Random News and Notes 24 October
On this date:
- 1531 – Bavaria, despite being a Catholic region, joins the League of Schmalkalden, a Protestant group which opposes Charles V.
- 1648 – The signing of the Treaty of Westphalia ends the German Thirty Years’ War.
- 1836 – The match is patented.
- 1861 – Western Union completes the first transcontinental telegraph line, putting the Pony Express out of business.
- 1863 – General Ulysses S. Grant arrives in Chattanooga, Tennessee, to find the Union Army there starving.
- 1897 – The first comic strip appears in the Sunday color supplement of the New York Journal called the ‘Yellow Kid.’
- 1901 – Anna Edson Taylor, 43, is the first woman to go safely over Niagara Falls in a barrel. She made the attempt for the cash award offered, which she put toward the loan on her Texas ranch.
- 1916 – Henry Ford awards equal pay to women.
- 1916 – French troops rejoice after recapturing Fort Douaumont, the preeminent fortress guarding the city of Verdun, under siege by the German army since the previous February.
- 1817 – The Austro-German army routs the Italian army at Caporetto, Italy.
- 1921 – In the French town of Chalons-sur-Marne, an American sergeant selects the body of the first “Unknown Soldier” to be honored among the approximately 77,000 United States servicemen killed on the Western Front during World War I.
- 1929 – Black Thursday–the first day of the stock market crash which began the Great Depression.
- 1930 – John Wayne debuts in his first starring role in The Big Trail .
- 1931 – Eight months ahead of schedule, New York governor Franklin D. Roosevelt dedicates the George Washington Bridge over the Hudson River. The 4,760-foot–long suspension bridge, the longest in the world at the time, connected Fort Lee, New Jersey with Washington Heights in New York City.
- 1931 – Al (Alphonse) Capone, the prohibition-era Chicago gangster, is sent to prison for tax evasion.
- 1938 – The Fair Labor Standards Act becomes law, establishing the 40-hour work week.
- 1944 – The aircraft carrier USS Princeton is sunk by a single Japanese plane during the Battle of Leyte Gulf.
- 1945 – Vidkun Quisling, Norway’s wartime minister president, is executed by firing squad for collaboration with the Nazis.
- 1945 – The United Nations comes into existence with the ratification of its charter by the first 29 nations.
- 1952 – Presidential candidate Dwight D. Eisenhower announces that if elected, he will go to Korea.
- 1970 – Leftist Salvador Allende elected president of Chile. He would be deposed in a coup led by General Augusto Pinochet on September 11, 1973. He would commit suicide the same day.
- 1973 – The Yom Kippur war ends.
- 1980 – Poland’s government legalizes the Solidarity trade union.
- 1992 – Toronto Blue Jays win the World Series, defeating the Atlanta Braves in the 11th inning of the 6th game, to become the first Major League Baseball team from outside the US to win the series. Dave Winfield hit the decisive two-run double in the 11th inning of Game 6 to score Devon White and Roberto Alomar, giving the Toronto Blue Jays a 4–2 lead on their way to a 4–3 victory over the Atlanta Braves.
- 2003 – The supersonic Concorde jet made its last commercial passenger flight from New York City’s John F. Kennedy International Airport to London’s Heathrow Airport, traveling at twice the speed of sound.
- 2008 – Many stock exchanges worldwide suffer the steepest declines in their histories; the day becomes known as “Bloody Friday.”
We start the news at the MVAP Sports desk. Last night was the first game of the 2026 World Series. The Tampa Bay Rays lost to the Milwaukee Brewers 3-2. The Brewers grabbed a 2-0 lead early thanks to Christian Yelich’s RBI triple and William Contreras’ RBI single, then added another run in the seventh on Jackson Chourio’s hit. Jacob Misiorowski opened with a record 103.5 mph fastball, the fastest in World Series history since tracking began. Tampa Bay loaded the bases in the ninth and scored to make it 3-2 after a replay overturned a double play, but closer Trevor Megill held on.
Contreras shone with two hits, an RBI, and two caught stealings—the first catcher this century with that stat line in a World Series game. Meanwhile the iconic sausage race made its World Series debut for fans.
Our next few stories come from Europe. First in Germany, the Kehlsteinhaus, Hitler’s mountain retreat above Bergtesgarten, was destroyed in an arson attack. Called the Eagle’s Nest, the historic mountaintop retreat was built in 1938 as a Nazi guest house and later reopened in 1952 as a public restaurant with history exhibits, caught fire late Friday night around 9:52 p.m. Nearly 200 firefighters battled the blaze through difficult terrain, but the structure suffered severe damage that may render it unsalvageable.
