This Day in History: 10/30
1735: John Adams is born
1811: Sense and Sensibility is published
1890: Oakland, California, enacts anti-drug law
1893: The World's Columbian Exposition closes in Chicago
1918: Ottoman Empire signs treaty with Allies
1938: Welles scares nation
1957: Lords to admit first women peers
1975: Juan Carlos assumes power in Spain
1981: Euthanasia chief jailed over suicides
1991: Perfect storm hits North Atlantic
1991: Bush opens historic Mid East peace conference
1995: Quebec separatists narrowly defeated
1735: JOHN ADAMS IS BORN
On this day in 1735, John Adams, the son of a farmer and a descendant of Plymouth Rock pilgrims, is born in Braintree, Massachusetts. He enrolled in Harvard University at16 and went on to teach school and study law before becoming America's second president.
Adams did not fight in the Revolutionary War, but was instrumental in crafting the foundation of the American government. In 1776, he anonymously published Thoughts on Government, which proposed the three-tiered system upon which the United States government is modeled: a bicameral legislature, independent judiciary and strong executive. In 1783, Adams brokered the peace treaty with Britain that ended the American Revolution. Fellow founding father Thomas Jefferson once referred to Adams as "the colossus of independence." The two men developed a deep friendship during the Revolutionary era and both served in George Washington's first cabinet--Adams as vice president and Jefferson as secretary of state.
Adams, Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton and James Madison articulated the basis of the Federalist policy- featuring above all a strong centralized government and favoring an economy based on manufacturing--that dominated the Washington and Adams presidencies. Jefferson, a Republican, favored stronger states' rights and a primarily agricultural economy. Following Washington's retirement in 1796, Jefferson and Adams ran against each other for the presidency. Adams won and, due to a procedure that gave the next highest vote-getter the vice-presidency, Jefferson became his adversary's vice president. In personality as well as politics, the obstinate and hot-tempered Adams clashed with the genteel, diplomatic Thomas Jefferson and the two grew increasingly alienated during Adams' presidency.
As president, Adams lobbied for and signed the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798, which many observers, including Jefferson, feared would give Adams despotic powers. In Jefferson's opinion, the acts threatened to compromise the constitutional right to free speech and severely limited the definition of citizenship. In the election of 1800, Jefferson again ran against Adams and, under the guise of a pseudonym or using ghost writers, published vicious denouncements of Adams' policies and character in the press. Jefferson won and though Adams retired to Quincy, Massachusetts, to write his memoirs, the bitterness between the two former friends endured.
Throughout his political career, Adams was steadfastly supported-and sometimes challenged--by his wife, Abigail. The couple's correspondence, which has been preserved, thoroughly catalogued and published, provides insight into their private lives and early American culture. When Abigail learned that Jefferson was behind the newspaper attacks against her husband, she too felt betrayed. Nevertheless, it was she who initiated contact between the sworn political enemies when she wrote a letter of condolence to Jefferson upon the death of his daughter in 1812. After that, Adams and Jefferson resumed their long-halted correspondence and repaired their friendship.
Adams lived to see his son, John Quincy Adams, become president in 1825. A year later, he and Thomas Jefferson died on the same day, July 4, 1826, only hours apart.
SOURCE: http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/john-adams-is-born
1811: SENSE AND SENSIBILITY IS PUBLISHED
On this day in 1811, Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility is published anonymously. A small circle of people, including the Price Regent, learned Austen's identity, but most of the British public knew only that the popular book had been written "by a Lady."
Austen was born in 1775, the seventh of eight children born to a clergyman in Steventon, a country village in Hampshire, England. She was very close to her older sister, Cassandra, who remained her faithful editor and critic throughout her life. The girls had five years of formal schooling, then studied with their father. Jane read voraciously and began writing stories as young as age 12, completing an early novella at age 14.
Austen's quiet, happy world was disrupted when her father retired to Bath in 1801. Jane hated the resort town but amused herself by making close observations of ridiculous society manners. After her father's death in 1805, Jane, her mother, and sister lived with one of her brothers until 1808, when another brother provided them a permanent home at Chawton Cottage, in Hampshire.
Jane concealed her writing from most of her acquaintances, slipping her writing paper under a blotter when someone entered the room. Though she avoided society, she was charming, intelligent, and funny. She rejected at least one proposal of marriage. She published several more novels before her death, including Pride and Prejudice (1813), Mansfield Park (1814), and Emma (1815). She died at age 42, of what today is thought to be Addison's disease.
SOURCE: http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/sense-and-sensibility-is-published
1890: OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA, ENACTS ANTI-DRUG LAW
Oakland, California, enacts a law against opium, morphine, and cocaine. The new regulations allowed only doctors to prescribe these drugs, which, until then, had been legal for cures or pain relief. Reflecting a general trend at the time, Oakland was only one of the jurisdictions across the country that began to pass criminal laws against the use of mind-altering substances.
In 1880, Kansas banned the sale and manufacture of all intoxicating liquors in an amendment to its constitution. Many other states left the question open to county governments, which resulted in different alcohol laws in every town. Soon, sellers were required to obtain a license in most states. Interestingly, both Texas and Massachusetts passed laws requiring that bars and saloons have open windows, presumably so that the community could keep an eye on what was happening inside.
In the latter part of the 19th century, opium dens began to spring up. Generally, there was no legal prohibition on these narcotics, although respectable society certainly disapproved of addicts. Due to the growth of the opium problem after the acquisition of the Philippines, the Harrison Act of 1914 was passed, which added a tax to the sale of narcotics. This was intended to stop the easy availability of drugs, and in 1919, the act was extended to prohibit even the use of drugs in small doses for recovering addicts.
More recently, drug laws have been witnessing a bit of a backlash. In the late 1990s, California and Arizona voters passed ballot initiatives that allow for the use of marijuana for medicinal purposes.
SOURCE: http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/oakland-california-enacts-anti-drug-law
1893: THE WORLD'S COLUMBIAN EXPOSITION CLOSES IN CHICAGO
October 30, 1893 is the last day of Chicago's World's Columbian Exposition, a great fair that celebrated the 400th anniversary of Columbus's arrival in the New World and offered fairgoers a chance to see the first gas-powered motorcar in the United States: the Daimler quadricycle. The exposition introduced Americans to all kinds of technological wonders-for instance, an alternating-current power plant, a 46-foot-long cannon, a 1,500-pound Venus de Milo made of chocolate, and Juicy Fruit gum-along with replicas of exotic places and carnival-style rides and games.
