225 years ago, on Oct. 4, 1777, the British defeated Gen. George Washington’s Continental Army at Germantown, Pa. The Colonials suffered 152 killed, 521 wounded and 400 captured. Many wanted to remove the losing Washington from his command. But the Yankees soon got a measure of revenge. On October 7, Americans routed 1,500 British at the second Battle of Bemis Heights, near Saratoga, N.Y., though Benedict Arnold was wounded. And on October 17, Gen. John Burgoyne surrendered more than 5,500 British redcoats and Hessians to Gen. Horatio Gates at Saratoga.
200 years ago, October 2, the U.S. Patent Office was established, as part of the State Department. On October 19, the first utility was formed: Philadelphia’s municipal water system began operation.
125 years ago, Oct. 5, 1877, U.S. Army troops surrounded Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce tribe in Montana Territory, near the Canadian border. The chief surrendered and accepted confinement on a reservation, saying, "I will fight no more forever." In the same month, the Black Hills gold rush reached its peak as George Hearst formed Homestake Mining Co. in Lead, S.D.
100 years ago, the age of the muckrakers was born with the October 1902 edition of McClure’s magazine, containing "Tweed Days in St. Louis," by Lincoln Steffens and C. H. Wetmore. A popular backlash against big business began, with new President Theodore Roosevelt acting as Muckraker in Chief. (He coined the term "muckraker" in 1906, to describe the literature of business exposure.) This backlash sent the Dow Jones
index into its first 20th Century bear market, falling 46%, 1901 to 1903. American business icon Ray Kroc was born a century ago, on Oct. 5, 1902. In 1955, Kroc opened his first model Mc- Donald’s store in Des Plaines, Ill. By 1960, there were 200 McDonald’s. He died in 1984, the year McDonald’s claimed to have sold its 50 billionth hamburger. In 1985, McDonald’s entered the Dow Jones Industrial Index, for its industrial-strength hamburgers.
75 years ago, on Oct. 6, 1927, the first "talkie" debuted - The Jazz Singer, starring Al Jolson - in New York City. By 1930, silent movies were deader than. . . the stock market.
50 years ago, on Oct 2, 1952, Great Britain became the third nation to explode an atomic bomb (after the U.S. and U.S.S.R.). Tensions escalated. The next day, the Soviet Union expelled U.S. Ambassador George Kennan after he compared the U.S.S.R. to Nazi Germany. Two days later (October 5), at the first Communist Party Congress since 1939, party secretary Georgi Malenkov accused the United States of seeking global domination through a nuclear World War III. The Korean War was hot, and the Cold War was warming up, but on Oct. 24, 1952, the Republican presidential candidate said he would go to Korea and seek an end to that war, if he were elected. He won, and did . . . . Finally, on October 31, the United States detonated the first hydrogen bomb, at Eniwetok atoll.
