Pope Urban II, born Odo of Châtillon or Otho de Lagery, was Pope from 12 March 1088 to his death in 1099. He is best known for initiating the First Crusade and setting up the modern-day Roman Curia in the manner of a royal ecclesiastical court to help run the Church.

Born: 1042 · Lagery, France
Died: Jul 29, 1099 · Rome, Italy

---

Highlights

• 1084: He was one of the most prominent and active supporters of the Gregorian reforms, especially as legate in the Holy Roman Empire in 1084.


• 1095: Though the Council of Clermont held in November of the same year was primarily focused on reforms within the church hierarchy, Urban II gave a speech on 27 November 1095 to a broader audience.


• 1097: The most important effect of the First Crusade for Urban himself was the removal of Clement III from Rome in 1097 by one of the French armies.


• 1099: Urban II died on 29 July 1099, fourteen days after the fall of Jerusalem to the Crusaders, but before news of the event had reached Italy; his successor was Pope Paschal II.

— Source: wiki/Pope_Urban_II

Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade is an annual event featuring imaginative floats and spectacular pageantry making it one of America’s favorite holiday extravaganzas.

First episode: Nov 24, 1927
Number of episodes: 89
Episode duration: 180 minutes
First occurred: 1924
Website: social.macys.com/parade

— Source: wiki/Macy’s_Thanksgiving_Day_Parade

Gerald Rudolph Ford Jr. was an American politician who served as the 38th President of the United States from 1974 to 1977. Prior to this he was the 40th Vice President of the United States, serving from 1973 until President Richard Nixon’s resignation in 1974. He was the first person appointed to the vice presidency under the terms of the 25th Amendment, following the resignation of Vice President Spiro Agnew on October 10, 1973. Becoming president upon Richard Nixon’s departure on August 9, 1974, he claimed the distinction as the first and to date only person to have served as both Vice President and President of the United States without being elected to either office. Before ascending to the vice presidency, Ford served 25 years as U.S. Representative from Michigan’s 5th congressional district, the final nine of them as the House Minority Leader.

Lived: Jul 14, 1913 – Dec 26, 2006 (age 93)
Height: 6′ 0″ (1.84 m)
Spouse: Betty Ford (m. 1948 – 2006)
Party: Republican Party
Successor: Jimmy Carter
Vice President: Nelson Rockefeller

---

Highlights

• 1948: On October 15, 1948, at Grace Episcopal Church in Grand Rapids, Ford married Elizabeth Bloomer Warren (1918–2011), a department store fashion consultant.


• 1974: On September 8, 1974, Ford issued Proclamation 4311, which gave Nixon a full and unconditional pardon for any crimes he might have committed against the United States while President.


• 1980: Had Ford won the election, the provisions of the 22nd Amendment would have disqualified him from running in 1980, because he had served more than two years of Nixon’s remaining term.


• 1981: In April 1981, he opened the Gerald R. Ford Library in Ann Arbor, Michigan, on the north campus of his alma mater, the University of Michigan, followed in September by the Gerald R. Ford Museum in Grand Rapids.


• 2001: In 2001, the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation awarded the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award to Ford for his pardon of Nixon.


• 2006: After his death in December 2006, the University of Michigan Marching Band played the school’s fight song for him one final time, for his last ride from the Gerald R. Ford Airport in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

— Source: wiki/Gerald_Ford

The Moscone–Milk assassinations were the killings of San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and San Francisco Supervisor Harvey Milk, who were shot and killed in San Francisco City Hall by former Supervisor Dan White on November 27, 1978. White was disappointed that Moscone had refused to reappoint him to his seat on the Board of Supervisors, from which White had just resigned, and that Milk had lobbied heavily against his reappointment. These events helped bring national notice to then-Board President Dianne Feinstein, who became the first female mayor of San Francisco and eventually U.S. Senator for California.

