
The Cuban Missile Crisis was a 13-day confrontation between
the governments of the United States and the Soviet Union,
when American deployments of nuclear missiles in Italy and
Turkey were matched by Soviet deployments of nuclear missiles
in Cuba.
The crisis lasted from 16 to 28 October 1962. The confrontation
is widely considered the closest the Cold War came to escalating
into full-scale nuclear war.
President Kennedy announces U.S. naval blockade of Cuba.



On October 16, 1958, Chevrolet began to sell a car-truck hybrid
that it calls the El Camino. Inspired by the Ford Ranchero, which
had already been on the market for two years, the El Camino was
a combination sedan-pickup truck built on the Impala body, with
the same “cat’s eye” taillights and dramatic rear fins. It was, ads
trilled, “the most beautiful thing that ever shouldered a load!”
“It rides and handles like a convertible,” Chevy said, “yet hauls
and hustles like the workingest thing on wheels.”


Clarence Thomas (left) with President George H.W. Bush.
After a bitter confirmation hearing, the U.S. Senate voted 52 to
48 to confirm Clarence Thomas to the U.S. Supreme Court.
In July 1991, Thurgood Marshall, the first African American to
sit on the Supreme Court, announced his retirement after 34
years.
President George H.W. Bush nominated Clarence Thomas, a
43-year-old African American judge known for his conservative
beliefs, to fill the seat.

(between 25 August and 31 October 1451 – 20 May 1506)
The first Columbus Day celebration took place on October
12, 1792, when the Columbian Order of New York, better
known as Tammany Hall, held an event to commemorate
the 300th anniversary of the historic landing.
In 1966, Mariano A. Lucca, from Buffalo, New York, founded
the National Columbus Day Committee, which lobbied to
make Columbus Day a federal holiday.
These efforts were successful and legislation to create
Columbus Day as a federal holiday was signed by then
President Lyndon Johnson (below) on June 28, 1968,
to be effective beginning in 1971.