Year: 2017

October 6

23 – Rebels kill and decapitate the Xin dynasty emperor Wang Mang two days after the capital Chang’an is sacked during a peasant rebellion. 1539 – Spanish conquistador Hernando de Soto and his army enter the Apalachee capital of Anhaica (present-day Tallahassee, Florida) by force.. 1600 – Jacopo Peri’s Euridice, the earliest surviving opera, receives...
Constructed in 1883, the Brooklyn Bridge, was once the longest suspension bridge in the world. In 1899, Thomas Edison filmed this train ride across the East River

Needful Things

At its Tuesday meeting, the Battery Park City Committee of Community Board 1 (CB1) discussed a range of neighborhood priorities for possible inclusion in the Board’s annual “district needs statement.” This list of local goals, which every Community Board asks the City government to focus on each year, serves as a policy guide for the...

October 5

456 – The Visigoths under King Theodoric II, acting on orders of the Roman emperor Avitus, invade Iberia with an army of Burgundians, Franks and Goths, led by the Kings Chilperic I and Gondioc. They defeat the Suebi under King Rechiar on the river Urbicus near Astorga (Gallaecia). 816 – King Louis the Pious is...
Wilbur Wright flying over New York harbor over a Moran tug with Ellis Island in the background

The Campaign Continues…

Christopher Marte, an erstwhile challenger to incumbent Margaret Chin for the Democratic Party nomination to represent Lower Manhattan in the City Council, has announced that he will continue to be a candidate for the office, running in the general election under the banner of the Independence Party. Mr. Marte was Ms. Chin’s closest rival in...
Challenger Christopher Marte, running on the Independence Party line, captured 37 percent of the vote, which amounts to an unusually strong showing for a third-party candidate in Lower Manhattan.

Uncivil Service

Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. announced the arrest on Tuesday of more than 30 suspects in a ring that prosecutors allege counterfeited and sold fraudulent City government parking placards, which were used chiefly in Lower Manhattan. According to a summary from the City’s Department of Investigation (DOI), the case begin in March of this...
Prosecutors have shut down a ring that allegedly counterfeited and sold City-government parking credentials, which were primarily used in Lower Manhattan.

October 2 – 15, 2017

The International Space Station (ISS), a research satellite that orbits planet Earth with astronaut scientists aboard, appears as a brilliant star-like object moving silently and rather quickly across the sky, best seen at dawn or dusk. Recently, while looking up at twilight to see bright Saturn in the southwest, the ISS came into view in...
International Space Station