Author: James Wesley Rawles

October 16, 1846: William Thomas Green Morton first demonstrated the use of ether as a general anesthetic before a gathering of physicians at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. — After the French Revolution began, Marie-Antoinette, queen consort of Louis XVI, was targeted by agitators who, enraged by her extravagance and attempts to save the monarchy, ultimately guillotined her on this day in 1793. — Today’s feature article is a review written by Field Gear Editor Tom Christianson.  

  On this day in 1959 a final conference on the Antarctic Treaty convened in Washington, D.C., and, after six weeks of negotiations, the treaty was signed by 12 countries, preserving the continent for free scientific study. — Herbert W. McBride, the author of A Rifleman Went To War, was born in Waterloo, Indiana October 15, 1873. He died in Indianapolis of a heart attack on March 17, 1933, shortly after finishing writing A Rifleman Went To War. — On October 15, 1529, Ottoman armies under Suleiman ended their siege of Vienna and turned back to Belgrade. — October 15th, …

At the Battle of Hastings, fought this day in 1066, King Harold II of England was defeated by the invading army of William, duke of Normandy, in the Norman Conquest, establishing Normans as rulers of England. — On October 14, 1947, test pilot Chuck Yeager became the first man to break the sound barrier. — The Cuban Missile Crisis began on October 14, 1962, bringing the United States and the Soviet Union to the brink of nuclear conflict. Photographs were taken by a high-altitude U-2 spy plane and offered incontrovertible evidence that Soviet-made medium-range missiles were in Cuba. These missiles …

On October 13, 1972, a flight chartered by a Uruguayan rugby team crashed in the Andes Mountains of Argentina, and the wreckage was not located for more than two months; the incident garnered international attention, especially after it was revealed that the survivors had resorted to cannibalism. — SurvivalBlog Writing Contest Today we present guest article selected by JWR. We are in need of entries for Round 109 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. More than $850,000 worth of prizes have been awarded since we started running this contest. We recently polled blog readers, asking for suggested article topics. Refer …

On October 12, 2000, while preparing to refuel in the Yemeni port of Aden, the USS Cole, a U.S. naval destroyer, was attacked by suicide bombers associated with al-Qaeda; 17 sailors were killed and 39 wounded. — Today, in 1492, after sailing across the Atlantic Ocean, Italian explorer Christopher Columbus sighted a Bahamian island, believing he had reached East Asia. His expedition went ashore the same day and claimed the land for Isabella and Ferdinand of Spain, who sponsored his attempt to find a western ocean route to China, India, and the fabled gold and spice islands of Asia. — …