Giovanni Agnelli
(13 August 1866 – 16 December 1945)

Agnelli was an Italian businessman, who 
founded Fiat car manufacturing in 1899.
During its more than century-long history,
Fiat has also manufactured railway engines  
and carriages, military  vehicles, farm tractors, 
and aircraft.

In 2013, Fiat (together with Chrysler) was the 
second largest European automaker by volumes 
produced, and the seventh in the world ahead of 
Honda, PSA Peugeot Citroën, Suzuki, Renault,
and Daimler AG.

Front view of the Lingotto headquarters of Fiat
in Turin (2013).

Columbus Day is a national holiday in the United States that commemorates the arrival of Christopher Columbus in the Americas in 1492.

It is observed on the second Monday in October, and many Americans take the day off from work or school to celebrate.

In recent years, some have called for the holiday to be
renamed Indigenous Peoples’ Day and for it to be used
as an opportunity to celebrate the contributions of Native Americans to American society.

A statue of Christopher Columbus stands at Columbus Circle
in front of Union Station in Washington, D.C. The statue was dedicated to Columbus in June 1912.

On October 10, 1985, the hijacking of the Italian cruise ship Achille
Lauro reached a dramatic climax when U.S. Navy F-14 fighters intercepted an Egyptian airliner attempting to fly the Palestinian
hijackers to freedom and force the jet to land at a NATO base in Sigonella, Sicily. American and Italian troops surrounded the plane,
and the terrorists were taken into Italian custody.

On October 7, four heavily armed Palestinian terrorists hijacked
the Achille Lauro in the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of
Alexandria, Egypt. Some 320 crewmembers and 80 passengers,
including 11 Americans, were taken hostage. 

Identifying themselves as members of the Palestine Liberation
Front, a Palestinian splinter group–the gunmen demanded the
release of 50 Palestinian militants imprisoned in Israel. If their
demands were not met, they threatened to blow up the ship and
kill all the Americans and British passengers on board.

The Achille Lauro cruise ship leaves Egypt’s Port Said harbor after being released from terrorist hijackers.

Oskar Schindler (28 April 1908 – 9 October 1974)

As a member of the Nazi Party, Schindler ran an enamel-works
factory in Krakow during the German occupation of Poland,
employing workers from the nearby Jewish ghetto. When the
ghetto was liquidated, he persuaded Nazi officials to allow the
transfer of his workers to the Plaszow labor camp, thus saving
them from deportation to the death camps. In 1944, all Jews at
Plaszow were sent to Auschwitz, but Schindler, at great risk to
himself, bribed officials into allowing him to keep his workers
and set up a factory in a  location in occupied Czechoslovakia.

Schindler died of liver failure on 9 October 1974. He is buried in Jerusalem on Mount Zion, the only member of the Nazi Party to
be honored in this way.


 

Schindler’s grave in Jerusalem. The Hebrew inscription
reads: "Righteous Among the Nations"; the German
inscription reads: "The Unforgettable Lifesaver of
1200 Persecuted Jews".

Schindler’s memorial in Svitavy, Czech Republic,
his birthplace.