birds, cake, cold meat, cucumbers, ice cream, lettuce, pickles, sardines, shellfish, strawberries, soufflé, terrapin, and tomatoes, and for passing sliced bread!
Holidays Botswana: Independence Day.
Feast of Saint Jerome.
Nigeria: Michaelmas Day/St. Michael's Day.
Sao Tome and Principe: Nationalization Day
Events 1452 - Gutenberg Bible was published in Germany.
1630 - John Billington, one of the signers of the Mayflower Compact, became the first criminal executed in the American colonies when he was hanged for murder at Plymouth.
1846 - Dentist William Morton of Boston became the first to use ether as an anesthetic on a patient.
1860 - The first British tramway was inaugurated by an American, George Francis Train.
1862 - "Stonewall" Jackson led the Confederates to victory at the second Battle of Bull Run, Virginia, during the U.S. Civil War.
1881 - First stereo system (for a telephonic broadcasting service) was patented in Germany by Clement Adler.
1882 - The world's first hydroelectric power plant began operation on the Fox River in Appleton, Wisconsin.
1901 - Scottish inventor Hubert Cecil Booth patented the vacuum cleaner.
1918 - Bulgaria pulled out of World War I.
1927 - Babe Ruth hit his 60th homer of the season to break his own major-league record.
1934 - Babe Ruth played his last game for the New York Yankees.
1938 - Britain, France, Italy, and Germany negotiated and agreed to the partitioning of Czechoslovakia in The Munich Pact.
1943 - Women's Army Auxiliary Corps became the Women's Army Corps, a regular contingent of the U.S. Army.
1946 - An international military tribunal in Nuremberg, Germany, found 22 top Nazi leaders guilty of war crimes.
1949 - The Berlin Airlift ended; it had involved 278,288 relief missions to the city over 14 months.
1954 - The first atomic-powered vessel, the submarine Nautilus, was commissioned by the Navy.
1955 - James Dean, actor, was killed in a two-car collision in California.
1960 - Fifteen African nations were admitted to the United Nations.
1960 - "Flintstones" premiered on TV.
1962 - Black student James Meredith succeeded on his fourth try in registering for classes at the University of Mississippi, though a deadly riot takes place.
1963 - The "Hotline" between the U.S. president and the Soviet premier was established.
1965 - President Lyndon Johnson signed legislation that established the National Foundation for the Arts and the Humanities.
1966 - Nazi war criminals Albert Speer, the German minister of armaments, and Baldur von Schirach, the founder of the Hitler Youth, were freed from Spandau prison after serving 20-year prison sentences.
1967 - In Britain, BBC's Radio One, went on the air.
1982 - "Cheers" debuted on television.
1988 - Mikhail S. Gorbachev forced retirement on President Andrei A. Gromyko and fired other old-guard leaders in a Kremlin shakeup.
1991 - Haiti's first freely elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, was ousted in a military coup.
1991 - Azerbaijan declared independence.
1993 - Around 10,000 people were killed when an earthquake measuring 6.4 struck southern India.
2003 - The FBI began a criminal investigation into whether White House officials had illegally leaked the identity of an undercover CIA officer.
2004 - Vioxx, the popular arthritis drug, was voluntarily withdrawn from the market by its maker amid concerns of increased risk of heart attack and stroke.
2005 - The controversial drawings of Muhammad are printed in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten.
Births 1797 - Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, English writer.
1861 - William Wrigley, Jr., American chewing gum tycoon.
1882 - Hans Geiger, German physicist who invented the Geiger counter.
1924 - Truman Capote (Persons), American writer.
1935 - Johnny Mathis, American singer.
1951 - Barry Marshall, Australian physician, Nobel Prize winner, and Professor of Clinical Microbiology at the University of Western Australia.
1954 - Barry Williams, "The Brady Bunch" actor, in Santa Monica, California.
1957 - Fran Drescher, TV and film actress, born in Flushing, Queens, New York.
Deaths 1955 - James Dean, American film actor, in a car accident.
1978 - Edgar Bergen, American actor and ventriloquist, and father of actress Candice Bergen.
1985 - Simone Signoret, Academy Award-winning French film actress.
1985 - Charles Richter, American seismologist.
1989 - Virgil Thomson, American composer from Missouri.
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