October 22 is the 295th day of the year (296th in leap years). There are 70 days remaining until year’s end. (Illustration: First parachute descent, October 22, 1797.)

On This Day in History

• Balloonist André-Jacques Garnerin makes the first descent by parachute from 1,000 meters (3,000 feet) above Paris (1797)
• The Millerites (followers of William Miller) welcomed the end of the world and the Second Advent of Christ in the Great Anticipation (1844). (When the world does not end, the following day becomes known as the Great Disappointment.)
• Dr. Hawley Harvey Crippen is convicted of murdering his wife (1910)
• Toastmasters International is founded (1924)
• Harry Houdini is sucker punched in the stomach and subsequently dies (1926)
• FBI agents shoot and kill Pretty Boy Floyd (1934)
• The US military suffers its first casualties in the Vietnam War (1957)
• JFK reveals the Cuban Missile Crisis to the American public (1962)
• Jean-Paul Sartre wins the Nobel Prize for Literature (1964)
• The Supremes become the first all-female music group to have a #1 best-selling album (1966)
• The Soviets launch Luna 12 (1966)
• Apollo 7 splashes down in the Atlantic Ocean (1968*)
• Venera 9 lands on Venus (1975)
• Red Dye No. 4 is banned by the US Food and Drug Administration (1976)
• John Paul II is inaugurated as Pope (1978)
• The Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization (PATCO) is decertified because of its strike the previous August (1981)
• India launches its first unmanned lunar mission, चन्द्रयान-१ (Chandrayaan-1) (2008)

* For the story of why I have an Apollo 7 spacesuit, see “Have Spacesuit, Will Travel.”

Birthdays

• Daniel Boone, frontiersman (1734)
• Franz Liszt, composer (1811)
• Sarah Bernhardt, actress (1844)
• John Reed, journalist (1887)
• Curly Howard, stooge (1903)
• Constance Bennett, actress (1904)
• Jimmie Foxx, baseball player (1907)
• Bảo Đại, last emperor of Vietnam (1913)
• Joan Fontaine, actress (1917)
• Timothy Leary, psychologist and psychedelic drug advocate (1920)
• Slater Martin, basketball player and coach (1925)
• Bobby Seale, co-founder of the Black Panther Party (1936)
• Derek Jacobi, actor (1938)
• Christopher Lloyd, actor (1938)
• Tony Roberts, actor (1939)
• Annette Funicello, actress and Mouseketeer (1942)
• Catherine Deneuve, actress (1943)
• Deepak Chopra, alternative medicine practitioner (1947)
• Haley Barbour, politician (1947)
• Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme, Manson cult member and failed assassin (1948)
• Jeff Goldblum, actor (1952)
• Bob Odenkirk, actor (1962)
• Brian Boitano, figure skater (1963)
• Spike Jonze, director (1969)
• 鈴木 一朗 (Ichiro Suzuki), baseball player (1973)
• Zac Hanson, drummer (1985)

Deaths

• Charles Martel, Duke and Prince of the Franks (741)
• Paul Cézanne, painter (1906)
• Tommy Edwards, singer-songwriter (“It’s All in the Game”) (1969)
• Albert Szent-Györgyi, chemist and Nobel laureate (1986)
• Ewan MacColl, folk singer and activist (1989)
• Red Barber, sportscaster (1992)
• Cleavon Little, actor (1992)
• Kingsley Amis, author (1995)
• Eric Ambler, author (1998)
• Richard Helms, CIA director (2002)
• Soupy Sales, comedian (2009)
• سلطان بن عبدالعزيز آل سعود‎ (Sultan bin Abdulaziz), Saudi Arabian crown prince (2011)

Holidays

• Celebration of the Mind Gathering (in honor of Martin Gardner)
• Fechner Day (Psychophysicists)
• International Stuttering Awareness Day (International)
• 時代祭り (Jidai Matsuri) (Kyoto, Japan)
• National Nut Day (US)