Four years earlier, the Universal Exposition in Paris had featured an elaborate display of steam- and gas-powered vehicles, including the Serpollet-Peugeot steam tricar, named for its three wheels and powered by a coke-burning boiler and a lightweight, petrol-fueled four-wheeled car built by the German engineer Gottlieb Daimler. The Chicago fair promised an even more impressive spectacle. Its Transportation Building, designed by Louis Sullivan, was crammed full: Pack mules and horse-drawn carts crowded next to bicycles and boats. Most exciting of all were the rows of massive American-built steam locomotives that towered over everything else in the hall. Trains, the Exposition's organizers seemed to say, were the transportation of the future.
Only one internal-combustion vehicle was on display at the fair, tucked away in the corner of the Transportation Building: another of the wire-wheeled, tiller-steered, one-cylinder platform quadricycles that Daimler had introduced to Parisian fairgoers in 1889. It was like nothing most Americans had ever seen and yet almost no one paid any attention to it. Reporters barely mentioned the Daimler car and it didn't even appear in the exhibition catalog.
But a few very important people did notice it and studied it closely. One was the bicycle mechanic Charles Duryea, who used the Daimler car as the inspiration for the four-wheeled, one-cylinder Motor Wagon that he built with his brother Frank. In 1896, the Duryea Motor Wagon Company became the first company to mass-produce gas-powered vehicles in the United States.
Another admirer of the Daimler car was Henry Ford, who returned to Dearborn after the fair and built an internal-combustion quadricycle of his own. (He called it his "gasoline buggy.") Ford drove his little car for the first time on July 4, 1896 and sold it later that year for $200. Just a few years later, he incorporated the Ford Motor Company and the automobile age had begun.
SOURCE: http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/the-worlds-columbian-exposition-closes-in-chicago
1918: OTTOMAN EMPIRE SIGNS TREATY WITH ALLIES
On October 30, 1918, aboard the British battleship Agamemnon, anchored in the port of Mudros on the Aegean island of Lemnos, representatives of Great Britain and the Ottoman Empire sign an armistice treaty marking the end of Ottoman participation in the First World War.
Though the Ottoman Empire-in a period of relative decline since the late 16th century-had initially aimed to stay neutral in World War I, it soon concluded an alliance with Germany and entered the war on the side of the Central Powers in October 1914. The Turks fought fiercely and successfully defended the Gallipoli Peninsula against a massive Allied invasion in 1915-1916, but by 1918 defeat by invading British and Russian forces and an Arab revolt had combined to destroy the Ottoman economy and devastate its land, leaving some six million people dead and millions more starving.
As early as the first week of October 1918, both the Ottoman government and several individual Turkish leaders contacted the Allies to feel out peace possibilities. Britain, whose forces then occupied much of the Ottoman territories, was loath to step aside for its allies, particularly France, which according to an agreement concluded in 1916 would take control of the Syrian coast and much of modern-day Lebanon. In a move that enraged his French counterpart, Georges Clemenceau, Prime Minister David Lloyd George and his cabinet authorized Admiral Arthur Calthorpe, Britain’s naval commander in the Aegean Sea, to negotiate an immediate armistice with Turkey without consulting France. Though Britain alone would engineer the Ottoman exit from the war, the two powerful Allies would continue to grapple over control in the region at the Paris Peace Conference, and for years beyond.
Negotiations between Calthorpe’s team and the delegation from Constantinople, led by the Ottoman Minister of Marine Affairs Rauf Bey, began at 9:30 on the morning of October 30, 1918, aboard the Agamemnon. The Treaty of Mudros, signed that evening, stated that hostilities would end at noon the following day. By its terms, Turkey had to open the Dardanelle and Bosporus straits to Allied warships and its forts to military occupation; it was also to demobilize its army, release all prisoners of war and evacuate its Arab provinces, the majority of which were already under Allied control. Bey and his fellow delegates refused to paint the treaty as an act of surrender for Turkey-later causing disillusionment and anger in Constantinople-but in fact that is what it was. The Treaty of Mudros ended Ottoman participation in World War I and effectively-if not legally-marked the dissolution of a once mighty empire. From its ruins, the victors of the First World War attempted to use the post-war peace negotiations to create a new, more unpredictable entity: the modern Middle East.
SOURCE: http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/ottoman-empire-signs-treaty-with-allies
1938: WELLES SCARES NATION
Orson Welles causes a nationwide panic with his broadcast of "War of the Worlds"-a realistic radio dramatization of a Martian invasion of Earth.
Orson Welles was only 23 years old when his Mercury Theater company decided to update H.G. Wells' 19th-century science fiction novel War of the Worlds for national radio. Despite his age, Welles had been in radio for several years, most notably as the voice of "The Shadow" in the hit mystery program of the same name. "War of the Worlds" was not planned as a radio hoax, and Welles had little idea of the havoc it would cause.
The show began on Sunday, October 30, at 8 p.m. A voice announced: "The Columbia Broadcasting System and its affiliated stations present Orson Welles and the Mercury Theater on the air in 'War of the Worlds' by H.G. Wells."
Sunday evening in 1938 was prime-time in the golden age of radio, and millions of Americans had their radios turned on. But most of these Americans were listening to ventriloquist Edgar Bergen and his dummy "Charlie McCarthy" on NBC and only turned to CBS at 8:12 p.m. after the comedy sketch ended and a little-known singer went on. By then, the story of the Martian invasion was well underway.
Welles introduced his radio play with a spoken introduction, followed by an announcer reading a weather report. Then, seemingly abandoning the storyline, the announcer took listeners to "the Meridian Room in the Hotel Park Plaza in downtown New York, where you will be entertained by the music of Ramon Raquello and his orchestra." Putrid dance music played for some time, and then the scare began. An announcer broke in to report that "Professor Farrell of the Mount Jenning Observatory" had detected explosions on the planet Mars. Then the dance music came back on, followed by another interruption in which listeners were informed that a large meteor had crashed into a farmer's field in Grovers Mills, New Jersey.
Soon, an announcer was at the crash site describing a Martian emerging from a large metallic cylinder. "Good heavens," he declared, "something's wriggling out of the shadow like a gray snake. Now here's another and another one and another one. They look like tentacles to me ... I can see the thing's body now. It's large, large as a bear. It glistens like wet leather. But that face, it... it ... ladies and gentlemen, it's indescribable. I can hardly force myself to keep looking at it, it's so awful. The eyes are black and gleam like a serpent. The mouth is kind of V-shaped with saliva dripping from its rimless lips that seem to quiver and pulsate."