Date: Nov 27, 1978

— Source: wiki/Moscone–Milk_assassinations

Sanford “Sandy” Koufax is a former American Major League Baseball left-handed pitcher. He pitched 12 seasons for the Brooklyn/Los Angeles Dodgers, from 1955 to 1966. Koufax, at age 36 in 1972, became the youngest player ever elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Born: Dec 30, 1935 (age 80) · Brooklyn, NY
Height: 6′ 2″ (1.88 m)
Net worth: $10 million USD (2016)
Spouse: Kimberly Francis (m. 1985 – 1998) · Anne Koufax (m. 1969 – 1982)
Education: Lafayette High School · University of Cincinnati · Columbia University · Columbia University School of General Studies
Parents: Evelyn Lichtenstein (Mother) · Jack Braun (Father)

---

Highlights

• 1955: Koufax made only 12 appearances in 1955, pitching  41 2⁄3 innings and walking almost as many men (28) as he struck out (30).


• 1955: Koufax made his major league debut on June 24, 1955 against the Milwaukee Braves, with the Dodgers trailing 7–1 in the fifth inning.


• 1959: On August 31, 1959, he surpassed his career high with 18 strikeouts, setting the NL record and tying Bob Feller’s major league record for strikeouts in one game.


• 1961: Posting an 18–13 record for the Dodgers in 1961, Koufax led the league with 269 strikeouts, breaking Christy Mathewson’s 58-year-old NL mark of 267.


• 1965: On September 9, 1965, Koufax became the sixth pitcher of the modern era, and eighth overall, to throw a perfect game, the first by a left-hander since 1880.


• 1966: He pitched 6 1⁄3 innings in four All-Star games including being the starting pitcher for 3 innings in the 1966 All-Star Game.

— Source: wiki/Sandy_Koufax

The Spanish transition to democracy, or simply the Transition refers to the restoration of democracy in Spain after the death of Francisco Franco in 1975. The transition began shortly after Franco’s death on 20 November 1975, while its completion has been variously said to be marked by the Spanish Constitution of 1978, the failure of an attempted coup on 23 February 1981, or the electoral victory of the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party on 28 October 1982. Though faced with political and economic at the time, the transition to democracy was one of the factors that allowed Spain to join the European Economic Community and NATO.

— Source: wiki/Spanish_transition_to_democracy

James Warren “Jim” Jones was an American cult leader. Jones was the founder and leader of the Peoples Temple, infamous due to the mass murder-suicide in November 1978 of 918 of its members in Jonestown, Guyana, the murder of Congressman Leo Ryan, and the ordering of four additional Temple member deaths in Georgetown, the Guyanese capital. Nearly three hundred children were murdered at Jonestown, almost all of them by cyanide poisoning. Jones died from a gunshot wound to the head; it is suspected his death was a suicide.

Lived: May 13, 1931 – Nov 18, 1978 (age 47)
Height: 5′ 11″ (1.80 m)
Spouse: Marceline Jones (m. 1949 – 1978)
Children: Stephan Gandhi Jones (Son) · Lew Eric Jones (Son) · Timothy Glen Jones (Son) · Jim Jon Prokes (Son) · Stephanie Jones (Daughter) · Jim W. Jones Jr. (Son) · Suzanne O. Jones (Daughter)
Movies: Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple · Witness to Jonestown
Parents: Lynetta Putnam (Mother) · James Thurman Jones (Father)

---

Highlights

• 1949: Jones married nurse Marceline Baldwin in 1949, and moved to Bloomington, Indiana.


• 1971: The Temple repeatedly claimed that Jones fathered the child when, in 1971, Tim Stoen had requested that Jones have sex with Grace to keep her from defecting.


• 1975: The move led to Jones and the Temple becoming politically influential in San Francisco politics, culminating in the Temple’s instrumental role in the mayoral election victory of George Moscone in 1975.


• 1977: In order to avoid potentially giving up the boy in a custody dispute with Grace, Jones ordered Tim to take John to Guyana in February 1977.


• 1977: In September 1977, California assemblyman Willie Brown served as master of ceremonies at a large testimonial dinner for Jones attended by Governor Jerry Brown and Lieutenant Governor Mervyn Dymally.


• 1978: Stoen traveled to Washington, D.C. in January 1978 to visit with State Department officials and members of Congress, and wrote a “white paper” to Congress detailing his grievances against Jones and the Temple.


