Historifly Presents This Month in History: October 2016

October 1, 1903 - Sports - Pittsburgh Pirates and Boston Americans Play First Modern World Series Game

October 1, 1903

Pittsburgh Pirates and Boston Americans Play First Modern World Series Game

The Boston Americans (soon to become the Red Sox) of the American League played the National League champion Pittsburgh Pirates in the first game of the modern World Series. Pittsburgh won the game by a score of seven to three, but lost the best of the nine-game series to Boston, five games to three.

October 1, 1961

Roger Maris Breaks Home Run Record

In the last game of the regular season Roger Maris hits his 61st home run breaking the long-standing 1927 record of baseball legend Babe Ruth for the most home runs in a single season.

October 12, 1492

Exploration

Christopher Columbus Discovers America

October 19, 1781

American Revolution - General Cornwallis Surrenders at Yorktown

British General Charles Cornwallis surrendered his army of some 8,000 soldiers to General George Washington at Yorktown, basically ending the Revolutionary War. Cornwallis had marched his army into the Virginia port town earlier that summer expecting to meet British ships sent from New York. The ships never arrived.

October 20, 1803

Louisiana Purchase Ratified

The U.S. Senate ratified the Louisiana Purchase Treaty by a vote of twenty-four to seven. The agreement, which provided for the purchase of the western half of the Mississippi River basin from France at a price of $15 million, or approximately four cents per acre, doubled the size of the country and paved the way for westward expansion beyond the Mississippi.

October 10, 1845
U.S. Naval Academy Opens

Fifty midshipmen and seven faculty members (three civilians and four officers) inaugurated the first term of the United States Naval School at a ten-acre Army post, Fort Severn, in Annapolis, Maryland.

October 16, 1859
John Brown Raids Harper's Ferry

Late on the night of October 16, 1859, John Brown and twenty-one armed followers stole into the town of Harper's Ferry, Virginia, (now West Virginia) as most of its residents slept. The men among them - three free blacks, one freed slave, and one fugitive slave - hoped to spark a rebellion of freed slaves and to lead an "army of emancipation" to overturn the institution of slavery by force.

October 6, 1866
First American Train Robbery

Thieves boarded an eastbound Ohio & Mississippi Railroad passenger train near Seymour, Indiana, and entered an Adams Express Company car. The bandits emptied safes and tossed others off the train intending to open it later. Signaling the engineer to stop the train, the robbers, later identified as the infamous Reno brothers, made an easy get away.

October 18, 1898
Spanish American War - American Forces Capture Puerto Rico

American troops fighting in the Spanish-American War raised the United States flag in Puerto Rico formalizing U.S. control of the former Spanish colony.

October 28, 1919
Volstead Act

Congress passes the Volstead Act providing for enforcement of the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution, known as the Prohibition Amendment.  The amendment prohibited the "manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors" in the United States.

October 28, 1919
Volstead Act

Congress passes the Volstead Act providing for enforcement of the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution, known as the Prohibition Amendment.  The amendment prohibited the "manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors" in the United States.

October 31
Halloween

On the night of October 31, many Americans celebrate the traditions of Halloween by dressing in costumes and telling tales of witches and ghosts. Children go from house to house—to “trick or treat”—collecting candy along the way. Communities also hold parades and parties. Halloween, also known as All Hallows Eve, originated as the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain, meaning “summer’s end.” The autumnal holiday, rooted in Christian and pagan festivals—with elements of magic and mystery, celebrated the link between seasonal and life cycles (winter was then a time associated with death). Halloween is now celebrated worldwide and reflects the assimilation of various cultures. In the twenty-first century, it has become a secular, and hugely commercial holiday.

All of this history and more can be found in the Library of Congress.  The Library of Congress is the nation's oldest federal cultural institution and serves as the research arm of Congress.