Moments in Time – October 12, 2022

#Middlebury

• On Oct. 30, 1864, the town of Helena, Montana, is founded by four gold miners at a location they called Last Chance Gulch. Miners flooded to the area by the thousands, finding $19 million in gold in four years. By 1894, Helena was the capital of Montana.
• On Oct. 26, 1881, the Earp brothers battle the Clanton-McLaury gang in a shootout in a vacant lot behind the O.K. Corral in Tombstone, Arizona. The gunfight only took 30 seconds, but 30 shots were fired and several were killed. Two were charged with murder, but a judge later found them not guilty.
• On Oct. 27, 1904, the New York City subway opens. The line traveled 9.1 miles through 28 stations. More than 100,000 people paid a nickel each to take their first ride. Today there are 26 lines, the longest running 32 miles.
• On Oct. 24, 1921, from among 77,000 United States servicemen killed on the Western Front during World War I, the body of the first soldier to be honored is selected in the French town of Chalons-sur-Marne. Four bodies were selected to become the Unknown Soldiers at Arlington National Cemetery in Washington, D.C.
• On Oct. 29, 1969, Bobby Seale, a member of the “Chicago Eight,” is gagged during his murder trial on orders of the judge to stop Seale’s outbursts. The “Chicago Eight” were charged with crossing state lines to cause anti-war demonstrations in Chicago. Seale was eventually sentenced to 48 months in prison for the outbursts alone, but the murder portion of his trial ended with a hung jury and the contempt charges were dropped.
• On Oct. 25, 1983, President Ronald Reagan orders 2,000 Marines to invade Grenada to protect the 1,000 Americans there at the time, many of them students at the island’s medical school. Codenamed “Operation Urgent Fury,” the fighting was over in four days.
• On Oct. 28, 1998, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act is signed into law. The act strengthened copyright protections and allowed copyright holders to issue “takedown” notices to individuals or companies who engaged in infringing use of a copyrighted work.

© 2022 King Features Synd., Inc.