1871

Today in History 11/10 (Badlands National Park)

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Badlands national park in South Dakota (© Andrew Nay/EyeEm/Getty Images)(1978) Badlands becomes a national park
A national monument since 1939, Badlands in southwest South Dakota is designated as a national park. The 244,000-acre park will eventually host about a million visitors a year coming to see wildlife, fossils, and the Badlands wall.
Badlands National Park is an American national park located in southwestern South Dakota. The park protects 242,756 acres of sharply eroded buttes and pinnacles, along with the largest undisturbed mixed grass prairie in the United States. The National Park Service manages the park, with the South Unit being co-managed with the Oglala Lakota tribe.
Website: www.nps.gov/badl
Address: 25216 Ben Reifel Pl, Interior, SD 57750
Phone: (605) 433-5361
Established: Jan 29, 1939
Area: 379.31 sq miles
Annual visitors: 1.05 million (2017)

Badlands National Park
Badlands National Park
wiki/Badlands_National_Park
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(1978) Badlands becomes a national park.
Also on this day,

1871 | Henry Stanley finds missing explorer Dr. David Livingstone
‘Dr. Livingstone, I presume?’ Journalist Henry Stanley will claim he uttered those words on this day, upon finding David Livingstone after a harrowing search in central Africa. The quote, however, and even the date, will later come into question.
1969 | ‘Sesame Street’ is introduced to the airwaves of American public television
‘Sesame Street,’ featuring Jim Henson’s Muppets, catchy songs, and animated shorts, aims to educate while it entertains young kids. The show will be a huge success, and will be credited as a valuable learning tool, but will also ruffle convention as it tackles serious subjects, such as death, poverty, and AIDS.
1997 | Judge frees British au pair
Louise Woodward, 19, a British au pair convicted for murdering an infant while he was in her care in Massachusetts, has been freed from prison, her conviction reduced from murder to involuntary manslaughter. Woodward’s case drew intense worldwide attention, especially in Britain.

Today in History 11/10/17

Funeral procession of Leonid Brezhnev in Moscow on November 10, 1982 (© KeystoneUSA/ZUMA/Rex Features)(1982) Soviet leader Brezhnev dies at age 75
Leonid Brezhnev, who ruled the USSR for 18 years during the height of the Cold War, dies of a heart attack. In poor health, he had been largely a figurehead during his final years. His death will start a long cycle of reform eventually leading to the country's breakup.
Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev was a Soviet politician who led the Soviet Union from 1964 to 1982 as the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, presiding over the country until his death and funeral in 1982. His eighteen-year term as General Secretary was second only to that of Joseph Stalin in duration. During Brezhnev's rule, the global influence of the Soviet Union grew dramatically, in part because of the expansion of the Soviet military during this time. His tenure as leader was marked by the beginning of an era of economic and social stagnation in the Soviet Union.
Lived: Dec 19, 1906 - Nov 10, 1982 (age 75)
Height: 5' 8" (1.73 m)
Spouse: Viktoria Brezhneva (m. 1928 - 1982)
Buried: Kremlin Wall Necropolis
Children: Yuri Brezhnev (Son) · Galina Brezhneva (Daughter)
Previous offices: Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet (1977 - 1982) · General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (1964 - 1982)
Highlights
  • 1928: Leonid Brezhnev married Viktoria Brezhneva in 1928.

  • 1931: Brezhnev had met Khrushchev in 1931, shortly after joining the Party, and before long, as he continued his rise through the ranks, he became Khrushchev's protégé.

  • 1952: In 1952 Brezhnev became a member of the Central Committee, and during 1964, Brezhnev succeeded Nikita Khrushchev as First Secretary, while Alexei Kosygin succeeded Khrushchev in his post as Soviet premier.

  • 1957: He was now a senior member of Khrushchev's entourage, and in June 1957, he backed Khrushchev in his struggle with Malenkov's Stalinist old guard in the Party leadership, the so-called "Anti-Party Group".

  • 1977: In 1977, he forced the retirement of Podgorny and became once again Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union, making this position equivalent to that of an executive president.

  • 1982: After years of declining health, Brezhnev died on 10 November 1982 and was quickly succeeded in his post as General Secretary by Yuri Andropov.


25th anniversary of conquering virgin land. USSR block. 1979
USSR postage stamp of 1979, celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Virgin Lands Campaign

wiki/Leonid_Brezhnev
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Today in History 10/27 (Boston Martyrs)

Illustration shows members of the Society of Friends (or Quakers) as they are led to their execution, 17th century (© Interim Archives/Getty Images)(1659) Massachusetts shows no tolerance for the Boston martyrs
The gallows on Boston Common receive two condemned men, Marmaduke Stephenson and William Robinson, for the crime of practicing their Quaker religion in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Although the two had fled Oliver Cromwell’s intolerance in England, they’ve found no haven in this part of America.
The Boston martyrs is the name given in Quaker tradition to the three English members of the Society of Friends, Marmaduke Stephenson, William Robinson and Mary Dyer, and to the Friend William Leddra of Barbados, who were condemned to death and executed by public hanging for their religious beliefs under the legislature of the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1659, 1660 and 1661. Several other Friends lay under sentence of death at Boston in the same period, but had their punishments commuted to that of being whipped out of the colony from town to town.
The Quaker
“Mary Dyer led to execution on Boston Common, 1 June 1660”, by an unknown 19th century artist
wiki/Boston_martyrs
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(1659) Massachusetts shows no tolerance for the Boston martyrs.
Also on this day,

1275 | Amsterdam founded as Holland’s power center starts with a dam
Catastrophic flooding in the Low Countries is all too common, so the River Amstel gets a dam and the community surrounding it gets a name, ‘Aemstelredamme.’ The small town will grow into the 17th-century’s richest city in the world and one of the most important capitals in history, Amsterdam.
1871 | The power of the press brings down a Boss as Tweed arrested
Such is the dominance of New York power broker William ‘Boss’ Tweed’s well-oiled political machine, Tammany Hall, that his first arrest on corruption charges is achieved only through a long campaign of public shaming in the press, and a batch of brilliantly barbed political cartoons.
1904 | Transit gets rapid beneath the streets of New York City as NYC’s subway opens
More than 100,000 people pay a nickel each to take a first-day ride on something wondrous beneath New York City’s streets, the IRT Company’s new underground train system. The ‘subway’ will prove immediately popular to folks keen on escaping the crush of city streets above.

Today in History 10/27/17

Subway train at an underground station to take on passengers in New York City, early 1900s (© Hulton Archive/Getty Images)(1904) Transit gets rapid beneath the streets of New York City
More than 100,000 people pay a nickel each to take a first-day ride on something wondrous beneath New York City's streets, the IRT Company's new underground train system. The 'subway' will prove immediately popular to folks keen on escaping the crush of city streets above.
The New York City Subway is a rapid transit system owned by the City of New York and leased to the New York City Transit Authority, a subsidiary agency of the state-run Metropolitan Transportation Authority. Opened in 1904, the New York City Subway is one of the world's oldest public transit systems, one of the world's most used metro systems, and the metro system with the most stations. It offers service 24 hours per day on every day of the year.
Inception: Oct 27, 1904
NYC Subway Diagram
Map of the New York City Subway as of January 2017

wiki/New_York_City_Subway
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