Published
On this day, Oct. 29 ...
1929: "Black Tuesday" descends upon the New York Stock Exchange. Prices collapse amid panic selling and thousands of investors are wiped out as America’s “Great Depression” begins.
Also on this day:
- 1901: President William McKinley’s assassin, Leon Czolgosz, is electrocuted.
- 1911: Hungarian-born American newspaperman Joseph Pulitzer, 64, dies in Charleston, S.C.
- 1956: "The Huntley-Brinkley Report" premieres as NBC’s nightly television newscast.
- 1987: Following the confirmation defeat of Robert H. Bork to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court, President Ronald Reagan announces his choice of Douglas H. Ginsburg, a nomination that would fall apart over revelations of Ginsburg’s previous marijuana use.
- 1998: Sen. John Glenn, at age 77, roars back into space aboard the shuttle Discovery, retracing the trail he’d blazed for America’s astronauts 36 years earlier.
- 2012: Superstorm Sandy slams ashore in New Jersey and slowly marches inland, devastating coastal communities and causing widespread power outages; the storm and its aftermath would be blamed for at least 182 deaths in the U.S.
- 2014: Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel says the military men and women helping fight Ebola in West Africa have to undergo 21-day quarantines upon their return, longer than required for many civilian health care workers.
- 2014: The San Francisco Giants win Game 7 on the road for their third World Series title in five years as they defeat the Kansas City Royals 3-2.
- 2017: All but 10 members of the Houston Texans take a knee during the national anthem, reacting to a remark from team owner Bob McNair to other NFL owners that “we can’t have the inmates running the prison.”