On October 7, 1943, Rear Adm. Shigematsu Sakaibara, commander of the Japanese garrison on Wake Island, orders the execution of 96 Americans POWs, claiming they were trying to make radio contact with U.S. forces. The Japanese overran Wake in the initial stages of the war, and all POW's were transported elsewhere except for these 96, who were kept on the island as forced labor. The execution of those remaining American POWs, who were blindfolded and shot in cold blood (the Japanese usuallly executed prisoners by beheading with a sword, often after making the condemned dig their own graves), is considered one of the more brutal episodes of the war in the Pacific.

On October 7, 2003, actor Arnold Schwarzenegger is elected governor of California. A political upstart, the former 4-time "Mr. Universe" body building champion turned actor defeated 134 other candidates on the ballot, which included career politicians, other actors and one adult-film star. Australian-born Schwarzenegger (he became a U.S. citizen in 1986), a staunch Republican despite his connection through marriage to the Kennedy political dynasty, would serve 2 full terms as "governator", a nickname evoking his fame from starring in The Terminator film series.


On October 7, 1975, New York State Supreme Court Justice Irving Kaufmann reverses a deportation order for John Lennon, allowing him to remain legally in his adoptive home of NYC. Lennon had lived in the U.S. as a British citizen for several years with his wife, Yoko Ono. Their deportation order was based on a 1968 marijuana conviction that occurred in England, but the real reason was the Nixon Administration's concern with Lennon's influence over the 18-21 year old segment of America, who would be voting in a Presidential election for the first time in 1972. Lennon's had been a peaceful voice against the Vietnam War, but the White House was more concerned about his associations with radicals like Bobby Seale and Abbie Hoffman. Walter Cronkite would call Lennon Nixon's worse enemy. His deportation was ordered in 1971. Kaufmann would write in his reversal that Lennon's "four-year fight to remain in this country is testimony to his faith in this American dream." Lennon would receive his green card permitting permanent residency in 1976.

On October 8, 1871, a massive fire in the midwest claims 1,200 lives - in Wisconsin. Hours before the Great Chicago Fire ignites, a fire started in an unknown manner strikes Peshtigo, Wisconsin, a company lumber and sawmill town that was home to one of the nation's largest wood-product factories. A town made entirely of fresh timber and with sawdust-lined streets was a disaster waiting to happen. Many who jumped into a nearby river to escape the flames drowned, and a pitiful few who took refuge in a water cistern literally boiled to death. But history has largely forgotten Peshtigo, as it happened on the same day as the more costly in property but less fatal Chicago Fire. Also forgotten is a third fire on the same day that claimed more than 2 million acres of timberland in Michigan.

On October 8, 1967, Marxist revolutionary Che Guevara is captured while leading a small group of guerillas in a skirmish with a special detachment of the Bolivian army. Guevara was wounded, captured and executed the next day, and has since been idolized as a hero for leftist Third World revolutionaries and T-shirt printers.

On October 9, 1940, St. Paul's Cathedral in London is severely damaged by a German bomb that pierces the 15th century structure's dome and destroys the high altar. It is the only time the cathedral is damaged during The Blitz, the 57 consecutive days of bombardment London endured during The Battle of Britain. It was struck one other time, by a bomb that embedded in the roof and failed to explode. The Cathedral was a symbol of British resolve throughout The Blitz


On October 9, 1635, religious dissident Roger Williams is banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony, for speaking out against civil authority policy of punishing religious dissension and confiscating Native American land. Williams, aided by the Narragansett tribe, would establish a settlement near Narragansett Bay, declaring it open to all those seeking freedom of conscience and the removal of the church from civil matters. Many Puritans dissatisfied with Massachusetts' religious policies joined him. Williams named the community “Providence;" it would eventually grow into the Rhode Island Colony.

On October 9, 1974, German businessman Oskar Schindler dies at the age of 66. A member of the Nazi Party during WWII, Schindler ran an enamel-works factory in Krakow during the German occupation of Poland, employing workers from the nearby Jewish ghetto. When the ghetto was liquidated, he persuaded Nazi officials to allow the transfer of his workers to the Plaszow labor camp, thus saving them from deportation to the death camps. In 1944, all Jews at Plaszow were sent to Auschwitz, but Schindler, at great risk to himself, bribed officials into allowing him to keep his workers and set up a factory in a safer location in occupied Czechoslovakia. By the war’s end, he was penniless, but he had saved 1,200 Jewish people. In 1962 Yad Vashem, Israel’s official agency for remembering the Holocaust, declared Schindler a Righteous Gentile. He is buried in Jerusalem at the Catholic cemetery on Mount Zion.

On October 10, 732, Frankish leader Charles Martel leads a mostly-Christian army to victory over an invading Moorish army at the Battle of Tours. The victory halts the spread of Islam into Western Europe and solidifies the hold of Martel's family - the Carolingians - as the ruling family of Gaul. His son, Pepin, will be crowned the family's first king of Gaul - and grandson Charlemagne will build a vast Frankish empire.


