Hombre (1961), was voted one of the best 25 westerns of all time

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Saturday October 11, 2014 the 283rd day and 40th week of 2014, there are 83 days and 12 weeks left in the year.  Highlights of today in world history…
1925 Elmore Leonard is born
Novelist Elmore Leonard was born on this day in New Orleansin 1925. His father worked for General Motors, and the family moved frequently during Leonard’s childhood, finally settling in Detroit.
During World War II, Leonard served in the U.S. Naval Reserve, then graduated from the University of Detroit with a degree in English in 1950. He decided to write either westerns or detective novels, whichever would generate the most income. After he sold a western for $1,000, he quickly churned out eight more. One of his books, Hombre (1961), was voted one of the best 25 westerns of all time by the Western Writers of America. It was made into a film in 1967.
Leonard married and had five children. To support the family, he worked as a copywriter at an advertising agency full time and on his novels every morning between 5 a.m. and 7 a.m. Westerns peaked in popularity in the late 1960s, so he turned to detective fiction. His first mystery, The Big Bounce (1969), was rejected by 84 publishers before it was published as an original paperback. Meanwhile, Leonard began writing educational films for Encyclopaedia Britannica.
In the 1980sand 90s, the quality of his writing and originality of his plots finally began to gain serious recognition among critics, who had previously dismissed his work as typical western or mystery-suspense fare. By 1983, he had written 23 novels, including Fifty-Two Pickup (1974), Swag (1976), and Stick (1983), which became a bestseller. His 1992 novel, Rum Punch, was made into the movie Jackie Brown, directed by Quentin Tarantino. His 1990 novel, Get Shorty, was made into a movie starring John Travolta in 1995. Leonard lives in Detroit.
1942 United States defeats Japanese in the Battle of Cape Esperance
On this day in 1942, the American Navy intercepts a Japanese fleet of ships on their way to reinforce troops at Guadalcanal. The Navy succeeded in its operation, sinking a majority of the ships.
The battle for Guadalcanal began in August, when the Marines landed in the first American offensive of the war. The ground fighting saw U.S. troops gain a decisive edge, wiping out detachments and regiments in brutal combat. The most effective Japanese counterstrikes came from the air and sea, with bombing raids harassing the Marines and threatening their dwindling supplies. But before the Japanese could reinforce their own ground troops, the Navy went to work.
The battle of Cape Esperance, on the northwest coast of Guadalcanal Island, commenced at night between surface ships; all Japanese reinforcements came at night, an operation nicknamed the Tokyo Express. The Navy sank one Japanese cruiser, the Furutaka, and three destroyers, while losing only one of their own destroyers. In characteristic fashion, those Japanese sailors who found themselves floundering in the water refused rescue by Americans; they preferred to be devoured by the sharks as a fate less shameful than capture.
Unfortunately, the loss of American manpower was greater than that of hardware: 48 sailors from the American destroyer Duncan were the victims of crossfire between the belligerents, and more than a hundred others died when an American cruiser turned on a searchlight to better target a Japanese ship. It also had the unintended effect of illuminating the sailors of the cruiser, making them easy targets.
The American Navy continued to harass Japanese ships trying to reinforce the Japanese position on the island; relatively few Japanese troops made it ashore. By the end of 1942, the Japanese were ready to evacuate the island–in defeat.
1962 Pope opens Vatican II
Pope John XXIII convenes an ecumenical council of the Roman Catholic Church?the first in 92 years. In summoning the ecumenical council?a general meeting of the bishops of the church?the pope hoped to bring spiritual rebirth to Catholicism and cultivate greater unity with the other branches of Christianity.
Pope John reached the papacy from simple, peasant beginnings. Born Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli in 1881, he was the son of an Italian tenant farmer. He was ordained a priest in 1904, and worked as a professor, part-time historian, biographer, and diplomat. For the first 54 years of his church career he was known as a good-natured conformist who obediently followed orders, and this reputation had more to do with his steady rise than did his intellectual abilities. As papal envoy to Turkey during World War II, he saved thousands of Jewish lives by helping arrange their escape to Palestine.
Roncalli’s first high-profile post came in 1944, when he was named papal nuncio to Charles de Gaulle’s newly liberated France. It was a delicate post; Roncalli’s predecessor had collaborated with France’s Vichy government, leading to a post-occupation backlash against the Catholic leadership in France. Roncalli carried out the assignment with grace and in 1953 was made a cardinal.
Although he was popular, few imagined he would ever be elected pope. After Pope Pius XII died in 1958, however, Roncalli was elected leader of the Roman Catholic Church on the 12th ballot. At 77 years of age, he was regarded as an “interim” pope by the Vatican Curia, someone who would follow the status quo for a few years while a younger prelate was bred to succeed him. However, Pope John XXIII soon surprised the Vatican’s conservative leadership by taking steps to modernize the church. He met with political and religious leaders from around the world and was the first modern pope to travel freely in Rome, breaking with the tradition that made the pope a “prisoner of the Vatican.” He had a warm personality, and spoke with peasants as freely as he did with the foreign dignitaries he invited to Rome. Adored by the Catholic masses, he gradually became a kind of father figure for Catholics around the world.
The high point of his reign was the Second Vatican Council, nicknamed Vatican II, which opened on October 11, 1962. In calling the ecumenical council, he sought a “New Pentecost,” a new outpouring of the Holy Spirit. He sought reconciliation for the world’s divided Christianity and invited Eastern Orthodox, Anglican, and Protestant observers to attend the proceedings. Pope John XXIII died in June 1963, but the council continued under his successor, Paul VI, until 1965. That year, Pope Paul began the process that could lead to John XXIII’s canonization as a saint. In 2000, Pope John Paul II beatified John XXIII, bringing him a step closer to sainthood.
