Oct 2
1964
Mummy brown paint sales end
On this day in 1964, Time magazine carried some bad news for artists who liked their brown paint with a bit of the macabre mixed in: famed London color-making company C. Roberson & Co. was out of mummy brown. The color was made from white pitch (resin from a spruce tree), myrrh, and, yes, ground-up mummies. The depth of the color derived in part from the minerals—such as bitumen—used in the embalming process, and it gave the color its distinctive hue. It became known as mummy brown, Egyptian brown, or caput mortuum (“dead man’s head”).
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Charles Darwin’s return to England
Naturalist Charles Darwin returned to England this day in 1836 after a five-year journey on the HMS Beagle, on which he gathered the specimens and observations that led to his theory of evolution by natural selection.
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Born this day in 1869, Mahatma Gandhi was the leader of the Indian Independence Movement and remains esteemed internationally for his doctrine of nonviolence in pursuit of social and political change.
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2017
American singer and songwriter Tom Petty, whose roots-oriented guitar rock arose from the new-wave movement of the late 1970s and resulted in a string of hit singles and albums, died at age 66. [Test your knowledge of songs and music stars.]
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2016
American sports broadcaster Vin Scully called his last game for the Los Angeles Dodgers, ending a nearly 67-year career.
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2005
Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright August Wilson—who was best known for a cycle of plays, each set in a different decade of the 20th century, about Black American life—died at age 60. [Take our theater quiz.]
© 1955 Universal International Pictures; photograph from a private collection
1985
American actor Rock Hudson died, becoming one of the first Hollywood celebrities known to succumb to AIDS-related complications; the extensive publicity surrounding his death drew attention to the disease.
National Archives, Washington, D.C. (2803441)
1967
American lawyer and civil rights activist Thurgood Marshall was sworn in as an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, becoming its first African American member. [Why are there nine justices on the U.S. Supreme Court?]
Columbia Broadcasting System
1959
The science-fiction anthology TV series The Twilight Zone debuted and became hugely popular, known for its unexpected plot twists and moral lessons; the show was created by Rod Serling. [Sort fact from fiction in our pop culture quiz.]
© 1957 Columbia Pictures Corporation
1957
The British-American war classic The Bridge on the River Kwai had its world premiere, and it later won the Academy Award for best picture. [How much do you know about the Academy Awards?]
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1954
Elvis Presley made his only appearance on the Grand Ole Opry radio show, drawing a tepid response from the audience. (Soon afterward, Presley had much more success on the rival Louisiana Hayride show.)
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1937
Rafael Trujillo, the dictator of the Dominican Republic, gave a speech in Dajabón in which he made false claims about attacks by Haitians on local residents. Over the next several days, Dominican soldiers carried out what came to be known as the Parsley Massacre, resulting in the deaths of thousands of Haitians.
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1935
Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie ordered mobilization upon learning that Italian forces had crossed the frontier to begin the Italo-Ethiopian War.
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1919
U.S. Pres. Woodrow Wilson suffered a massive stroke that left him partially paralyzed on his left side and partly blind in his right eye.
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1879
Poet Wallace Stevens, whose work explores the interaction of reality and a person’s perception of reality, was born in Reading, Pennsylvania. [Take our poetry quiz.]
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1780
British army officer John André was executed by the Americans as a spy after conducting secret meetings with American General Benedict Arnold during the American Revolution. [How much do you know about the American Revolution?]
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