Random News and Notes 21 October

On this date:

• 1096 – Seljuk Turks at Chivitot slaughter thousands of German crusaders.
• 1529 – The Pope names Henry VIII of England Defender of the Faith after defending the seven sacraments against Luther.
• 1600 – Tokugawa Ieyasu defeats his enemies in battle and affirms his position as Japan’s most powerful warlord.
• 1790 – The Tricolor is chosen as the official flag of France.
• 1897 – After two unsuccessful attempts, the USS Constitution is launched in Boston Harbor. The a 44-gun U.S. Navy frigate, built to fight Barbary pirates off the coast of Tripoli, performed commendably during those conflicts.
• 1805 – Vice Admiral Viscount Horatio Nelson wins his greatest victory over a Franco-Spanish fleet in the Battle of Trafalgar. Nelson is fatally wounded in the battle, but lives long enough to see victory.

• 1837 – Under a flag of truce during peace talks, U.S. troops capture the Indian Seminole Chief Osceola in Florida.
• 1861 – The Battle of Ball’s Bluff, Va. begins, a disastrous Union defeat which sparks Congressional investigations.
• 1867 – Many leaders of the Kiowa, Comanche and Kiowa-Apache sign a peace treaty at Medicine Lodge, Kan. Comanche Chief Quanah Parker refused to accept the treaty terms.
• 1872 – The U.S. Naval Academy admits John H. Conyers, the first African American to be accepted.
• 1879 – fter 14 months of testing, Thomas Edison first demonstrates his electric lamp, hoping to one day compete with gaslight.
• 1904 – Panamanians clash with U.S. Marines in Panama in a brief uprising.
• 1917 – The first U.S. troops enter the front lines at Sommerviller under French command.
• 1940 – Ernest Hemingway’s novel For Whom the Bell Tolls is published.
• 1941 – German soldiers go on a rampage, killing thousands of Yugoslavian civilians, including whole classes of schoolboys, in what has become known as the Kragujevac massacre.
• 1942 – Eight American and British officers land from a submarine on an Algerian beach to take measure of Vichy French to the Operation Torch landings.
• 1950 – North Korean Premier Kim Il-Sung establishes a new capital at Sinuiju on the Yalu River opposite the Chinese City of Antung.
• 1959 – The Guggenheim Museum, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, opens in Manhattan.
• 1966 – A landslide of coal waste crashes into a small Welsh mining village, killing 116 children and 28 adults. The accident left just five survivors and wiped out half the town’s youth. The Aberfan disaster became one of the United Kingdom’s worst coal mining accidents.

• 1967 – The “March on the Pentagon,” protesting American involvement in Vietnam , draws 50,000 protesters.
• 1979 – Israel’s Foreign Minister Moshe Dayan resigns over disagreements with Prime Minister Menachem Begin over policies related to the Palestinians.

We start the news in Ohio where a chemical leak has prompted an evacuation order in North Toledo. The leak of glycidyl methacrylate occurred at the MC Tank Terminal near Progress Avenue. The leak released an irritant chemical that causes eye burning, headaches, dizziness, nausea, and breathing problems. Toledo Fire & Rescue ordered a one-mile evacuation around 10:48 p.m. and expanded shelter-in-place to three miles early Wednesday. Schools in the area are closed and the Red Cross is aiding evacuees.

No widespread injuries occurred, but low visibility made roads hazardous, and officials continue monitoring the ongoing release while urging caution.

Our next story comes to us from India. A trained elephant named Dhanraj went on a 13 hour rampage in Varanasi, a city in Uttar Pradesh, northern India. During preparations for the Ramnagar Ramlila festival, the elephant broke free from its chain at Panchvati ground around 10 a.m., injuring mahout Chhaplu severely before rampaging for 13 hours. It damaged shops, motorcycles, and electric lines, causing power outages as police, forest officials, NDRF teams, and locals tried to contain it.

Police and officials contained the area as residents fled, and Gorakhpur Zoo experts finally subdued the animal late that night with a xylazine tranquilizer. Officials noted Dhanraj’s past aggression but could not identify the trigger this time. The handler remains in critical care at Banaras Hindu University trauma center.

As one wag on X said, Imagine having to smell India with a 9 foot nose. Not guilty by reason of insanity.

The United States now has 64 National Parks. Chiricahua National Monument is now Chiricahua National Park, following President Donald J. Trump’s signing of the Chiricahua National Park Act into law on Oct. 20, 2026. The redesignation recognizes the national significance of the area’s extraordinary natural and cultural resources and marks a new chapter for one of Arizona’s most distinctive landscapes. 

According to the NPS, first protected as a national monument in 1924, Chiricahua preserves thousands of years of human history, including its importance as the homeland of the Chiricahua Apache and its legacy of early homesteading families at Faraway Ranch. The redesignation reflects the national significance of the area’s natural and cultural resources and the longstanding efforts to conserve them. You can read more about the redesignation and the Park itself HERE.

An Indian man living in California claimed ICE had taken his wife into custody. When questioned about her disappearance, Gurinder Singh Gill, 28, told investigators that ICE had taken his 30-year-old wife Jasmine, a registered nurse and mother of their 8-month-old son, while she checked mail outside their Sacramento home amid their divorce and custody battle. ICE confirmed no such action occurred. Firefighters discovered burned human remains near Pollock Pines in El Dorado County. The body was identified by jewelry that proved to be hers on October 1.

Gill was arrested October 14, held without bail on a felony murder charge.

A 64 year old Virginia man was arrested over the weekend for taping his wife to a chair. Terry Ward was arrested last Sunday night in Richmond after officers responded to a domestic call. According to the criminal complaint, his wife said he used tape to restrain her to a chair in the basement. Ward admitted he tied her up and left her there. She had marks and tape residue on both arms and told police she had been restrained for up to 45 minutes.

He now faces felony abduction and misdemeanor assault charges, with his next court date on November 10. Authorities are treating the incident as a serious domestic matter.

I can get where he’s coming from. I don’t condone the behavior, I just understand the motivation behind it.