October 31
1517 - Martin Luther posted the 95 Theses on the door of the Wittenberg Palace Church, marking the start of the Protestant Reformation in Germany.
1846 - A heavy snowfall trapped the Donner Party in the Sierra Nevada mountains.
1864 - Nevada became the 36th state.
1941 - Work on the Mount Rushmore monument in South Dakota was completed.
1956 - Rear Admiral G. J. Dufek became the first person to land an airplane at the South Pole.
1961 - The body of Josef Stalin was removed from Lenin’s Tomb as part of the Soviet Union’s “de-Stalinization” drive.
1964 - Theodore C. Freeman, 34, became the first member of NASA’s astronaut corps to die when his T-38 jet crashed while approaching Ellington Air Force Base in Houston.
1968 - President Lyndon B. Johnson ordered a halt to all U.S. bombing of North Vietnam, saying he hoped for fruitful peace negotiations.
1984 - Indian prime minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated.
1992 - Pope John Paul II formally proclaimed that the Roman Catholic Church had erred in condemning the astronomer Galileo 350 years earlier for holding that the Earth was not the center of the universe.
1999 - EgyptAir Flight 990, bound from New York to Cairo, crashed off the Massachusetts coast, killing all 217 people aboard.
2005 - President George W. Bush nominated Judge Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court.
2015 - A Russian passenger airliner crashed in a remote part of Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula 23 minutes after taking off from a popular Red Sea resort, killing all 224 people on board.
2018 - Notorious gangster James “Whitey” Bulger was found beaten to death at a federal prison in West Virginia; the 89-year-old former Boston crime boss and longtime FBI informant had been transferred there hours earlier.
2019 - President Donald Trump announced that he would be making Palm Beach, Florida, his permanent residence after leaving the White House rather than returning to Trump Tower in New York.
2020 - Actor Sean Connery, who rose to international stardom as the suave secret agent James Bond and then carved out an Oscar-winning career in other rugged roles, died at his home in the Bahamas at the age of 90.
Birthdays
23 - Willow Smith (actress/singer)
24 - Danielle Rose Russell (actress)
26 - Holly Taylor (actress)
26 - Sydney Park (actress)
30 - Letitia Wright (actress)
30 - Nadine Lustre (actress)
31 - Vanessa Marano (actress)
39 - Scott Clifton (actor)
41 - Justin Chatwin (actor)
43 - Eddie Kaye Thomas (actor)
45 - Brian Hallisay (actor)
47 - Piper Perabo (actress)
56 - Vanilla Ice (rapper)
58 - Mike O'Malley (actor/comedian)
60 - Rob Schneider (actor/comedian)
60 - Dermot Mulroney (actor)
62 - Peter Jackson (director)
66 - Brian Stokes Mitchell (actor)
72 - Nick Saban (football coach)
73 - Jane Pauley (TV host)
76 - Deidre Hall (actress)
77 - Stephen Rea (actor)
78 - Brian Doyle-Murray (actor)
82 - Sally Kirkland (actress)
85 - Ron Rifkin (actor)
92 - Dan Rather (news anchor)
98 - Lee Grant (actor)
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Today in Sports History - October 31
1950 - Earl Lloyd (Washington Capitols) became the first African-American to play in an NBA game.
1968 - The Milwaukee Bucks win their first game in franchise history, 138-118 over the Detroit Pistons.
1994 - American Venus Williams makes her professional tennis debut at age 14.
2003 - Bethany Hamilton, age 13, has her arm bitten off by a shark while competing in a surfing competition in Hawaii.
2010 - For the first time in major league history, two former presidents attended the same World Series Game. George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush both attended Game 4 at Rangers Ballpark in Arlington, TX.
2014 - Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine, Frank Thomas, Bobby Cox, Tony La Russa and Joe Torre are inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.
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