Hui Manu – a Honolulu-based organization that was formed to to introduce songbirds to the Hawaiian Islands – releases Mockingbirds on Maui, because, evidently, Maui doesn’t have enough birds which sing prettily. (Mockingbirds are members of the Mimidae family, with about 17 species in three genera.) According to Robin Doughty in The Mockingbird: “Native birds, already buffeted by logging, agriculture (cane) and settlement, have had to cope with [introduced] alien species…. Since 1796, 170 bird species have been introduced to Hawaii, and many have succeeded in displacing endemic species.”x

EVENTS ON THIS DAY – October 30

• 1270: The eighth and last Crusade is launched
• 1650: The members of the Society of Friends are first called Quakers when their founder, George Fox, testifies in a court case that members “quake and tremble at the word of God”
• 1925: The world’s first television transmission is seen in London England when John Baird succeeds in building a device in his attic from a tea chest, cardboard scanning discs, an empty biscuit box, old electric motors, darning needles, motorcycle lamp lenses, piano wire, glue, string and sealing wax
• 1938: Orson Welles panics a nation with his CBS radio broadcast of “War of the Worlds” on the Mercury Radio Theater (the live drama uses fake news reports that panics listeners who believe its portrayal of a Martian invasion is true)
• 1944: Anne Frank (of Diary fame) is deported from Auschwitz to Belsen
• 1974: 32-year old Muhammad Ali KO’s George Foreman in 8th round in Kinshasa Zaire and reclaims the world heavyweight championship
• 1990: Three years after drilling began, the construction workers from both sides of the tunnel under the English Channel (aka the Chunnel) break through to each other.

BORN ON THIS DAY – October 30

• 1735: John Adams, 2nd U.S. president
• 1871: Paul Valery, poet/essayist/critic
• 1885: Ezra Pound, poet
• 1893: Charles Atlas, body builder
• 1896: Ruth Gordon, actress
• 1932: Louis Malle, film director
• 1939: Grace Slick, rock vocalist
• 1945: Henry Winkler, actor
• 1946: Robert L “Hoot” Gibson, USN/astronaut
• 1951: Harry Hamlin, actor
• 1978: Gael Garcia Bernal, Actor (“The Motorcycle Diaries”)

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DIED ON THIS DAY – October 30

• 1626: Willebord van Roijen Dutch mathematician, dies at 35
• 1893: Sir John Abbott PM of Canada (C) (1891-92), dies at 72
• 1968 Pert Kelton actress (Cavalcade of Stars), dies at 61
• 1972: Alan Roth orch leader (Milton Berle Show), dies at 68
• 1984: June Duprez actress, dies at 66
• 1984: Mario Gallo actor (Delvecchio), dies at 61
• 1985 Kirby Grant Hoon Jr., Butte Mont, actor (Sky King), dies in an auto accident at 74
• 1991: William Shea (Shea Stadium namesake), dies at 84
• 2000: Steve Allen omedian, TV host, author and composer dies at age 78