1879 – 1st automatic telephone switching system patented

1806 – Approaching the Colorado foothills of the Rocky Mountains during his second exploratory expedition, Lieutenant Zebulon Pike spots a distant mountain peak that looks “like a small blue cloud.” The mountain was later named Pike’s Peak in his honor.

1843 – Yellowstone photographer William Jackson is born.

1888 – Jack the Ripper’s infamous killing spree in the Whitechapel district of London’s East End came to an end.

1944 – Franklin D. Roosevelt is elected for a record fourth term as President of the United States of America.

1912 – Yippee-Ki=Yay!  On this day in 1912, singing cowgirl Dale Evans was born.

1915 – On October 29, 1915, Jane Addams, a leading American social activist, writes to United States President Woodrow Wilson, warning him of the potential dangers of readying the country to enter the First World War.

1901 – a 63-year-old schoolteacher named Annie Edson Taylor becomes the first person to take the plunge over Niagara Falls in a barrel.

1867 – Four boisterous cowboys in Laramie, Wyoming, decided to roust some immigrants from Illinois.  The immigrants were not intimated though and a fearful brawl erupted.  Deputy Marshal Big Steve Long commanded a halt to the proceedings which was ignored, of course.  He then pulled both 44’s and fired into the pugilists.  Five of them were killed, three from Illinois and two of the cowboys.

1940 – On this day in 1940, cowboy-movie star Tom Mix is killed when he loses control of his speeding Cord Phaeton convertible and rolls into a dry wash (now called the Tom Mix Wash) near Florence, Arizona.  He was 60 years old.