The Martians mounted walking war machines and fired "heat-ray" weapons at the puny humans gathered around the crash site. They annihilated a force of 7,000 National Guardsman, and after being attacked by artillery and bombers the Martians released a poisonous gas into the air. Soon "Martian cylinders" landed in Chicago and St. Louis. The radio play was extremely realistic, with Welles employing sophisticated sound effects and his actors doing an excellent job portraying terrified announcers and other characters. An announcer reported that widespread panic had broken out in the vicinity of the landing sites, with thousands desperately trying to flee. In fact, that was not far from the truth.
Perhaps as many as a million radio listeners believed that a real Martian invasion was underway. Panic broke out across the country. In New Jersey, terrified civilians jammed highways seeking to escape the alien marauders. People begged police for gas masks to save them from the toxic gas and asked electric companies to turn off the power so that the Martians wouldn't see their lights. One woman ran into an Indianapolis church where evening services were being held and yelled, "New York has been destroyed! It's the end of the world! Go home and prepare to die!"
When news of the real-life panic leaked into the CBS studio, Welles went on the air as himself to remind listeners that it was just fiction. There were rumors that the show caused suicides, but none were ever confirmed.
The Federal Communications Commission investigated the program but found no law was broken. Networks did agree to be more cautious in their programming in the future. Orson Welles feared that the controversy generated by "War of the Worlds" would ruin his career. In fact, the publicity helped land him a contract with a Hollywood studio, and in 1941 he directed, wrote, produced, and starred in Citizen Kane-a movie that many have called the greatest American film ever made.
SOURCE: http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/welles-scares-nation
1957: LORDS TO ADMIT FIRST WOMEN PEERS
The Government has unveiled plans to reform the House of Lords which include admitting women for the first time.
Under the scheme, male and female life peerages will be created to ensure a balanced representation of the different political parties. Expenses are also to be paid to peers.
The idea behind the creation of life peers is to enable distinguished and experienced people, who may not feel able to accept hereditary titles, to enter the House. Appointments will be made at the discretion of the prime minister.
The Conservative Leader of the House, Lord Home, announced the proposals to the Lords this afternoon.
Taking women into parliamentary embrace is, after all, only an extension of the normal privileges of a peer.
Lord Home
There were cheers when he said admitting women would simply be recognising the place they had commanded for themselves as a right in modern society.
He raised a laugh when he added: "Taking women into parliamentary embrace is, after all, only an extension of the normal privileges of a peer."
Labour's Lord Alexander of Hillsborough rose to complain that his party had not been given any warning of the content of today's debate and he therefore felt unwilling to participate.
However, he thought it likely his party would support the admission of women to the House.
The Government has ruled out - for the time being - any discussion on the alteration in the powers of the House and any discussion of abolition or reduction of the right of hereditary peers to legislate.
Lord Samuel for the Liberals welcomed any reform.
He said: "House of Lords reform has been rather like a slow motion film of a prima ballerina, not marked by agility or grace, but by languid exhibition and elephantine deliberations."
He said the House of Lords was the only organisation which excluded women - directly contrary to the Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act passed by the House nearly 40 years ago but which the House had ever since refused to obey.
Talks have been continuing on and off for years about possible reform of the House of Lords.
The last attempt was in 1953 when Conservative Lord Simon introduced a Life Peers Bill.
The Conservative Government invited the leaders of the Liberal and Labour parties to attend talks but Clement Attlee refused to take part on Labour's behalf and the discussions did not take place.
In Context:
The Life Peerages Act was passed in 1958. It empowered the Crown to create life peers, both men and for the first time, women, who would be entitled to sit and vote in the House of Lords and whose peerages would expire on their death.
The Peerage Act of 1963 allowed hereditary peeresses to sit in the House of Lords for the first time.
It also allowed peers to give up titles if they wished to be elected to sit in the Commons. This followed the Stansgate case in which Anthony Wedgwood Benn fought to have the right to drop his title in order to remain an MP.
In 1969 further plans to reform the House of Lords had to be abandoned after delaying tactics by MPs.
Following Labour's election victory in 1997, plans for Lords' reform were once again put forward. As a first stage, the number of hereditary peers was reduced to 92 or roughly 10% of the total.
Plans for the second stage of reform hit the buffers in 2003. After MPs failed to agree a plan on a way forward, the Government agreed to delay pending further consultation.
SOURCE: http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/october/30/newsid_3116000/3116144.stm
1975: JUAN CARLOS ASSUMES POWER IN SPAIN
Prince Juan Carlos becomes Spain's acting head of state after General Francisco Franco, the dictator of Spain since 1936, concedes that he is too ill too govern. The 83-year-old dictator had been suffering serious health problems for nearly a year. Three weeks after Juan Carlos assumed power, Franco died of a heart attack. Two days later, on November 22, Juan Carlos was crowned king.
Juan Carlos' grandfather was Alfonso XIII, the last ruling monarch of Spain, who was forced into exile in 1931 after Spain was declared a republic. Born in Italy in 1938, Juan Carlos returned to Spain in 1955 under the invitation of Franco and received a military education. In 1969, Franco designated Juan Carlos his successor. Despite having pledged loyalty to Franco's authoritarian regime, King Juan Carlos immediately began a transition to democracy after Franco's death in 1975.
SOURCE: http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/juan-carlos-assumes-power-in-spain
1981: EUTHANASIA CHIEF JAILED OVER SUICIDE
The secretary of the UK's pro-euthanasia group Exit has been jailed for two and a half years for aiding and abetting suicide.
Nicholas Reed was found guilty on three counts of aiding and abetting suicide and one of conspiracy to aid and abet.
Mark Lyons, 70, Mr Reed's co-accused and the man who helped people commit suicide by providing pills and alcohol was given a two-year suspended sentence.
"If you get into trouble in the next two years you are going to cop it," the judge told him.
Age factor
He was spared a jail term after the judge took into account his age and the fact he had already served 325 days awaiting the trial.
"I take into account the fact that you are not as young as you used to be. But you are not as old as I am," said the judge, Mr Justice Lawson.
The judge added that he believed Mr Lyons had learned his lesson and was "not going to start messing around with plastic bags and pills anymore".
The pair were tracked down after the death of a multiple sclerosis sufferer. As a matter of routine her death was reported to the coroner and a post-mortem revealed she died from taking a barbiturate drug with alcohol.
