On This Day September 15

On September 15, 1916, during the Battle of the Somme, the British sent into action eleven vehicles of an entirely new kind, the Mark I tank.  When the British army was developing the vehicles, known as 'landships', they didn't want to give the Germans any clue what they were up to – so the name 'tank,' which doesn't mean anything, was used to throw them off. It stuck.

British World War I Mark V* tank

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On This Day June 30

On June 30, 1859 French tightrope walker Charles Blondin successfully crossed Niagara Gorge on a tightrope, 160 ft (49 m) above the water, near the location of the current Rainbow Bridge.
He repeated the feat a number of times thereafter, always with different theatrical variations: blindfolded, in a sack, trundling a wheelbarrow, on stilts, sitting down midway while he cooked and ate an omelette and standing on a chair with only one chair leg on the rope.

Charles Blondin crossing the Niagara River in 1859

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On This Day November 18

After Gottlieb Wilhelm Daimler developed in 1885 a high-speed internal combustion engine, he fitted the engine to a bicycle to create the first internal combustion motorcycle. Daimler's 17-year-old son, Paul, was the first to ride the motorcycle taking it 5–12 kilometers (3.1–7.5 mi), from Cannstatt to Untertürkheim in Stuttgart, Germany on November 18, 1885. The seat caught fire during that journey, due to the engine's hot tube ignition being located directly underneath.

Replica of the Daimler-Maybach Reitwagen. Wikipedia Commons

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On This Day November 16

The Sound of Music musical opened on Broadway at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre on November 16, 1959. Both of the major New York critics hated it, finding it way too saccharine, but producers already had $2 million in advance ticket sales, so their lack of enthusiasm didn't really matter. The play won six Tony Awards, including Best Musical.

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On This Day November 12

Jules Léotard (1838–1870) abandoned his law studies to become a trapeze artist. Léotard won almost immediate success during a performance in Cirque Napoleon in Paris on November 12, 1859 when for the first time he swung from one trapeze to the other. The acrobatic act was called “La Course aux Trapèze” and it lasted for 12 minutes.

Jules Léotard

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On This Day October 10

On October 10, 1789, Joseph-Ignace Guillotin, a French physician, stood before the National Assembly and proposed an apparatus designed for carrying out executions by beheading be adopted as the official means of capital punishment. The device, a decapitation piece of equipment incorporating a vertically-descending blade was originally called a louisette. It was later named after Guillotin, however his family were unhappy at having their name attached to such a device.

Marie Antoinette's execution by guillotine on October 16, 1793

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Today Is November 1

Today is All Saints' Day,  a Christian solemnity celebrated in honor of all the saints of the church, whether they are known or unknown.

Below is All Saints' Day at a cemetery in Gniezno, Poland, the picture shows flowers and candles placed to honor deceased relatives. 

By Diego Delso, Wikipedia

In 609 Pope Boniface IV converted the Roman Pantheon into a Catholic church dedicated to the Virgin Mary and all martyrs. By the 7th century the commemoration of martyrs for the faith had become widespread and as time went on these celebrations came to include not only the martyrs but all saints. 

In 837 Pope Gregory IV established the first celebration of All Saints' Day on November 1st to honor the saints, choosing the first day of November to counter a Celtic festival of the dead, known as Samhain celebrated the night before. However the festival did not die out and in medieval Britain it became known as All Hallows (All Saints) Eve, and later its Scottish equivalent Halloween became more widely used.