OCTOBER 24 — 1962 CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS Pt. 3: Day 9; 1929 Black Thursday engulfs in panic at the Exchange Floor; 1903 George Sutton becomes billiard champion single handedly
OCTOBER 24
1962 – Cuban Missile Crisis Pt. 3 – Day 9.
…Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev responded in a letter to President Kennedy’s blockade of Soviet ships coming to Cuba. In the letter, Khrushchev said that this blockade is not quarantine but rather an act of aggression. Some Soviet ships did in fact turn around, but Khrushchev overall gave the nod to continue to Cuba.
On behalf of more than 40 countries, UN Secretary General U Thant sent private pleadings to Kennedy and Khrushchev, urging that they would refrain from any action that may aggravate the situation and bring with it the risk of war. “Military commanders prepared for full-scale war with the Soviet Union. Then Pope John XXIII sent a message to the Kremlin We begs all governments not to remain deaf to the cry of humanity. For all leaders to do all in their power to preserve peace and to save the world from the horrors of war.
But the showdown would continue.
1929 – Black Thursday engulfs in panic on the Exchange floor.
The seemingly unlimited amount of money in Wall Street fueled the Roaring 20s, a time of joy and celebration. The troops had come back from Over There, and the stock market rose over 200% from 1922 to 1929. Anyone could invest, in fact folks who didn’t have a lot of money could trade in margin, or simply put down up to 20%. In fact, banks were lending at up to 2/3 face value on loans. No wonder folks were roaring, roaring happy that is. But the celebration would be short lived, after a hurricane in Florida in 1926 ruined billions of upcoming Miami development projects, not to mention the entire citrus industry. In March of 29, the Dow dropped, but recovered.
On August 8th, the Federal Reserve raised interest rates from 5% to 6%, while England was supposedly selling all its gold to US investors who were in turn sending it to assist rebuilding a war-torn Germany. Depends on who you ask. On my Sep 19 the Dow reached an all-time high, and then dropped on that same day. This time it wasn’t going back up again as it had in the past.
By the 4th of October, investors were already reconsidering their strategies. By the 21st, cautious optimism was replaced by sheer panic; U.S. Secretary of Treasury Andrew Mellon was pointing the finger at the Federal Reserve. The headlines for the day, from the New York Times: Worst stock crashed stemmed by banks; 12,894,650 Share Day Swamps Market, Leaders Confer Find Conditions Sound. Daily News: Bank Check – Wall St. Crashed; Daily Mail: Greatest Crash in Wall Street History: and finally, Today with Bill Gates: Stock Market Crashes Harder than my Windows 95 OS. Ok, just making sure I didn’t completely put you to sleep.
But just like my junior prom, it continued to get worse. Black Monday, October 28, investors were pulling out faster me in the back seat of my car on junior prom. Uh, Kinda. On Black Tuesday, which I cover in more detail on my October 29th ep, took the whole thing down. The Roaring 20s had come to a brutal end.
1903 – George Sutton becomes billiard champion.
…When George was a boy he lost his arms from the elbows down in a sawmill accident. So how did he become a pool champion? By playing with his elbows. He learned how to do that at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
1901 – Happy 63rd birthday Anna Taylor. For her birthday she got to go over Niagara Falls in a barrel! Her husband died in the civil war and her child died in infancy, so Anna spent much of her adult life wandering the country but never quite found what she was looking for, which turned out to be fame and fortune. Others had jumped this in the past, and tightrope walkers dared their way across the violent river. The Great Blondin even cooked an omelet on a tightrope high above.
But nobody had ever went over in a barrel. Anna had hers custom made and cushioned it with a mattress and some pillows and first made a dry run by putting a cat in the barrel and sending it over. The cat and barrel were fine, so now it was Anna’s urn. God bless America.
She did it! When rescue boats popped the top of the lid, she came out alive and said to the press, No one ever ought to do that again. Since then fifteen other people ignored that advice. Some have gone over the falls on barrels, boats, inner tubes, and even a jet ski. The Jet Ski rider didn’t survive. While Anna got the fame she was looking for, she didn’t get the fortune. She made some money speaking about her experience and doing photo ops, but not much. Nonetheless, she had guts. Gotta love it.
In music news,
1960 Frank Sinatra’s Nice n Easy becomes the #1 album of the country and would spend 9 weeks on top.
1962 James Brown’s appearance at the Apollo Theatre in New York was recorded for a live album called “Live At the Apollo”. The LP would go on to sell over a million copies and earn a reputation for being one of the finest concert albums ever made. It was ranked at #24 in Rolling Stone magazine’s 2003 list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.
1970 In a speech to a White House radio broadcasters conference, US President Richard Nixon appeals for Rock lyrics to be screened and those promoting drug use to be banned. 1973 John Lennon launches another round of litigation against the US government, claiming that his phone has been tapped and that he is under constant surveillance.