Two women at the inquest, who had been at the dead woman's house the day before she died, identified Mr Lyons as a visitor to the house.
When police went to Mr Lyons' flat in West Hampstead they found thousands of pills and tablets and several diaries that outlined visits to people wanting to commit suicide.
In court Nicholas Reed described how he had sent Mr Lyons on missions to "comfort and console" people but said he had no idea that he was helping people commit suicide.
In Context:
Following the verdicts Exit released a statement reiterating their aim to change the law "so that everyone in Britain will have a right to medical help to secure an easy death if life has become intolerable because of incurable, painful or incapacitating illness".
The British Medical Association responded by saying: "The guidance given by Exit is squalid and bears no comparison with the help which can be offered by the NHS for those in need."
Nicholas Reed had his sentence reduced on appeal to 18 months.
Exit started out as the Voluntary Euthanasia Society in 1935 but changed its name to give itself a more punchy and dynamic image.
In 2002, Holland became the first country to legalise euthanasia.
SOURCE: http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/october/30/newsid_2465000/2465183.stm
1991: PERFECT STORM HITS NORTH ATLANTIC
On this day in 1991, the so-called "perfect storm" hits the North Atlantic producing remarkably large waves along the New England and Canadian coasts. Over the next several days, the storm spread its fury over the ocean off the coast of Canada. The fishing boat Andrea Gail and its six-member crew were lost in the storm. The disaster spawned the best-selling book The Perfect Storm by Sebastian Junger and a blockbuster Hollywood movie of the same name.
On October 27, Hurricane Grace formed near Bermuda and moved north toward the coast of the southeastern United States. Two days later, Grace continued to move north, where it encountered a massive low pressure system moving south from Canada. The clash of systems over the Atlantic Ocean caused 40-to-80-foot waves on October 30-unconfirmed reports put the waves at more than 100 feet in some locations. This massive surf caused extensive coastal flooding, particularly in Massachusetts; damage was also sustained as far south as Jamaica and as far north as Newfoundland.
The storm continued to churn in the Atlantic on October 31; it was nicknamed the "Halloween storm." It came ashore on November 2 along the Nova Scotia coast, then, as it moved northeast over the Gulf Stream waters, it made a highly unusual transition into a hurricane. The National Hurricane Center made the decision not to name the storm for fear it would alarm and confuse local residents. It was only the eighth hurricane not given a name since the naming of hurricanes began in 1950.
Meanwhile, as the storm developed, the crew of the 70-foot fishing boat Andrea Gail was fishing for swordfish in the Grand Banks of the North Atlantic. The Andrea Gail was last heard from on October 28. When the boat did not return to port on November 1 as scheduled, rescue teams were sent out.
The week-long search for the Andrea Gail and a possible cause of its demise were documented in Junger’s book, which became a national bestseller. Neither the Andrea Gail nor its crew-David Sullivan and Robert Shatford of Gloucester, Mass.; William Tyne, Dale Murphy and Michael Moran of Bradenton Beach, Fla.; and Alfred Pierre of New York City-was ever found.
SOURCE: http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/perfect-storm-hits-north-atlantic
1991: BUSH OPENS HISTORIC MID EAST PEACE CONFERENCE
US President George Bush has encouraged Arabs and Israelis to "lay down the past" in his opening speech to the Middle East peace conference in Spain.
It is the first time in 43 years that Israel has sat down with all its Arab neighbours to discuss peace.
"Territorial compromise is essential for peace," said President Bush.
"We seek peace, real peace. And by real peace I mean treaties. If we cannot summon the courage to lay down the past for ourselves then let us do it for the children."
Soviet Union President Mikhail Gorbachev added: "We have a unique opportunity, and it would be unforgivable to miss this opportunity. Success is in everybody's interests."
Reaction to the opening day was positive from all sides.
Israelis praised President Bush for promising not to railroad them into any agreements while the Palestinians believed he showed support for their hopes for some form of self-government.
The conference was organised by the US and Soviet Union and has taken months of careful preparation.
Representatives from all Israel's immediate Arab neighbours were present at the Madrid Royal Palace and there was a surprise appearance from Saudi Prince Bandar Bin Sultan who had not been expected to attend.
The opening day of the conference will be followed by one-on-one sessions between Israel and each of its neighbours and then wider discussions in the hope of finding a solution to end the current troubles.
The aim of the talks is for all sides to resolve their rival territorial claims. Areas including the Gaza Strip, West Bank and Jerusalem are the main points of contention.
In Context:
The Madrid conference was deemed a success and paved the way for more talks. In 1993, the Oslo Peace Accords resulted in an agreement that the Palestinians would consent to recognise Israel in return for the beginning of phased dismantling of Israel's occupation.
In November 1995 Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated by a Jewish religious extremist. Shimon Peres took over as Prime Minister of Israel.
In 1999 Yasser Arafat was persuaded to continue with the interim resolutions founded in Oslo so negotiations could take place with the new administration.
In 2000 a visit by Israeli's Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to the al-Aqsa/Temple Mount led to a Palestinian uprising or intifada.
SOURCE: http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/october/30/newsid_2465000/2465725.stm
1995: QUEBEC SEPARATISTS NARROWLY DEFEATED
By a bare majority of 50.6 percent to 49.4 percent, citizens of the province of Quebec vote to remain within the federation of Canada. The referendum asked Quebec's citizens, the majority of whom are French-speakers, to vote whether their province should begin the process that could make it independent of Canada.
The French were the first settlers of Canada, but in 1763 their dominions in eastern Canada fell under the control of the British. In 1867, Quebec joined Canada's English-speaking provinces in forming the autonomous Dominion of Canada. Over the next century, the English language and Anglo-America culture made steady inroads into Quebec, leading many French Canadians to fear that they were losing their language and unique culture. The Quebec independence movement was born out of this fear, gaining ground in the 1960s and leading to the establishment of a powerful separatist party-the Parti Québécois-in 1967. In 1980, an independence referendum was defeated by a 60 percent to 40 percent margin.
Far narrower than the 1980 margin, the 1995 referendum was the most serious threat to Canadian unity in the country's 128-year existence, carrying with it the possibility of losing nearly one-third of Canada's population if the Oui vote won. Quebec separatists refrained from any significant violence after their narrow defeat, but former Québécois leader Jacques Parizeau raised the specter of racial tension by declaring that his campaign had been beaten by "money and the ethnic vote."
