On October 22…

“My fellow citizens, let no one doubt that this is a difficult and dangerous effort on which we have set out. No one can see precisely what course it will take or what costs or casualties will be incurred. Many months of sacrifice and self-discipline lie ahead … months in which many threats and denunciations will keep us aware of our dangers. But the greatest danger of all would be to do nothing.”
~President John F. Kennedy
Cuban Missile Crisis Speech
October 22, 1962

1907 – A run on the stock of the Knickerbocker Trust Company set events in motion that would spark the Panic of 1907.
In 1907, Knickerbocker’s funds were being used by then-president Charles T. Barney in a plan to drive up the cost of copper by cornering the market.
The gamble came undone due to the dumping of millions of dollars in copper into the market to stop a hostile takeover in an unrelated organization.
This became public, and on this date, the National Bank of Commerce announced that it would no longer accept checks for the Knickerbocker Trust Company, triggering a run of depositors demanding their funds back.
Charles Barney requested a meeting with financier J.P. Morgan to discuss financial assistance for the bank, but was rejected.
The resulting Panic of 1907 exacerbated an ongoing decline in the stock market that saw the Dow Jones Industrial Average lose 48% of its value over an 22-month period.
The banking crisis was seen as the final straw that led Congress to form the Federal Reserve System in 1913.
Crisis Factoid: Barney himself was not ruined financially. He still had an estimated $2.5 million in assets but personally he was disgraced.
On the morning of November 14, 1907, he shot and killed himself.

1926 – Illusionist and stunt performer Harry Houdini was sucker punched … but were the blows the cause of his subsequent death?
Witnesses to an incident in Houdini’s dressing room at the Princess Theatre in Montreal speculated that Houdini’s death was caused by Jocelyn Gordon Whitehead, a McGill University student.
Whitehead had asked Houdini whether it was true that punches in the stomach did not hurt him. He then immediately started delivering some very hammer-like blows below the belt.
Houdini was reclining on a couch at the time, having broken his ankle while performing several days earlier. Houdini winced at each blow and stopped Whitehead suddenly in the midst of a punch, gesturing that he had had enough, and adding that he had had no opportunity to prepare himself against the blows, as he did not expect Whitehead to strike him so suddenly.
Houdini remained in constant pain for the next two days, but did not seek medical help. When he finally saw a doctor, he was found to have a fever of 102 °F and acute appendicitis, and was advised to have immediate surgery. He ignored the advice.
When Houdini arrived at the Garrick Theater in Detroit, Michigan, on October 24, 1926, for what would be his last performance, he had a fever of 104 °F.
Despite the diagnosis, Houdini took the stage. He was reported to have passed out during the show, but was revived and continued. Afterwards, he was hospitalized at Detroit’s Grace Hospital
It is unclear whether the dressing room incident caused Houdini’s eventual death on October 31, as the relationship between blunt trauma and appendicitis is uncertain, but Houdini’s insurance company concluded that the death was due to the dressing-room incident and paid double indemnity.

1934 – Bank robber – and Public Enemy #1 – Charles “Pretty Boy” Floyd was shot to death by federal agents at a farm in East Liverpool, Ohio.
Floyd and Adam Richetti became the primary suspects in a gunfight known as the “Kansas City massacre” on June 17, 1933 which resulted in the deaths of four law enforcement officers.
J. Edgar Hoover used the incident to empower the FBI to pursue Floyd, although Floyd’s participation in the Kansas City event remains very much in doubt.
While on the run, Wellsville, Ohio police officers captured Richetti. FBI agents and state law officials caught up with Floyd on a farm several miles from East Liverpool.
There are conflicting stories on how Floyd died.
East Liverpool police captain Chester Smith claimed he had wounded Floyd but Special Agent Melvin Purvis ordered agent Herman Hollis to “fire into him.” Hollis obeyed, said Smith, killing Floyd with a burst from a submachine gun.
FBI agent Winfred E. Hopton disputed Smith’s claim. He claimed that when agents confronted Floyd, he turned to fire on them, and two of the four killed him almost instantly.
Within hours of Floyd’s death, a telegram was received from his mother in Oklahoma, requesting that her son’s body not be photographed or exhibited to the public.
Her wishes were ignored as a flood of curiosity seekers lined up to view Floyd’s body, which was displayed lying on a cot.
Newsmen estimated that more than ten thousand people filed past the corpse that night and the following day.

