October 30th

October 30 is the 304th day of the year.  There are 62 days remaining until the end of the year.

1501 Ballet of Chestnuts – a banquet held by Cesare Borgia in the Papal Palace where fifty prostitutes or courtesans are in attendance for the entertainment of the guests.

1862 Looking to drum up business, Dr. Richard Gatling patents machine gun

1894 To make Devil's Night meaningful, Daniel Cooper patents time clock

1938 Orson Welles panics a nation with broadcast of "War of the Worlds"

1961 Because of "violations of Lenin's precepts", it is decreed that Joseph Stalin's body be removed from its place of honour inside Lenin's tomb and buried near the Kremlin wall with a plain granite marker and a big "L" for loser on his forehead instead.

1973 The Bosporus Bridge in Istanbul, Turkey is completed, connecting the continents of Europe and Asia over the Bosporus for the first time. Here is a performance art depiction of the event.

1975 The New York Daily News runs the "Ford to City: Drop Dead" headline.

1975 Juan Carlos assumes power in Spain although Generalissimo Francisco Franco is uncharacteristically not dead.

1990 England and France complete Chunnel

1892 Charles Atlas [Angelo Siciliano], US body-builder/entrepreneur

1945 Henry Winkler, US actor/Arthur Fonzarelli/shark-jumper/Royal Pains 

1951 P. Craig Russell, first openly gay US comic book author/Coraline 

1951 Harry Hamlin, US actor/Making Love  

1953 Charles Martin Smith, US actor 

1954 Mario Testino, maybe gay Peruvian fashion photographer 

1960 Diego Maradona, Argentine soccer player 

1963 Michael Beach, US actor 

1965 Gavin Rossdale, bisexual English musician/Bush/Mr Gwen Stefani 

1968 Jack Plotnick, gay US actor 

1970 [Salvatore] Tory Belleci, maybe gay US MythBuster 

1974 Polo McCabe, gay US pornographic actor 

1974 Stipe Erceg, German/Croatian actor 

1978 Matthew Morrison, not gay US actor/Glee 

1979 Paul Telfer, Scottish actor/Gannicus 

1968 Ramón Novarro, tres-gay Mexican actor (Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ), answers the call of the flesh.

1990 Craig Russell, gay Canadian female impersonator, succumbs to AIDS at 42

2007 Washoe, chimpanzee trained in American Sign Language, evolves.

2009 Claude Lévi-Strauss, French anthropologist, will confuse future archaeologists about his impact on western civilization.

2010 Édouard Carpentier, French-born Canadian professional wrestler, is blessed for fueling the pre-homosexual fantasies of a young boy in Kirkwood, MO