SOURCE: http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/quebec-separatists-narrowly-defeated
1811: Sense and Sensibility is published
1890: Oakland, California, enacts anti-drug law
1893: The World's Columbian Exposition closes in Chicago
1918: Ottoman Empire signs treaty with Allies
1938: Welles scares nation
1957: Lords to admit first women peers
1975: Juan Carlos assumes power in Spain
1981: Euthanasia chief jailed over suicides
1991: Perfect storm hits North Atlantic
1991: Bush opens historic Mid East peace conference
1995: Quebec separatists narrowly defeated
1735: JOHN ADAMS IS BORN
On this day in 1735, John Adams, the son of a farmer and a descendant of Plymouth Rock pilgrims, is born in Braintree, Massachusetts. He enrolled in Harvard University at16 and went on to teach school and study law before becoming America's second president.
Adams did not fight in the Revolutionary War, but was instrumental in crafting the foundation of the American government. In 1776, he anonymously published Thoughts on Government, which proposed the three-tiered system upon which the United States government is modeled: a bicameral legislature, independent judiciary and strong executive. In 1783, Adams brokered the peace treaty with Britain that ended the American Revolution. Fellow founding father Thomas Jefferson once referred to Adams as "the colossus of independence." The two men developed a deep friendship during the Revolutionary era and both served in George Washington's first cabinet--Adams as vice president and Jefferson as secretary of state.
Adams, Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton and James Madison articulated the basis of the Federalist policy- featuring above all a strong centralized government and favoring an economy based on manufacturing--that dominated the Washington and Adams presidencies. Jefferson, a Republican, favored stronger states' rights and a primarily agricultural economy. Following Washington's retirement in 1796, Jefferson and Adams ran against each other for the presidency. Adams won and, due to a procedure that gave the next highest vote-getter the vice-presidency, Jefferson became his adversary's vice president. In personality as well as politics, the obstinate and hot-tempered Adams clashed with the genteel, diplomatic Thomas Jefferson and the two grew increasingly alienated during Adams' presidency.
As president, Adams lobbied for and signed the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798, which many observers, including Jefferson, feared would give Adams despotic powers. In Jefferson's opinion, the acts threatened to compromise the constitutional right to free speech and severely limited the definition of citizenship. In the election of 1800, Jefferson again ran against Adams and, under the guise of a pseudonym or using ghost writers, published vicious denouncements of Adams' policies and character in the press. Jefferson won and though Adams retired to Quincy, Massachusetts, to write his memoirs, the bitterness between the two former friends endured.
Throughout his political career, Adams was steadfastly supported-and sometimes challenged--by his wife, Abigail. The couple's correspondence, which has been preserved, thoroughly catalogued and published, provides insight into their private lives and early American culture. When Abigail learned that Jefferson was behind the newspaper attacks against her husband, she too felt betrayed. Nevertheless, it was she who initiated contact between the sworn political enemies when she wrote a letter of condolence to Jefferson upon the death of his daughter in 1812. After that, Adams and Jefferson resumed their long-halted correspondence and repaired their friendship.
Adams lived to see his son, John Quincy Adams, become president in 1825. A year later, he and Thomas Jefferson died on the same day, July 4, 1826, only hours apart.
SOURCE: http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/john-adams-is-born
1811: SENSE AND SENSIBILITY IS PUBLISHED
On this day in 1811, Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility is published anonymously. A small circle of people, including the Price Regent, learned Austen's identity, but most of the British public knew only that the popular book had been written "by a Lady."
Austen was born in 1775, the seventh of eight children born to a clergyman in Steventon, a country village in Hampshire, England. She was very close to her older sister, Cassandra, who remained her faithful editor and critic throughout her life. The girls had five years of formal schooling, then studied with their father. Jane read voraciously and began writing stories as young as age 12, completing an early novella at age 14.
Austen's quiet, happy world was disrupted when her father retired to Bath in 1801. Jane hated the resort town but amused herself by making close observations of ridiculous society manners. After her father's death in 1805, Jane, her mother, and sister lived with one of her brothers until 1808, when another brother provided them a permanent home at Chawton Cottage, in Hampshire.
Jane concealed her writing from most of her acquaintances, slipping her writing paper under a blotter when someone entered the room. Though she avoided society, she was charming, intelligent, and funny. She rejected at least one proposal of marriage. She published several more novels before her death, including Pride and Prejudice (1813), Mansfield Park (1814), and Emma (1815). She died at age 42, of what today is thought to be Addison's disease.
SOURCE: http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/sense-and-sensibility-is-published
1890: OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA, ENACTS ANTI-DRUG LAW
Oakland, California, enacts a law against opium, morphine, and cocaine. The new regulations allowed only doctors to prescribe these drugs, which, until then, had been legal for cures or pain relief. Reflecting a general trend at the time, Oakland was only one of the jurisdictions across the country that began to pass criminal laws against the use of mind-altering substances.
In 1880, Kansas banned the sale and manufacture of all intoxicating liquors in an amendment to its constitution. Many other states left the question open to county governments, which resulted in different alcohol laws in every town. Soon, sellers were required to obtain a license in most states. Interestingly, both Texas and Massachusetts passed laws requiring that bars and saloons have open windows, presumably so that the community could keep an eye on what was happening inside.
In the latter part of the 19th century, opium dens began to spring up. Generally, there was no legal prohibition on these narcotics, although respectable society certainly disapproved of addicts. Due to the growth of the opium problem after the acquisition of the Philippines, the Harrison Act of 1914 was passed, which added a tax to the sale of narcotics. This was intended to stop the easy availability of drugs, and in 1919, the act was extended to prohibit even the use of drugs in small doses for recovering addicts.
More recently, drug laws have been witnessing a bit of a backlash. In the late 1990s, California and Arizona voters passed ballot initiatives that allow for the use of marijuana for medicinal purposes.
SOURCE: http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/oakland-california-enacts-anti-drug-law
1893: THE WORLD'S COLUMBIAN EXPOSITION CLOSES IN CHICAGO
October 30, 1893 is the last day of Chicago's World's Columbian Exposition, a great fair that celebrated the 400th anniversary of Columbus's arrival in the New World and offered fairgoers a chance to see the first gas-powered motorcar in the United States: the Daimler quadricycle. The exposition introduced Americans to all kinds of technological wonders-for instance, an alternating-current power plant, a 46-foot-long cannon, a 1,500-pound Venus de Milo made of chocolate, and Juicy Fruit gum-along with replicas of exotic places and carnival-style rides and games.