Pope John Paul II died on April 2, 2005, and was succeeded by Pope Benedict XVI on April 19, 2005. Procedures are under way to one day grant him Sainthood.
1968 Apollo 7 launched
Apollo 7,the first manned Apollo mission, was launched with astronauts Walter M. Schirra, Jr.; Donn F. Eisele; and Walter Cunningham aboard. Under the command of Schirra, the crew of Apollo 7 conducted an 11-day orbit of Earth, during which the crew transmitted the first live television broadcasts from orbit.
1975 Bill Clinton marries Hillary Rodham
Bill and Hillary met in 1972 while both were studying law at Yale University; both also worked on George McGovern?s 1972 presidential campaign. After marrying, they settled in Arkansas, where Clinton immersed himself in politics and practiced law until he decided to run for governor of the state in 1978. He won and became the youngest man ever to hold the position of governor in any state. In 1992, he ran for the presidency against Republican incumbent George H.W. Bush. He won, becoming, at age 46, the youngest president since John F. Kennedy, who took office at age 43.
Clinton?s two terms (1991 to 2000) were marred by one political scandal after another and in 1998 he became the first president since Andrew Johnsonto be impeached by the House of Representatives. The impeachment trial was the culmination of a slew of scandals involving the president and first lady, which included investigations into allegedly improper Arkansas real-estate deals, suspected fundraising violations, claims of sexual harassment and accusations of cronyism. All this was capped off by Clinton?s affair with a White House intern named Monica Lewinsky. The president?s attempt to cover up the affair, to which he later admitted, enabled House Republican leaders to begin the impeachment process for perjury and obstruction of justice. A divided House of Representatives impeached Clinton on December 19, 1998; the issue then passed to the Senate. After a five-week trial, Clinton was acquitted.
Hillary, both during Clinton?s first presidential campaign and during her time in the White House, earned the ire of conservatives for her outspokenness and her involvement in public policy. Refusing to, in her words, “stay home and bake cookies,” Hillary devoted much of her time to lobbying for universal healthcare. When Clinton?s affair surfaced, many expected Hillary to leave him; she did not and instead spoke out against what she called a “right wing conspiracy” to unseat her husband. As Clinton?s tenure in the White House came to an end, Hillary set her sights on her own political career.
In 2001, the couple moved to Chappaqua, New York, a suburb of NewYork City. While Bill Clintonembarked on a new career of consulting for humanitarian and public policy groups, Hillary ran for and won a seat in the United StatesSenate. In the run-up to the 2008 presidential election she made a bid for the Democratic nomination but was defeated by Barack Obama. In 2009, President Obama appointed her secretary of state.
2002 Jimmy Carter wins Nobel Prize
On this day in 2002, former President Jimmy Carterwon the Nobel Peace Prize “for his decades of untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development.”
Carter, a peanut farmer from Georgia, served one term as U.S. president between 1977 and 1981. One of his key achievements as president was mediating the peace talks between Israel and Egypt in 1978. The Nobel Committee had wanted to give Carter (1924- ) the prize that year for his efforts, along with Anwar Sadat and Menachim Begin, but was prevented from doing so by a technicality–he had not been nominated by the official deadline.
After he left office, Carter and his wife Rosalynn created the Atlanta-based Carter Center in 1982 to advance human rights and alleviate human suffering. Since 1984, they have worked with Habitat for Humanity to build homes and raise awareness of homelessness. Among his many accomplishments, Carter has helped to fight disease and improve economic growth in developing nations and has served as an observer at numerous political elections around the world.
The first Nobel Prizes–awards established by Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel (1833-1896) in his will–were handed out in Sweden in 1901 in the fields of physics, chemistry, medicine, literature and peace. The Nobel Prize in economics was first awarded in 1969. Carter was the third U.S. president to receive the award, worth $1 million, following Theodore Roosevelt (1906) and Woodrow Wilson(1919).
2008 Blind driver breaks land-speed record
On this day in 2008, a man from Belgium named Luc Costermans set a new world speed record for blind drivers: 192 mph. Costermans set the record in a borrowed Lamborghini Gallardo on a long, straight stretch of airstrip near Marseilles, France. He was accompanied by a carload of sophisticated navigational equipment as well as a human co-pilot, who gave directions from the Lamborghini’s passenger seat.
The record Costermans broke had been set exactly three years before by the British driver Mike Newman. On that day, Newman had coaxed his 507-horsepower BMW M5 to a top speed of 178.5 mph. (Over a measured mile, Newman’s speed averaged 167.32 mph.)  For his part, Newman had smashed a 2-year-old record?144.7 mph?that he had set himself in a borrowed Jaguar, just three days after he learned to drive. Unlike Costermans, Newman did not race with a co-pilot or a navigator. Instead, he got his father-in-law to zoom around the track behind him, shouting directions over the radio.
Both of these blind record-setters were all-around daredevils who raced all sorts of vehicles. In 2001, for example, Newman became the fastest blind motorcycle driver in the world (his record speed was 89 mph) just four days after learning to ride; five years later, Costermans flew a small airplane all around France. (He was joined by an instructor and a navigator.)  Another record-setter, an Englishman named Steve Cunningham, had set the land-speed record himself in 1999 (147 mph, while driving a ?70,000 Chrysler Viper) at the same time that he held the sea-speed record for a blind sailor. In 2004, guided by sophisticated talking navigational software, Cunningham became the first blind pilot to circumnavigate the United Kingdom by air.

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