Police detained a motorcyclist leaving the scene, launching a criminal probe into suspected arson, with no injuries reported and no further details released yet.
Our next Euro story comes from the UK where the Bobbies arrested a teen boy. The Walsall boy – a Reform UK activist – posted edited images of Wolverhampton Conservative councillor Simon Bennett with rabbit features and captions like one about devouring the Conservatives’ credibility, plus jabs at his attire and a term Bennett called homophobic. West Midlands Police arrested Fraser on August 3, seized his devices, took DNA and fingerprints, and questioned him on potential hate crime or harassment.
The teen only identified as Fraser was bailed with restrictions like avoiding council meetings. The case has drawn criticism as disproportionate. The Free Speech Union has taken up his case amid questions over applying UK harassment laws to online jokes about public figures, with no charges filed yet.
Our dear friend catherinette is keeping us up to date on the unrest in France, Check the comments section in today’s Conversation post for her posts on the subject. The French authorities, after a week or more of inaction have deployed some 70,000 police in riot gear to demonstrations across the country.
It may be a case of trop peu, trop tard however.
The next Governor of Florida, Byron Donalds had a funny exchange yesterday. At a campaign stop in Fort Myers tied to President Trump’s rally at Florida Gulf Coast University, the voter — a transgender woman and veteran — challenged Donalds over a campaign mailer on LGBTQ issues and Epstein files. Donalds replied ‘Sir, as a member of Congress,’ prompting the voter to correct him with ‘I’m not a sir. I’m a ma’am,’ followed by crowd shouts and Donalds offering a brief apology while standing firm.
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA
El Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele just launched a massive military operation in Haiti to rescue four Salvadorans abducted by Gang Leaders. The four technicians, working on UN-backed medical evacuations, vanished on October 18 near Port-au-Prince when gangs hit their vehicle with gunfire and explosives. Bukele warned Haitian gang leaders in Creole that failure to return the men alive would bring severe consequences, drawing from his success against gangs in El Salvador.
Translation:
To the gang leaders and gang members holding our four compatriots hostage in Haiti:
Our kidnapped men are not combatants. They are aviation technicians who are part of our mission in Haiti, within the framework of an international mission. Our mission consists only of pilots and technical personnel, whose primary job is to carry out medical evacuations and save lives, not to wage war.
However, they were kidnapped in a cowardly manner while returning after buying food at a market in the area.
That is why, today, we have launched a military operation to rescue them. We have a single objective: to bring our four compatriots back home alive, without any harm.
However, I want you, the gang leaders, to understand one thing very clearly: today’s attack is nothing compared to what is coming if we do not get all four hostages back alive.
And do not take our word for empty threats. We have already finished with the gangs in El Salvador, and we can finish with you too.
We still have time to avoid this.
Return our four compatriots to us alive, without any harm, and everything will go back to how it was before the kidnapping.
The decision is in your hands.
A contingent of 100 Salvadoran elite soldiers is executing a massive sweep with PNH and GSF armored vehicles in the strongholds of Santo, Marassa, Shada, and Croix-des-Bouquets. NO ONE leaves without being checked. Military intelligence confirms that the four Salvadoran techs are still alive. There are reports that there are pretty big casualties among the gangs and that the Salvadoran troops are responsible for them. The Dominican Republic has closed the border with Haiti. This is something I will be following fairly closely and will update y’all when more info crosses the transom.
I dunno if I’d mess with the Salvadorans on this. MS 13 used to be one of the most dangerous gangs in the world. Yet, nearly all of them still in El Salvador are in prison or dead. Bukele has a record of being quite ruthless when it comes to gangs and the troopers he sent are his strong right arm in the gang wars.
Hurricane Vance is on track to smash into the western coast of Mexico. According to the NHC, the maximum sustained winds are now near 105 mph. It is located about 350 miles southwest of Acapulco and moving north-northwest at 6 miles an hour.
Yes, I included this piece just so I could use that meme.
This is a little late, but all you Tolkien nerds out there – and I’m one – will appreciate this:
Don’t:
Look, it’s a juvenile black bear, and not super dangerous, but it is still a 200+ pound killing machine. No fish is worth the potential trouble. For the fishermen or the bear. Habituated bears get put down.