Four years earlier, the Universal Exposition in Paris had featured an elaborate display of steam- and gas-powered vehicles, including the Serpollet-Peugeot steam tricar, named for its three wheels and powered by a coke-burning boiler and a lightweight, petrol-fueled four-wheeled car built by the German engineer Gottlieb Daimler. The Chicago fair promised an even more impressive spectacle. Its Transportation Building, designed by Louis Sullivan, was crammed full: Pack mules and horse-drawn carts crowded next to bicycles and boats. Most exciting of all were the rows of massive American-built steam locomotives that towered over everything else in the hall. Trains, the Exposition's organizers seemed to say, were the transportation of the future.
Only one internal-combustion vehicle was on display at the fair, tucked away in the corner of the Transportation Building: another of the wire-wheeled, tiller-steered, one-cylinder platform quadricycles that Daimler had introduced to Parisian fairgoers in 1889. It was like nothing most Americans had ever seen and yet almost no one paid any attention to it. Reporters barely mentioned the Daimler car and it didn't even appear in the exhibition catalog.
But a few very important people did notice it and studied it closely. One was the bicycle mechanic Charles Duryea, who used the Daimler car as the inspiration for the four-wheeled, one-cylinder Motor Wagon that he built with his brother Frank. In 1896, the Duryea Motor Wagon Company became the first company to mass-produce gas-powered vehicles in the United States.
Another admirer of the Daimler car was Henry Ford, who returned to Dearborn after the fair and built an internal-combustion quadricycle of his own. (He called it his "gasoline buggy.") Ford drove his little car for the first time on July 4, 1896 and sold it later that year for $200. Just a few years later, he incorporated the Ford Motor Company and the automobile age had begun.
SOURCE: http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/the-worlds-columbian-exposition-closes-in-chicago
1918: OTTOMAN EMPIRE SIGNS TREATY WITH ALLIES
On October 30, 1918, aboard the British battleship Agamemnon, anchored in the port of Mudros on the Aegean island of Lemnos, representatives of Great Britain and the Ottoman Empire sign an armistice treaty marking the end of Ottoman participation in the First World War.
Though the Ottoman Empire-in a period of relative decline since the late 16th century-had initially aimed to stay neutral in World War I, it soon concluded an alliance with Germany and entered the war on the side of the Central Powers in October 1914. The Turks fought fiercely and successfully defended the Gallipoli Peninsula against a massive Allied invasion in 1915-1916, but by 1918 defeat by invading British and Russian forces and an Arab revolt had combined to destroy the Ottoman economy and devastate its land, leaving some six million people dead and millions more starving.
As early as the first week of October 1918, both the Ottoman government and several individual Turkish leaders contacted the Allies to feel out peace possibilities. Britain, whose forces then occupied much of the Ottoman territories, was loath to step aside for its allies, particularly France, which according to an agreement concluded in 1916 would take control of the Syrian coast and much of modern-day Lebanon. In a move that enraged his French counterpart, Georges Clemenceau, Prime Minister David Lloyd George and his cabinet authorized Admiral Arthur Calthorpe, Britain’s naval commander in the Aegean Sea, to negotiate an immediate armistice with Turkey without consulting France. Though Britain alone would engineer the Ottoman exit from the war, the two powerful Allies would continue to grapple over control in the region at the Paris Peace Conference, and for years beyond.
Negotiations between Calthorpe’s team and the delegation from Constantinople, led by the Ottoman Minister of Marine Affairs Rauf Bey, began at 9:30 on the morning of October 30, 1918, aboard the Agamemnon. The Treaty of Mudros, signed that evening, stated that hostilities would end at noon the following day. By its terms, Turkey had to open the Dardanelle and Bosporus straits to Allied warships and its forts to military occupation; it was also to demobilize its army, release all prisoners of war and evacuate its Arab provinces, the majority of which were already under Allied control. Bey and his fellow delegates refused to paint the treaty as an act of surrender for Turkey-later causing disillusionment and anger in Constantinople-but in fact that is what it was. The Treaty of Mudros ended Ottoman participation in World War I and effectively-if not legally-marked the dissolution of a once mighty empire. From its ruins, the victors of the First World War attempted to use the post-war peace negotiations to create a new, more unpredictable entity: the modern Middle East.
SOURCE: http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/ottoman-empire-signs-treaty-with-allies
1938: WELLES SCARES NATION
Orson Welles causes a nationwide panic with his broadcast of "War of the Worlds"-a realistic radio dramatization of a Martian invasion of Earth.
Orson Welles was only 23 years old when his Mercury Theater company decided to update H.G. Wells' 19th-century science fiction novel War of the Worlds for national radio. Despite his age, Welles had been in radio for several years, most notably as the voice of "The Shadow" in the hit mystery program of the same name. "War of the Worlds" was not planned as a radio hoax, and Welles had little idea of the havoc it would cause.
The show began on Sunday, October 30, at 8 p.m. A voice announced: "The Columbia Broadcasting System and its affiliated stations present Orson Welles and the Mercury Theater on the air in 'War of the Worlds' by H.G. Wells."
Sunday evening in 1938 was prime-time in the golden age of radio, and millions of Americans had their radios turned on. But most of these Americans were listening to ventriloquist Edgar Bergen and his dummy "Charlie McCarthy" on NBC and only turned to CBS at 8:12 p.m. after the comedy sketch ended and a little-known singer went on. By then, the story of the Martian invasion was well underway.
Welles introduced his radio play with a spoken introduction, followed by an announcer reading a weather report. Then, seemingly abandoning the storyline, the announcer took listeners to "the Meridian Room in the Hotel Park Plaza in downtown New York, where you will be entertained by the music of Ramon Raquello and his orchestra." Putrid dance music played for some time, and then the scare began. An announcer broke in to report that "Professor Farrell of the Mount Jenning Observatory" had detected explosions on the planet Mars. Then the dance music came back on, followed by another interruption in which listeners were informed that a large meteor had crashed into a farmer's field in Grovers Mills, New Jersey.
Soon, an announcer was at the crash site describing a Martian emerging from a large metallic cylinder. "Good heavens," he declared, "something's wriggling out of the shadow like a gray snake. Now here's another and another one and another one. They look like tentacles to me ... I can see the thing's body now. It's large, large as a bear. It glistens like wet leather. But that face, it... it ... ladies and gentlemen, it's indescribable. I can hardly force myself to keep looking at it, it's so awful. The eyes are black and gleam like a serpent. The mouth is kind of V-shaped with saliva dripping from its rimless lips that seem to quiver and pulsate."
