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October 31 in History

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Put Grant Straight at It

October 31, 1917

Put Grant Straight at It

Eight hundred thirsty men on failing horses had forty-five minutes to seize a desert town before dark or watch an entire campaign die of thirst. Behind the famous gallop lies a longer, stranger day, and a legend that grew larger than the truth.

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Also on this day

More that happened on October 31

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  1. 1517Martin Luther posted his ninety-five theses on the All Saints' Church door in Wittenberg, triggering the Protestant Reformation.
  2. 1793Twenty-one moderate Girondin leaders were executed by guillotine in Paris during the height of the French Reign of Terror.
  3. 1803The United States Senate approved the Louisiana Purchase treaty, dramatically expanding the young republic westward from the Mississippi River.
  4. 1864Nevada gained admission as the thirty-sixth state of the United States during the American Civil War.
  5. 1876A massive cyclone and devastating storm surge struck the Backerganj region of Bengal, killing roughly two hundred thousand people.
  6. 1952The United States detonated the world's first thermonuclear device during the Ivy Mike test at Enewetak Atoll.
  7. 1954The National Liberation Front launched widespread armed attacks across Algeria, initiating the war of independence against French rule.
  8. 1956United States Navy pilot Conrad Shinn made the first successful aircraft landing at the geographic South Pole.
  9. 1984Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated at her residence in New Delhi by two of her bodyguards.
  10. 2000The Soyuz TM-31 mission launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, carrying the first permanent crew to the International Space Station.
  11. 2008The pseudonymous programmer Satoshi Nakamoto published a white paper introducing the cryptocurrency Bitcoin to an online cryptography mailing list.

Chosen from the October 31 pages of HistoryNet and OnThisDay.com, retold in our own words.