OCTOBER 28 — 1962 CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS CONCLUSION: Khruschev blinks; 1793 Eli Whitney submits patent for cotton gin; 2016 Largest Ouija board created
OCTOBER 28
1962 – Cuban Missile Crisis: Conclusion: Khrushchev blinks.
…On the 27th, Kennedy made his offer: America will respect Cuba’s territorial sovereignty and remove missiles from Turkey, and the Soviet Union would remove Russian missiles from Cuba. The following day, Nikita Khrushchev accepts the deal, and Radio Moscow announces that the Soviet Union has accepted and released the text of Khrushchev’s announcement. The USA and USSR had taken the world to the brink of thermonuclear devastation, but in the ends, cooler heads would prevail.
Fifty years later in 2002, it was discovered that war was even closer than imagined. On October 27, the USS Beale dropped signaling depth charges, basically hand grenades, folks, on a Soviet submarine that was, unbeknownst to the USS Beale, armed with a nuclear torpedo. Seems the crew on the sub was running out of air and got a little hysterical so they tried to surface inside the American quarantine. The captain on board wanted to make the torpedo combat ready, but his subordinate; Vasilis Askhipov talked him out of it, and possibly saved the world right at that moment. Upon the soviet agreement, Soviet hard-liners disapproved of Khrushchev’s removal of weapons and two years later he was ousted from power.
Kennedy’s image, on the other hand, was domestically and internationally strengthened, and he was even somewhat forgiven for the Bay of Pigs disaster. Two important aspects came as a result of the Cuban Missile Crisis: first, it established a direct link from Washington to Moscow, knows as the Hotline, established to avoid confusion on the other side’s true intentions by making direct communication more immediate. Second, the world superpowers reconsidered the nuclear arms race, and both nations would sign an agreement to end aboveground nuclear testing.
1793 – Eli Whitney submits a patent for the cotton gin.
…Green-seed cotton was widely popular, but to clean the seed and extract the fiber could take hours. Whitney came up with the cotton gin; the gin was short for engine. It was basically a system of hooks, wires and a rotating brush. It produced more cotton in one hour than several workers could do in a day. Although he patented the machine, southerners were pirating the system, building their own. He was a bit more successful in his next creation, interchangeable parts for muskets.
1965 — Gateway Arch completed.
…It’s the largest half circle in the world, folks! Thomas Jefferson’s dream would come true on this day in 1965, and I’m sure he’d be impressed if he saw it. Civic leader Ely Smith came up with the idea of constructing a monument to commemorate St. Louis’s role in westward expansion as well as breathing fresh new life into the riverfront community. During a nationwide design competition in the late 1940s, architect Eero Saarinen came up with a 630-foot high stainless steel Arch that would immortalize the achievements of early pioneers.
On June 23, 1959, groundbreaking celebrations began. It cost a mere $15M, equivalent to about $190M by today’s currency. In 1967, a Visitor Center opened up, complete with exhibits, and trams became operational as well. The Arch is located in the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial, which is also the home of the Old Courthouse, which had been there since 1839. The Old Courthouse is where the historic Dred Scott decision took place. These days, you can ride the tram, and/or take a cruise along the river and enjoy a nice meal at one of the skyline dinner cruises.
Not to sound like a tour guide or anything!
2016 – Blaire Murphy and Team Grand Midway construct the largest Ouija Board ever.
This is in PA folks! Windburg, PA actually, at the Grand Midway which was a spooky hotel from the 1880s with a long history of silver miners and prostitutes. In fact, one of the eternal guests of the Grand Midway hotel was a little girl who was probably buried in the basement, but you could still see her around if you were looking right. Now here comes the weird part of the story. Blaire Murphy, the son of two funeral directors, bought the hotel because of its spookiness, saying it showed up in his email box like a creepy spirit finger from the grave tapping, saying buy me…move here…unquote.
Blair moved into the house with his girlfriend and newborn child. And then he made the world’s largest Ouija Board, right outside the front door. It’s about half the size of a tennis court. Fools I tried to tell him, but listen not! Dos thou have an Ouija board that speaketh untold terrors 20 times the size of a regular Ouija board, doth not make the spirit 20 times larger! Or does it, what the heck do I know.
OCTOBER 28 — 1962 CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS CONCLUSION: Khruschev blinks; 1793 Eli Whitney submits patent for cotton gin; 1965 Gateway Arch completed