The Martians mounted walking war machines and fired "heat-ray" weapons at the puny humans gathered around the crash site. They annihilated a force of 7,000 National Guardsman, and after being attacked by artillery and bombers the Martians released a poisonous gas into the air. Soon "Martian cylinders" landed in Chicago and St. Louis. The radio play was extremely realistic, with Welles employing sophisticated sound effects and his actors doing an excellent job portraying terrified announcers and other characters. An announcer reported that widespread panic had broken out in the vicinity of the landing sites, with thousands desperately trying to flee. In fact, that was not far from the truth.
Perhaps as many as a million radio listeners believed that a real Martian invasion was underway. Panic broke out across the country. In New Jersey, terrified civilians jammed highways seeking to escape the alien marauders. People begged police for gas masks to save them from the toxic gas and asked electric companies to turn off the power so that the Martians wouldn't see their lights. One woman ran into an Indianapolis church where evening services were being held and yelled, "New York has been destroyed! It's the end of the world! Go home and prepare to die!"
When news of the real-life panic leaked into the CBS studio, Welles went on the air as himself to remind listeners that it was just fiction. There were rumors that the show caused suicides, but none were ever confirmed.
The Federal Communications Commission investigated the program but found no law was broken. Networks did agree to be more cautious in their programming in the future. Orson Welles feared that the controversy generated by "War of the Worlds" would ruin his career. In fact, the publicity helped land him a contract with a Hollywood studio, and in 1941 he directed, wrote, produced, and starred in Citizen Kane-a movie that many have called the greatest American film ever made.
SOURCE: http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/welles-scares-nation
1957: LORDS TO ADMIT FIRST WOMEN PEERS
The Government has unveiled plans to reform the House of Lords which include admitting women for the first time.
Under the scheme, male and female life peerages will be created to ensure a balanced representation of the different political parties. Expenses are also to be paid to peers.
The idea behind the creation of life peers is to enable distinguished and experienced people, who may not feel able to accept hereditary titles, to enter the House. Appointments will be made at the discretion of the prime minister.
The Conservative Leader of the House, Lord Home, announced the proposals to the Lords this afternoon.
Taking women into parliamentary embrace is, after all, only an extension of the normal privileges of a peer.
Lord Home
There were cheers when he said admitting women would simply be recognising the place they had commanded for themselves as a right in modern society.
He raised a laugh when he added: "Taking women into parliamentary embrace is, after all, only an extension of the normal privileges of a peer."
Labour's Lord Alexander of Hillsborough rose to complain that his party had not been given any warning of the content of today's debate and he therefore felt unwilling to participate.
However, he thought it likely his party would support the admission of women to the House.
The Government has ruled out - for the time being - any discussion on the alteration in the powers of the House and any discussion of abolition or reduction of the right of hereditary peers to legislate.
Lord Samuel for the Liberals welcomed any reform.
He said: "House of Lords reform has been rather like a slow motion film of a prima ballerina, not marked by agility or grace, but by languid exhibition and elephantine deliberations."
He said the House of Lords was the only organisation which excluded women - directly contrary to the Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act passed by the House nearly 40 years ago but which the House had ever since refused to obey.
Talks have been continuing on and off for years about possible reform of the House of Lords.
The last attempt was in 1953 when Conservative Lord Simon introduced a Life Peers Bill.
The Conservative Government invited the leaders of the Liberal and Labour parties to attend talks but Clement Attlee refused to take part on Labour's behalf and the discussions did not take place.
In Context:
The Life Peerages Act was passed in 1958. It empowered the Crown to create life peers, both men and for the first time, women, who would be entitled to sit and vote in the House of Lords and whose peerages would expire on their death.
The Peerage Act of 1963 allowed hereditary peeresses to sit in the House of Lords for the first time.
It also allowed peers to give up titles if they wished to be elected to sit in the Commons. This followed the Stansgate case in which Anthony Wedgwood Benn fought to have the right to drop his title in order to remain an MP.
In 1969 further plans to reform the House of Lords had to be abandoned after delaying tactics by MPs.
Following Labour's election victory in 1997, plans for Lords' reform were once again put forward. As a first stage, the number of hereditary peers was reduced to 92 or roughly 10% of the total.
Plans for the second stage of reform hit the buffers in 2003. After MPs failed to agree a plan on a way forward, the Government agreed to delay pending further consultation.
SOURCE: http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/october/30/newsid_3116000/3116144.stm
1975: JUAN CARLOS ASSUMES POWER IN SPAIN
Prince Juan Carlos becomes Spain's acting head of state after General Francisco Franco, the dictator of Spain since 1936, concedes that he is too ill too govern. The 83-year-old dictator had been suffering serious health problems for nearly a year. Three weeks after Juan Carlos assumed power, Franco died of a heart attack. Two days later, on November 22, Juan Carlos was crowned king.
Juan Carlos' grandfather was Alfonso XIII, the last ruling monarch of Spain, who was forced into exile in 1931 after Spain was declared a republic. Born in Italy in 1938, Juan Carlos returned to Spain in 1955 under the invitation of Franco and received a military education. In 1969, Franco designated Juan Carlos his successor. Despite having pledged loyalty to Franco's authoritarian regime, King Juan Carlos immediately began a transition to democracy after Franco's death in 1975.
SOURCE: http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/juan-carlos-assumes-power-in-spain
1981: EUTHANASIA CHIEF JAILED OVER SUICIDE
The secretary of the UK's pro-euthanasia group Exit has been jailed for two and a half years for aiding and abetting suicide.
Nicholas Reed was found guilty on three counts of aiding and abetting suicide and one of conspiracy to aid and abet.
Mark Lyons, 70, Mr Reed's co-accused and the man who helped people commit suicide by providing pills and alcohol was given a two-year suspended sentence.
"If you get into trouble in the next two years you are going to cop it," the judge told him.
Age factor
He was spared a jail term after the judge took into account his age and the fact he had already served 325 days awaiting the trial.
"I take into account the fact that you are not as young as you used to be. But you are not as old as I am," said the judge, Mr Justice Lawson.
The judge added that he believed Mr Lyons had learned his lesson and was "not going to start messing around with plastic bags and pills anymore".
The pair were tracked down after the death of a multiple sclerosis sufferer. As a matter of routine her death was reported to the coroner and a post-mortem revealed she died from taking a barbiturate drug with alcohol.
