Representative from Bristol

On this day:

1529
The Siege of Vienna ends as the Austrians rout the invading Turks, turning the tide against almost a century of unchecked conquest throughout eastern and central Europe by the Ottoman Empire.
1582
Pope Gregory XIII implements the Gregorian calendar. In Italy, Poland, Portugal, and Spain, October 4 of this year is followed directly by October 15.
1764
Edward Gibbon observes a group of friars singing in the ruined Temple of Jupiter in Rome, which inspires him to begin work on The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.
1783
The Montgolfier brothers’ hot air balloon marks the first human ascent, by Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier, (tethered balloon).
1793

Queen Marie-Antoinette of France is tried and convicted in a swift, pre-determined trial in the Palais de Justice, Paris, and condemned to death the following day.
1815

Napoleon I of France begins his exile on Saint Helena in the Atlantic Ocean.
1863
American Civil War: The H. L. Hunley, the first submarine to sink a ship, sinks during a test, killing its inventor, Horace L. Hunley.
1880
Mexican soldiers kill Victorio, one of the greatest Apache military strategists.
1888
The “From Hell” letter sent by Jack the Ripper is received by investigators.
1894
The Dreyfus affair: Alfred Dreyfus is arrested for spying.
1917
World War I: At Vincennes outside of Paris, Dutch dancer Mata Hari is executed by firing squad for spying for the German Empire.
1934
The Soviet Republic of China collapses when Chiang Kai-shek’s National Revolutionary Army successfully encircles Ruijin, forcing the fleeing Communists to begin the Long March.
1945
World War II: The former premier of Vichy France Pierre Laval is shot by a firing squad for treason.
1951
Mexican chemist Luis E. Miramontes conducts the very last step of the first synthesis of norethisterone, the progestin that would later be used in one of the first two oral contraceptives.
1956
Fortran, the first modern computer language, is shared with the coding community for the first time.
1997
The Cassini probe launches from Cape Canaveral on its way to Saturn.
2001
NASA’s Galileo spacecraft passes within 112 miles of Jupiter’s moon Io.
2003
China launches Shenzhou 5, its first manned space mission.
2008
The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed down 733.08 points, or 7.87%, the second worst day in the Dow’s history based on a percentage drop.

***

From everything that man erects and builds in his urge for living, nothing in my eyes is better and more valuable than bridges. They are more important than houses, more sacred than shrines. Belonging to everyone and being equal to everyone, useful, always built with a sense, on the spot where most human needs are crossing, they are more durable than other buildings and they do not serve for anything secret or bad. -Ivo Andric, novelist, Nobel laureate (9 Oct 1892-1975)

***

There's a movement growing aimed at Peter Theil's legal use of a legal government tax program devised to help people avoid impoverishment in their old age by the tax and spend governmental system and the failing government social security plan.

***

Sally Rooney, the very successful Irish novelist has had her book royalties impounded by the British government because of her support of an organization they have declared 'terrorist.'

***

Beyond Understanding Department:

Moscow accused Ukraine of launching its first strike against a Russian oil refinery in the Ryazan region since Trump abruptly declared an “energy ceasefire” that neither Russia nor Ukraine said they had agreed to. Sort of an incomplete Memorandum of Understanding.
Zelenskyy said Russia had attacked Ukraine with more than 850 Shahed drones at a time when the speed of Ukraine’s defensive capabilities was being “artificially restricted”, a reference to the sudden limitations on Ukraine’s use of the Starlink and Starshield mobile internet terminals.
Tech mogul Elon Musk has suggested that the US government could be behind the decision to restrict the speed of SpaceX’s satellite-technology used by Ukraine’s military.

***

Vast numbers of nonwhites are being raised to believe that America hates them. This, itself, should be a hate crime.

***

Representative from Bristol

On November 3, 1774, the great quasi-liberal conservative member of Parliament, Edmund Burke, delivered his immortal “Speech to the Electors of Bristol.” He was responding to a claim by his opponent in an election that a representative ought to be a mere servant of the self-interested opinions of their voters. Burke declared, “Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion. . . . Parliament is a deliberative assembly of one nation, with one interest, that of the whole; where not local purposes, not local prejudices, ought to guide, but the general good, resulting from the general reason of the whole.”

That is to say, the representative from Bristol gives Bristol's voice to the national debate.