• 1978: Jim Jones died on November 18, 1978 in Port Kaituma, Guyana.

— Source: wiki/Jim_Jones

Terence Hardy “Terry” Waite CBE is an English humanitarian and author. Waite was the Assistant for Anglican Communion Affairs for the then Archbishop of Canterbury, Robert Runcie, in the 1980s. As an envoy for the Church of England, he travelled to Lebanon to try to secure the release of four hostages, including the journalist John McCarthy. He was himself kidnapped and held captive from 1987 to 1991.The terrible thing about terrorism is that ultimately it destroys those who practice it. Slowly but surely, as they try to extinguish life in others, the light within them dies.

Born: May 31, 1939 (age 77) · Bollington, United Kingdom
Height: 6′ 7″ (2.01 m)

---

Highlights

• 1963: In 1963, Waite was appointed Education Advisor to the Anglican Bishop of Bristol, Oliver Tomkins, and assisted with Tomkins’s implementation of the SALT (Stewardship and Laity Training) programme in the diocese, along with Basil Moss.


• 1969: In 1969, he moved to Uganda where he worked as Provincial Training Advisor to Erica Sabiti, the first African Anglican Archbishop of Uganda, Rwanda, and Burundi and, in that capacity, travelled extensively throughout East Africa.


• 1980: In 1980, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Robert Runcie, appointed him the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Assistant for Anglican Communion Affairs on the recommendation of Tomkins and Bishop John Howe.


• 1984: On 10 November 1984, he negotiated with Colonel Gaddafi for the release of the four remaining British hostages held in the Libyan Hostage Situation, Michael Berdinner, Alan Russell, Malcolm Anderson and Robin Plummer and was again successful.


• 1985: From 1985, Waite became involved in hostage negotiation in Lebanon, and he assisted in successful negotiations which secured the release of Lawrence Jenco and David Jacobsen.


• 1987: The group broke trust and took him hostage on 20 January 1987.

— Source: wiki/Terry_Waite

The Battle of Agincourt was a major English victory in the Hundred Years’ War. The battle took place on Friday, 25 October 1415, near Azincourt, in northern France. Henry V’s victory at Agincourt, against a numerically superior French army, crippled France and started a new period in the war during which Henry V married the French king’s daughter, and their son, later Henry VI of England and Henry II of France, was made heir to the throne of France as well as of England.

Date: Oct 25, 1415

— Source: wiki/Battle_of_Agincourt

Francis Joseph Beckman was an American prelate of the Roman Catholic Church. He served as Bishop of Lincoln and as Archbishop of Dubuque. Francis Beckman was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, to Francis and Elizabeth Beckman. He studied at St. Gregory’s Preparatory Seminary and Mount St. Mary’s Seminary in Cincinnati, at the University of Louvain in Belgium, and at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome. He was ordained to the priesthood on June 20, 1902. Following his ordination, he received a Licentiate of Sacred Theology and later a Doctor of Sacred Theology from the Gregorian.

Born: Oct 25, 1875 · Cincinnati, OH
Died: Oct 17, 1948 · Chicago, IL
Parents: Elizabeth · Francis

— Source: wiki/Francis_Beckman

Halloween is a 1978 American independent slasher film directed and scored by John Carpenter, co-written with producer Debra Hill, and starring Donald Pleasence and Jamie Lee Curtis in her film debut. The film was the first installment in what has become the Halloween franchise. The plot is set in the fictional Midwestern town of Haddonfield, Illinois. On Halloween night in 1963, a six-year-old Michael Myers inexplicably murders his sister and is committed. Fifteen years later, he escapes and returns home to kill again, all the while eluding his psychiatrist, Dr. Sam Loomis, who suspects Michael’s intentions, following him back to Haddonfield.

