TODAY IN HISTORY - OCTOBER 7TH

1849 – Edgar Allan Poe, American author, poet, and critic (b. 1809) dies.

1862 – Royal Columbian Hospital (RCH) opens as the first hospital in the Canadian province of British Columbia

1868 – Cornell University holds opening day ceremonies; initial student enrollment is 412, the highest at any American university to that date.

1894 – Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., American physician, author, and poet (b. 1809) dies.

1916 – Georgia Tech defeats Cumberland University 222–0 in the most lopsided college football game in American history.

1929 – Graeme Ferguson, Canadian director and producer, co-founded the IMAX Corporation is born.

1931 – Desmond Tutu, South African archbishop and activist, Nobel Prize laureate is born.

1942 – World War II: The October Matanikau action on Guadalcanal begins as United States Marine Corps forces attack Imperial Japanese Army units along the Matanikau River.

1950 – Mother Teresa establishes the Missionaries of Charity.

1955 – Yo-Yo Ma, French-American cellist and educator is born.

1955 – American poet Allen Ginsberg performs his poem Howl for the first time at the Six Gallery in San Francisco.

1958 – The U.S. manned space-flight project is renamed Project Mercury.

1959 – U.S.S.R. probe Luna 3 transmits the first ever photographs of the far side of the Moon.

1959 – Simon Cowell, English businessman and producer, created The X Factor and Britain's Got Talent is born.

1963 – John F. Kennedy signs the ratification of the Partial Test Ban Treaty.

1988 – An Inupiat hunter discovers three gray whales trapped under the ice in Barrow, Alaska, US; the situation becomes a multinational effort to free the whales.

1993 – The flood of '93 ends at St. Louis, Missouri, 103 days after it began, as the Mississippi River falls below flood stage.

1996 – The Fox News Channel begins broadcasting.

1998 – Matthew Shepard, a gay student at the University of Wyoming, is found tied to a fence after being savagely beaten by two young adults in Laramie, Wyoming.

2001 – The Global War on Terrorism begins as a result of the September 11 attacks. The U.S. invasion of Afghanistan initiates with an air assault and covert operations on the ground.

2003 – The governor of California, Gray Davis, is recalled in favor of Arnold Schwarzenegger.