On October 10, 1944, 3 days after a mini-revolt at one of the Auschwitz satellite camps allowed 250 prisoners to escape, the Nazis gas about 800 Romanian children. About 100 of the dead are below the age of 14. All of the escapees are eventually rounded up and executed.


On October 10, 1877, Lt. Colonel George Armstrong Custer is buried with full military honors at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. Armstrong was killed a year earlier when his cavalry regiment was ambushed at Little Bighorn. Armstrong had been brevetted the youngest general in the Army during the Civil War, but returned to his permanent rank after the war and gained both fame and notoriety as an indian fighter on the frontier.

On October 11, 1968, Apollo 7 is launched, with astronauts (left to right in photo) Donn F. Eisele; Walter M. Schirra, Jr (commander) and Walter Cunningham aboard. It is the first manned mission of Project Apollo, and the first manned American space flight of any kind since Gemini XII flew in November 1966. Apollo was delayed 20 months when the crew of Apollo 1 was lost to a fire on the launch pad during a pre-launch test. Three unmanned flights were launched before Apollo 7's 11-day orbit of Earth, during which the crew transmitted the first live television broadcasts from orbit.


On October 11, 1962, Pope John XXIII convenes Vatican II, the first ecumenical council (a general meeting of all church bishops) of the Roman Catholic Church in 92 years. Conducted over several gatherings until December 1965, steps were taken to modernize the Catholic Church throughout Vatican II, most notably the discontinuance of mass said in Latin. The language of the native land became the norm. Priests also began saying mass facing the congregation. There are dozens of clarifications of faith and doctrine as well, but to the lay Catholic, the changes to the rituals of the daily Mass are most significant. John XXIII died in June 1963, and his successor, Pope Paul VI, conducted Vatican II to its conclusion. The bishops who will later become Popes John Paul I and John Paul II are also participants. (below: Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli, Pope John XXIII)


On October 11, 1975, "Born To Run", the title cut of Bruce Springsteen's third album, becomes the East Coast cult phenom's first Top 40 track. Since debuting with his E Street Band two years earlier, the New Jersey-born Springsteen had picked up nicknames like "the new Dylan" and "America's new street poet," but he was mostly unknown beyond the northeast region of the country. "Born To Run" gave Springsteen his first national exposure. In less than two weeks, Springsteen will be on the cover of Time and Newsweek simultaneously, putting the 26-year old on the fast track to superstardom.

On October 12, 1960, Russian leader Nikita Khrushchev blows his top at the United Nations. Khrushchev is presenting a resolution decrying colonialism when a Filipino representative Lorenzo Sumulong calls him on his hypocrisy, pointing out that the U.S.S.R. has practiced colonialism in its domination of several Eastern European nations. Khrushchev explodes in anger, describing Sumulong as "a stooge, a lackey....a toady of American imperialism." Some reports have Khrushchev angrily pounding the desk in front of him as he raged, and a faked photo of him supposedly pounding the desk with his shoe (below) earns him a reputation of being a hothead. Khrushchev would be removed from office by the Soviet Politburo four years later.


On October 12, 1972, a race riot breaks out on a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier. Forty-six sailors are injured aboard the USS Kitty Hawk, en route to the Gulf of Tonkin off Vietnam from the Philippines. The riot happens when several black sailors refuse to give statements on a shore leave incident that saw dozens injured. The Kitty Hawk riot and a similar incident aboard a Navy oiler just a few days later lead CNO Elmo Zumwalt to institute several new policies to improve race relations in the Navy.

On October 12, 1997, pop/country crossover artist John Denver is killed when he crashes his experimental airplane near Monterrey, California. Denver rose to fame in the early 70's with 11 platinum albums and 4 number one hit singles. His total 32 million records sold make him one of the most successful artists of the 1970's.

On October 13, 1943, the government of Italy declares war on its former Axis partner Germany. Mussolini had been removed from power in July and his successor, General Pietro Badoglio, negotiated a conditional surrender with the Allies. On September 8, the Allies, with approval of the Italian government, landed troops in southern Italy and began pushing north to Rome, consolidating Italian units into the invasion force as they went. German resistance was tough, but Rome was finally secured on June 5, 1944. Five days later, Badoglio stepped down as Prime Minister.


On October 13, 2010, the last of 33 miners trapped nearly half a mile underground since August 5 in a caved-in copper mine in northern Chile, are rescued. The miners survived longer than anyone else trapped underground in recorded history.


October 13, 1975, the annual Country Music Awards show from Nashville, TN. Country music legend Charlie Rich, winner of the previous year's Entertainer of the Year Award (the Country Music Association of America's biggest award), is to announce this year's winner. He opens the envelope and reads the name "John Denver." That should have been the end of his presentation, but Rich then takes a cigarette lighter from his pocket and sets the card on fire. He would never explain the action; some assumed it was a protest against the growing number of pop stars - Denver among them - who had begun dabbling in country music. Or it may have been that he was on pain medication that night, supplemented - by his own admission - with a few too many gin and tonics. Whatever the reason, Rich, who died in 1995, was blacklisted from that moment from the CMA's. Denver had a schedule conflict and accepted his award via satellite with no idea what had occurred on stage.