The United States detonates the world’s first thermonuclear weapon, the
hydrogen bomb, on Eniwetok atoll in the Pacific. The test gave the United
States a short-lived advantage in the nuclear arms race with the Soviet
Union. 

Following the successful Soviet detonation of an atomic device in 1949,
the United States accelerated its program to develop the next stage in
atomic weaponry, a thermonuclear bomb. Popularly known as the
hydrogen bomb, this new weapon was approximately 1,000 times more
powerful than conventional nuclear devices. Opponents of development
of the hydrogen bomb included J. Robert Oppenheimer, one of the fathers
of the atomic bomb. He and others argued that little would be accomplished
except the speeding up of the arms race, since it was assumed that the
Soviets would quickly follow suit.The opponents were correct in their
assumptions. The Soviet Union exploded a thermonuclear device the
following year and by the late 1970s, seven nations had constructed
hydrogen bombs. The nuclear arms race had taken a step forward.

George Orson Welles  (May 6, 1915 – October 10, 1985)

“The War of the Worlds”—Orson Welles’s realistic radio dramatization of a
Martian invasion of Earth—is broadcast on the radio on October 30, 1938.

Welles was only 23 years old when his Mercury Theater company decided
to update H.G. Wells’ 19th-century science fiction novel The War of the
Worlds for national radio. Despite his age, Welles had been in radio for
several years, most notably as the voice of “The Shadow” in the hit
mystery program of the same name. “War of the Worlds” was not planned
as a radio hoax, and Welles had little idea of the havoc it would cause.

The show began on Sunday, October 30, at 8 p.m. A voice announced:
“The Columbia Broadcasting System and its affiliated stations present
Orson Welles and the Mercury Theater on the air in ‘War of the Worlds’
by H.G. Wells.”

Sunday evening in 1938 was prime-time in the golden age of radio, and
millions of Americans had their radios turned on. But most of these
Americans were listening to ventriloquist Edgar Bergen and his dummy
“Charlie McCarthy” on NBC and only turned to CBS at 8:12 p.m. after the
comedy sketch ended and a little-known singer went on. By then, the
story of the Martian invasion was well underway.

Complicated and tension-filled negotiations between the United States and
the Soviet Union finally result in a plan to end the two-week-old Cuban
Missile Crisis. A frightening period in which nuclear holocaust seemed
imminent began to come to an end. 

Since President John F. Kennedy’s October 22 address warning the Soviets
to cease their reckless program to put nuclear weapons in Cuba and
announcing a naval “quarantine” against additional weapons shipments
into Cuba, the world held its breath waiting to see whether the two
superpowers would come to blows. U.S. armed forces went on alert and
the Strategic Air Command went to a Stage 4 alert (one step away from
nuclear attack). On October 24, millions waited to see whether Soviet
ships bound for Cuba carrying additional missiles would try to break
the U.S. naval blockade around the island. At the last minute, the vessels
turned around and returned to the Soviet Union.

Khrushchev                Castro                                 Kennedy

“

CARLATA BRADLEY

The D.C. sniper attacks (also known as the Beltway sniper attacks) were
a series of coordinated shootings that occurred during three weeks in
October 2002 in Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia. Ten
people were killed and three others were critically wounded in the
Baltimore-Washington Metropolitan Area and along Interstate 95
in Virginia.

The snipers were John Allen Muhammad (aged 41 at the time) and Lee
Boyd Malvo (aged 17 at the time), who traveled in a blue 1990 Chevrolet
Caprice sedan. Their crime spree, begun in February 2002, included
murders and robberies in the states of Alabama, Arizona, Florida,
Georgia, Louisiana, Texas, and Washington, which resulted in seven
deaths and seven wounded people; in ten months, the snipers killed
17 people and wounded 10 others.

In September 2003, Muhammad was sentenced to death, and in October,
the juvenile, Malvo, was sentenced to six consecutive life sentences
without parole. In November 2009, Muhammad was put to death by
lethal injection.

 
Law enforcement officers search the car that John Allen Muhammad
and John Lee Malvo were in when police arrested them at a rest stop along I-70 west of Myersville.

 
"The Bushmaster rifle used by the convicted snipers.

MIKE GRACIA

On this day in 1962, President John F. Kennedy went on radio and television to inform the United States about his order to send U.S.
forces to blockade Cuba. The blockade was in response to the
discovery of Soviet missile bases on the island.

Aerial view of missile launch site at San Cristobal, Cuba.