Today in History: October 31

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On October 31, 1864, Nevada became the 36th state of the United States.

The U.S. acquired the area of Nevada from Mexico in 1848.

Nevada’s territory was organized from the western part of Utah territory on March 2, 1861.

In 1940, the battle of Britain brought a struggle between Germany and Britain for air control of the English Channel early in World War II. On this day the war ended.

It was the first major military campaign fought entirely by air forces.

The British officially recognize the battle’s duration as being from July 10 until October 31, 1940, which overlaps the period of large-scale night attacks known as the blitz, that lasted from September 7, 1940 to May 11, 1941.

British Royal Air Force engages enemy and shoots them down at a ratio of about four to one.

In 1941, the Mount Rushmore National Memorial in the Black Hills of South Dakota was completed, after nearly 15 years of work.

The colossal sculpture features the heads of presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln.

The four presidents were chosen to represent the nation’s birth, growth, development, and preservation, respectively.

1999 saw an Egyptair Boeing 767 go down in the Atlantic Ocean off the island of Nantucket on a flight from New York to Cairo with 217 people on board.

Seen here are the labeled pieces of Egyptair flight 990 piled together in a hangar at a former U.S. naval base in Kingstown.

Relatives and friends of the victims of the crash were shown the wreckage by the National Transportation Safety Board for the first time since the plane crashed, killing everyone onboard.

In 2017, eight people died and 11 were injured after a truck drove into them in Manhattan, New York.

The man was shot by a police officer in what officials are calling the deadliest terrorist attack on New York City since September 11, 2001.

The rampage ended when the motorist smashed into a bus, jumped out of his truck, and ran up and down the highway waving a pellet gun and paintball gun and shouting “Allahu Akbar,” Arabic for “God is great,” before he was shot in the abdomen by an officer.

In 2020, Scottish-born actor Sean Connery, who was perhaps best known for portraying super spy James Bond in a series of films, died at age 90.

The Sean Connery Foundation announced that it will donate £6 million to coincide with the second anniversary of the James Bond star’s death, and will focus on supporting education and ocean conservation projects in both Scotland and The Bahamas.

Bahamas-based projects include Lyford Cay Foundations, Bahamas Reef Environmental Educational Foundation, Cape Eleuthera Foundation, Girl Rising, and Swift Swimming.