Justice Department announces U.S. prison population exceeds 1 million

William Robinson and Marmaduke Stevenson, two Quakers who came from England in 1656 to escape religious persecution, are executed in the Massachusetts Bay Colony for their religious beliefs. The two had violated a law passed by the Massachusetts General Court the year before, banning Quakers from the colony under penalty of death. The Religious Society […]

On October 27, 1873, a DeKalb, Illinois, farmer named Joseph Glidden submits an application to the U.S. Patent Office for his clever new design for a fencing wire with sharp barbs, an invention that will forever change the face of the American West. Glidden’s was by no means the first barbed wire; he only came […]

On October 27, 1932, poet Sylvia Plath is born in Boston. Her father, a German immigrant, was a professor of biology and a leading expert on bumblebees. An autocrat at home, he insisted his wife give up teaching to raise their two children. He died at home after a lingering illness that consumed the energy […]

On October 27, 1961, a U.S. appeals court affirms rock ‘n’ roller Chuck Berry’s second conviction for transporting a minor across state lines for immoral purposes in violation of the Mann Act. After an earlier conviction in the case had been thrown out a year earlier, Berry was retried—and this time, the charges stuck. He […]

On October 27, 2004, the Boston Red Sox win the World Series for the first time since 1918, finally vanquishing the so-called “Curse of the Bambino” that had plagued them for 86 years. “This is for anyone who has ever rooted for the Red Sox,” Boston general manager Theo Epstein tells reporters. “This is for […]