1811 A lady published ‘Sense and Sensibility;’ she was Jane Austen. It was her first published novel.
1838 Oberlin College (Ohio) admitted women, the first higher education institute in the US to do so. The sky did not fall. It remains an excellent school.
1938 Halloween. Twenty-three year old wunderkind Orson Welles broadcasted his fake news adaptation of H. G. Wells’s ‘War of the Worlds’ on CBS radio to the consternation of millions. See Hardly Cantril, ‘The Invasion from Mars, a Study in the Psychology of Panic’ (1940). This radio broadcast is discussed elsewhere on this blog.
1973 The first bridge over the Bosporus opened, linking Europe and Asia. There are three now and a tunnel. We saw this one from a ferry in 2015.
1995 Quebec voters whispered ‘Non’ (50.6% to 49.4%) to sovereignty in a turnout of 94% of eligible voters, i.e., about 5,000 votes from nearly 4 million. It was the third referenda on this theme since 1980 and the closest vote. Polling beforehand indicated ‘Oui’ would win comfortably and that prediction galvanised more voters to the polls to vote ‘Non.’ Another referendum must be overdue.
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