30 October

10 weird and wonderful things which happened on 30 October:

1. In 1997, Petkin Pet Care Systems introduced slimming pills for Cats and Dogs.
2. Silent film star Ramon Novarro died on this date in 1968 aged 69. During a robbery at his home he was beaten to death with an Art Deco dildo.
3. In 1925, John Logie Baird used a tea chest, an empty biscuit box, darning needles, piano wire, motorcycle lamp lenses, old electric motors, cardboard scanning discs and glue, string and sealing wax to achieve the first television pictures of a dummy's head. He then persuaded an office boy, William Taynton, 15, to sit in front of the camera and become the first live person to be captured on TV.
4. Orson Welles's radio adaptation of HG Wells's War of the Worlds broadcast on CBS radio on this date in 1938. The adaptation used fake news reports, which caused panic in the US and at least one death through heart failure as many listeners were convinced that Martians had really landed. He ended up with $750,000 in lawsuits filed against him.
5. Sense and Sensibility: A Novel (in three volumes) By a Lady was published by Thomas Egerton on this date in 1811.
6. In 1952, Clarence Birdseye sold the first frozen Peas.
7. In 1990, crews working on the Channel Tunnel met for the first time when French workers drilled a pilot hole through to the British side of a service tunnel. The island of Britain was connected with the European mainland for the first time since the Ice Age.
8. In 1945, the US government announced the end of Shoe rationing.
9. In 1996, teachers at Manton Junior School went on strike rather than teach a particularly disruptive pupil named Matthew Wilson.
10. In 2001 Derek Holt sold the Scottish Island of Giga to 110 residents. The community trust spokesman was called Willie McSporran.

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