Two women at the inquest, who had been at the dead woman's house the day before she died, identified Mr Lyons as a visitor to the house.
When police went to Mr Lyons' flat in West Hampstead they found thousands of pills and tablets and several diaries that outlined visits to people wanting to commit suicide.
In court Nicholas Reed described how he had sent Mr Lyons on missions to "comfort and console" people but said he had no idea that he was helping people commit suicide.
In Context:
Following the verdicts Exit released a statement reiterating their aim to change the law "so that everyone in Britain will have a right to medical help to secure an easy death if life has become intolerable because of incurable, painful or incapacitating illness".
The British Medical Association responded by saying: "The guidance given by Exit is squalid and bears no comparison with the help which can be offered by the NHS for those in need."
Nicholas Reed had his sentence reduced on appeal to 18 months.
Exit started out as the Voluntary Euthanasia Society in 1935 but changed its name to give itself a more punchy and dynamic image.
In 2002, Holland became the first country to legalise euthanasia.
SOURCE: http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/october/30/newsid_2465000/2465183.stm
1991: PERFECT STORM HITS NORTH ATLANTIC
On this day in 1991, the so-called "perfect storm" hits the North Atlantic producing remarkably large waves along the New England and Canadian coasts. Over the next several days, the storm spread its fury over the ocean off the coast of Canada. The fishing boat Andrea Gail and its six-member crew were lost in the storm. The disaster spawned the best-selling book The Perfect Storm by Sebastian Junger and a blockbuster Hollywood movie of the same name.
On October 27, Hurricane Grace formed near Bermuda and moved north toward the coast of the southeastern United States. Two days later, Grace continued to move north, where it encountered a massive low pressure system moving south from Canada. The clash of systems over the Atlantic Ocean caused 40-to-80-foot waves on October 30-unconfirmed reports put the waves at more than 100 feet in some locations. This massive surf caused extensive coastal flooding, particularly in Massachusetts; damage was also sustained as far south as Jamaica and as far north as Newfoundland.
The storm continued to churn in the Atlantic on October 31; it was nicknamed the "Halloween storm." It came ashore on November 2 along the Nova Scotia coast, then, as it moved northeast over the Gulf Stream waters, it made a highly unusual transition into a hurricane. The National Hurricane Center made the decision not to name the storm for fear it would alarm and confuse local residents. It was only the eighth hurricane not given a name since the naming of hurricanes began in 1950.
Meanwhile, as the storm developed, the crew of the 70-foot fishing boat Andrea Gail was fishing for swordfish in the Grand Banks of the North Atlantic. The Andrea Gail was last heard from on October 28. When the boat did not return to port on November 1 as scheduled, rescue teams were sent out.
The week-long search for the Andrea Gail and a possible cause of its demise were documented in Junger’s book, which became a national bestseller. Neither the Andrea Gail nor its crew-David Sullivan and Robert Shatford of Gloucester, Mass.; William Tyne, Dale Murphy and Michael Moran of Bradenton Beach, Fla.; and Alfred Pierre of New York City-was ever found.
SOURCE: http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/perfect-storm-hits-north-atlantic
1991: BUSH OPENS HISTORIC MID EAST PEACE CONFERENCE
US President George Bush has encouraged Arabs and Israelis to "lay down the past" in his opening speech to the Middle East peace conference in Spain.
It is the first time in 43 years that Israel has sat down with all its Arab neighbours to discuss peace.
"Territorial compromise is essential for peace," said President Bush.
"We seek peace, real peace. And by real peace I mean treaties. If we cannot summon the courage to lay down the past for ourselves then let us do it for the children."
Soviet Union President Mikhail Gorbachev added: "We have a unique opportunity, and it would be unforgivable to miss this opportunity. Success is in everybody's interests."
Reaction to the opening day was positive from all sides.
Israelis praised President Bush for promising not to railroad them into any agreements while the Palestinians believed he showed support for their hopes for some form of self-government.
The conference was organised by the US and Soviet Union and has taken months of careful preparation.
Representatives from all Israel's immediate Arab neighbours were present at the Madrid Royal Palace and there was a surprise appearance from Saudi Prince Bandar Bin Sultan who had not been expected to attend.
The opening day of the conference will be followed by one-on-one sessions between Israel and each of its neighbours and then wider discussions in the hope of finding a solution to end the current troubles.
The aim of the talks is for all sides to resolve their rival territorial claims. Areas including the Gaza Strip, West Bank and Jerusalem are the main points of contention.
In Context:
The Madrid conference was deemed a success and paved the way for more talks. In 1993, the Oslo Peace Accords resulted in an agreement that the Palestinians would consent to recognise Israel in return for the beginning of phased dismantling of Israel's occupation.
In November 1995 Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated by a Jewish religious extremist. Shimon Peres took over as Prime Minister of Israel.
In 1999 Yasser Arafat was persuaded to continue with the interim resolutions founded in Oslo so negotiations could take place with the new administration.
In 2000 a visit by Israeli's Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to the al-Aqsa/Temple Mount led to a Palestinian uprising or intifada.
SOURCE: http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/october/30/newsid_2465000/2465725.stm
1995: QUEBEC SEPARATISTS NARROWLY DEFEATED
By a bare majority of 50.6 percent to 49.4 percent, citizens of the province of Quebec vote to remain within the federation of Canada. The referendum asked Quebec's citizens, the majority of whom are French-speakers, to vote whether their province should begin the process that could make it independent of Canada.
The French were the first settlers of Canada, but in 1763 their dominions in eastern Canada fell under the control of the British. In 1867, Quebec joined Canada's English-speaking provinces in forming the autonomous Dominion of Canada. Over the next century, the English language and Anglo-America culture made steady inroads into Quebec, leading many French Canadians to fear that they were losing their language and unique culture. The Quebec independence movement was born out of this fear, gaining ground in the 1960s and leading to the establishment of a powerful separatist party-the Parti Québécois-in 1967. In 1980, an independence referendum was defeated by a 60 percent to 40 percent margin.
Far narrower than the 1980 margin, the 1995 referendum was the most serious threat to Canadian unity in the country's 128-year existence, carrying with it the possibility of losing nearly one-third of Canada's population if the Oui vote won. Quebec separatists refrained from any significant violence after their narrow defeat, but former Québécois leader Jacques Parizeau raised the specter of racial tension by declaring that his campaign had been beaten by "money and the ethnic vote."
SOURCE: http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/quebec-separatists-narrowly-defeated