1962 – President John F. Kennedy delivered a nationwide televised address on all of the major networks announcing the discovery of Soviet missiles in Cuba.
Before his speech, Kennedy met with Congressional leaders who opposed a blockade and demanded a stronger response.
In Moscow, Ambassador Foy D. Kohler briefed Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev on the pending blockade and Kennedy’s speech to the nation.
U.S. delegations met with Canadian Prime Minister John Diefenbaker, British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer, French President Charles de Gaulle and Secretary-General of the Organization of American States, José Antonio Mora to brief them on the US intelligence and their proposed response.
All were supportive of the US position, except Macmillan who advocated appeasement.
In a phone conversation with former President Dwight Eisenhower just hours before his speech to the nation, Kennedy updated him on the latest Cuba developments.
Kennedy had made sure that Eisenhower had been briefed regularly throughout the crisis, often by Director of Central Intelligence John McCone, who had been chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission in the Eisenhower administration.
As a leading figure in the Republican Party, Eisenhower had often criticized the Kennedy administration in sometimes harsh terms. In making this call, Kennedy made sure to get Eisenhower to say he would do the same thing under the circumstances.
And Eisenhower did just that…
“If this thing is such a serious thing, here on our flank, that we’re going to be uneasy and we know what thing is happening now, well, all right, you’ve got to use something.”
At 7:00 pm EDT, Kennedy delivered his nationwide address:
“It shall be the policy of this nation to regard any nuclear missile launched from Cuba against any nation in the Western Hemisphere as an attack by the Soviet Union on the United States, requiring a full retaliatory response upon the Soviet Union.”

The story continues on October 25.

1964 – A young British group who called themselves the High Numbers auditioned for EMI Records at EMI Studio 3 at 3 Abbey Road in St. John’s Wood (later to be known as Abbey Road Studios).
EMI’s John Burgess thought “the lead singer has a nice cutting voice but the band is not harmonious enough for EMI. I listened again and again but can’t decide if the High Numbers really have anything to offer. It would help a great deal if they wrote their own material.”
The group’s guitarist took that suggestion to heart and started writing. The group eventually signed with independent producer Shel Talmy’s recording company, Orbit Music.
Oh, and they changed their name to … The Who.

1968 – Apollo 7, the first mission in the United States’ Apollo program to carry a crew into space, safely splashed down in the Atlantic Ocean after orbiting the Earth 163 times.
The crew was commanded by Walter M. Schirra, with senior pilot / navigator Donn F. Eisele, and pilot / systems engineer R. Walter Cunningham. Their mission was an 11-day Earth-orbital test flight, and the first to include a live TV broadcast from an American spacecraft.
The mission was a complete technical success, giving NASA the confidence to send Apollo 8 into orbit around the Moon two months later.

1981 – The U.S. national debt crossed the $1 trillion mark for the first time.
When Ronald Reagan took office in January of that year, the gross domestic debt, as a percentage of the nation’s annual income, had reached its lowest point since 1931: 32.5 percent.
As the Republican nominee, Reagan had often spoken out in the presidential campaign against deficit spending. Once in office, however, Reagan encouraged Congress to spend heavily on arms while cutting taxes. As a result, the national debt soared during the eight Reagan years.
Today, the national debt stands at nearly $23 Trillion.

1983 – Two correctional officers were killed by inmates at the United States Penitentiary in Marion, Illinois.
Correctional officers Merle Clutts and Robert Hoffman were stabbed to death in two separate incidents by inmates Thomas Silverstein and Clayton Fountain.
The murders prompted Norman Carlson, director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons, to call for a new type of prison to isolate uncontrollable inmates. In Carlson’s view, such a prison was the only way to deal with inmates who “show absolutely no concern for human life.”
The “new type of prison” turned out to be the federal Supermax prison, the United States Penitentiary, Florence ADX in Colorado (shown above), built to house the most dangerous inmates in the federal prison system.

1992 – Legendary baseball broadcaster Red Barber died at the age of 84.
He was the baseball broadcaster for the Cincinnati Reds from 1934 to 1938, the Brooklyn Dodgers from 1939 through 1953, and the New York Yankees from 1954 to 1966.
The Baseball Hall of Fame inductee was affectionately known as “The redhead in the catbird seat.”

1992 – Actor Cleavon Little died of colorectal cancer at the age of 53.
In 1970, he portrayed the title role in the musical Purlie, for which he won the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical.
In 1974, Little appeared in what became his signature performance, portraying Sheriff Bart in the Mel Brooks comedy film Blazing Saddles.

2017 – Musician George Young died at the age of 70.
He shot to fame as the rhythm guitarist with the 1960s Australian rock band the Easybeats, and co-wrote the international hit Friday On My Mind with lead guitarist Harry Vanda.
Vanda and Young were also the producers of early work by the Australian hard rock band AC/DC, formed by his younger brothers Malcolm and Angus Young.

Please Note: I am once again going to be away for a few days (working on something special) but I will be back on Friday.

Compiled by Ray Lemire ©2019 RayLemire.com / Streamingoldies.com. All Rights Reserved.