Halloween was produced on a budget of $300,000 and grossed $47 million at the box office in the United States, and $70 million worldwide, equivalent to roughly $267 million as of 2016, becoming one of the most profitable independent films. Many critics credit the film as the first in a long line of slasher films inspired by Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960). Halloween had many imitators and originated several clichés found in low-budget horror films of the 1980s and 1990s. Unlike many of its imitators, Halloween contains little graphic violence and gore. It was one of the first horror films to introduce the concept of the killer dying and coming back to life again within the same film. In 2006, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant”.

Some critics have suggested that Halloween may encourage sadism and misogyny by audiences identifying with its villain. Other critics have suggested the film is a social critique of the immorality of youth and teenagers in 1970s America, with many of Myers’ victims being sexually promiscuous substance abusers, while the lone heroine is depicted as innocent and pure, hence her survival. Nevertheless, Carpenter dismisses such analyses. Several of Halloween’s techniques and plot elements, although not founded in this film, have nonetheless become standard slasher movie tropes. Years after its debut, Halloween enjoys a reputation as a classic and is considered one of the best horror films of all time.

Halloween spawned seven sequels and was rebooted in 2007.

Release date: Oct 25, 1978 (United States)
Director: John Carpenter
Gross revenue: $70 million USD
Estimated budget: $300,000 USD
Sequel: Halloween II

— Source: wiki/Halloween_(1978_film)
— IMDB: www.imdb.com/title/tt0077651/

The Invasion of Grenada was a 1983 United States–led invasion of the Caribbean island nation of Grenada, with a population of about 91,000 located 160 kilometres north of Venezuela, that resulted in a U.S. victory within a matter of weeks. Codenamed Operation Urgent Fury, it was triggered by the house arrest on 12 October 1983 and murder of the leader of the coup which had brought a revolutionary government to power for the preceding four years. The invasion resulted in the appointment of an interim government, followed by democratic elections in 1984.

Start date: Oct 25, 1983
End date: Dec 15, 1983

— Source: wiki/Invasion_of_Grenada

André-Jacques Garnerin was a balloonist and the inventor of the frameless parachute. He was appointed Official Aeronaut of France. Garnerin was born in Paris. He was captured by British troops during the first phase of the French Revolutionary Wars 1792–1797, turned over to the Austrians and held as a prisoner of war in Buda in Hungary for three years.

Born: Jan 31, 1769 · Paris, France
Died: Aug 18, 1823 · Paris, France
Spouse: Jeanne Geneviève Labrosse
Siblings: Jean-Baptiste-Olivier Garnerin (Brother)

— Source: wiki/André-Jacques_Garnerin

Hawley Harvey Crippen, usually known as Dr Crippen, was an American homeopath, ear and eye specialist and medicine dispenser. He was hanged in Pentonville Prison for the murder of his wife Cora Henrietta Crippen, and was the first suspect to be captured with the aid of wireless telegraphy.

Born: Sep 11, 1862 · Coldwater, MI
Died: Nov 23, 1910 · HM Prison Pentonville, United Kingdom
Education: University of Michigan

— Source: wiki/Hawley_Harvey_Crippen

Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre was a French philosopher, playwright, novelist, political activist, biographer, and literary critic. He was one of the key figures in the philosophy of existentialism and phenomenology, and one of the leading figures in 20th-century French philosophy and Marxism.

Lived: Jun 21, 1905 – Apr 15, 1980 (age 74)
Height: 5′ 0″ (1.53 m)
Romance: Simone de Beauvoir
Awards: Nobel Prize in Literature (1964)
Buried: Montparnasse Cemetery
Education: École Normale Supérieure · Lycée Louis-le-Grand

— Source: wiki/Jean-Paul_Sartre

Pope Saint John Paul II, born Karol Józef Wojtyła, was Pope from 1978 to 2005. He is widely known to Catholics as Saint John Paul the Great, especially in the names of institutions.

Lived: May 18, 1920 – Apr 02, 2005 (age 84)
Height: 5′ 10″ (1.78 m)
Parents: Karol Wojtyła (Father) · Emilia Kaczorowska (Mother)
Education: Jagiellonian University (1953 – 1954) · Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas (1947 – 1948)
Siblings: Edmund Wojtyła (Brother) · Olga Wojtyła (Sister)

— Source: wiki/Pope_John_Paul_II