While today is the anniversary of the sinking of the #EdmundFitzgerald in 1975, it is also that of another historic "November Gale:" the "White Hurricane of 1913." #OTD 1913 #Buffalo lightship LV-82 vanished, all souls lost. Days later, a hatch cover drifted ashore with a scrawled farewell message:

Shea's Buffalo Theatre, the crown jewel of Shea's Performing Arts Center, is celebrating its 100th birthday with yearlong celebrations.

Through the years: Shea's Performing Arts Center

buffalonews.com

#OTD in 1965: A misset relay at a power plant in the Niagara gorge tripped at 5:16 p.m. and plunged 30+ million people in the Northeast into darkness. Soon, a pilot’s report of a “round, glowing object” near the Niagara power plant was on national TV. #WNYhistory #Niagara #UFOHistory

#OTD in 1825, Lake Erie water that left #Buffalo by canal boat was poured into the Atlantic off Sandy Hook. Then came vials said to hold the Nile, Ganges, Amazon, Thames and eight other rivers. They called it the “Wedding of the Waters.” #WNYhistory Read more about it here:

On This Day, November 4, 1825: “Let Erie's waves with Ocean meet!” - Buffalo Rising

It was On This Day, November 4, 1825, that New York’s Governor Clinton poured the water of Lake Erie into that of the Atlantic Ocean and he said: “May the God of the heavens and earth smile most propi...

buffalorising.com

#OTD 1914, Jamestown, NY: the Republican knob on a Second Ward voting machine turned up twisted off with pliers and loosely put back. The paper called it a deliberate attempt to wreck it. The sabotage failed, but it annoyed officials and voters alike. Happy voting, Western New York.

#OTD (Nov 01) Events in U.S. organized crime #history. #BuffaloNY #Pittsburgh #YoungstownOH #Brooklyn #PittstonPA #Havana #NewYork #Mafia #MafiaHistory 🗃️ #Skystorians

#OTD in 1901: "Chiquita," a 26-inch, 18-pound Cuban Midway star at #Buffalo’s Pan-American Exposition, vanished from her quarters around 11 p.m. By midnight, she was married to a young man from Erie, Pa. #WNYhistory Read more about Alize Espiridiona Cenda and her vaudeville career here:

Espiridiona Cenda - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

#OTD in 1901: Leon Czolgosz, who shot President McKinley at #Buffalo’s Pan-American Exposition, was executed at Auburn Prison. Edison’s cameraman Edwin S. Porter made a grim silent film reenacting the execution, which is preserved at the Library of Congress. #WNYHistory #History

Execution of Czolgosz, with panorama of Auburn Prison

The film begins by showing railroad cars in the foreground with the overshadowing walls of a state prison in the background. The second camera position, from a higher elevation, pans slowly showing th...

loc.gov

#OTD in 1911: Capt. Klaus Larsen ran a small motorboat through the Whirlpool Rapids of the #Niagara Gorge and lived. Then he did it again the next day. A year earlier he’d been the only entrant in an advertised rapids “race,” got swamped near Queenston, and finished anyway. #WNYhistory #history

#OTD in 1825: The #ErieCanal opens in #Buffalo, and trailing the governor’s boat is the canal boat “Noah’s Ark,” carrying a bear, two eagles, two fawns and fish, journeying to Ararat, a Jewish refuge planned for Grand Island that was never built. #WNYHistory #history

#OTD in 1901: On her 63rd birthday, schoolteacher Annie Edson Taylor rode an oak barrel over Horseshoe Falls and lived. She was the first person to do so. Read more: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annie_E... #WNYhistory #Niagara

#otd in 2012, Morrissey played the Rapids Theatre, Niagara Falls, USA, and the folks at Panic Manual produced a nice review panicmanual.com/2012/10/23/c...

Concert Review: Morrissey, October 19, Rapids Theatre, Niagara Falls

We review Morrissey's concert in Niagara Falls, USA on October 22nd, 2012.

panicmanual.com

#OTD in 1870: Mark Twain, then a #Buffalo newspaperman, had mailed Galaxy magazine a deliberately awful doodle of King William of Prussia to mock its love of portraits. Today the editor replied: “The portrait is all right. I will give it to the engraver immediately.” #WNYhistory

#OTD in 1901: As the Pan-American Exposition wound down, Buffalo papers reported a pitch for a winter thrill ride: a toboggan slide starting 250 feet up the Electric Tower and coasting about a mile, past the Triumphal Bridge and across Park Lake. #Buffalo #History

It’s fall, y’all. Minolta 450si x 35mm FujiFilm 400

#OTD in 2003, Kirk Jones of Michigan went over #Niagara's Horseshoe Falls with no barrel, no ball, no life jacket, and survived. Fined $5,000 (Canadian) and banned from the Canadian side. #history #WNYhistory

Kirk Raymond Jones - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

#OTD in 1896, #Buffalo: the Vitascope Theater opens in the Ellicott Square Building. It is often called the world’s first permanent movie theater. Wikipedia says nearly the whole opening program was Lumière films. #history #WNYhistory

#OTD 1844: The original "October Surprise:" a gale drives Lake Erie into #Buffalo, raising the water about 22 feet in hours. Canal boats ended up on city streets and houses were swept away. Read more here: #WNYhistory #history #OnThisDay

The "October Surprise" of 1844

Local history stories about Buffalo and Western NY.

buffalohistorygazette.net

OTD in 1897, a custody fight over a mastodon was settled in LeRoy. Two brothers burying a dead colt on a local farm had dug up a giant tusk, and the finders and the landowner all claimed the bones. The outcome: they went to a new historical society, and each claimant got $1. #WNYhistory #history

#OTD in 2022, #daredevil Steve Trotter passed away. Steve was known for being the youngest person to go over #NiagaraFalls in a barrel at age 22 in 1985. He repeated the stunt in 1995, this time in a tandem barrel with Lori Martin, and survived once more. Read more about Steve here: #Weirdhistory

Steve Trotter - STEVE TROTTER

Steve Trotter

stevetrotteronline.com

#OTD in 1901, saloon-smashing crusader Carrie Nation was arrested on the Pan-American Exposition Midway in Buffalo. Her crime? Peddling souvenir hatchets without a license. Read more about it: www.panam1901.org/documents/pa... #WNYhistory #Buffalo

#OTD October 13 1812, the Battle of Queenston Heights Americans crossed the Niagara River from Lewiston, took the heights, killed English commander Isaac Brock, but were driven off by reinforcements from Fort George, aided in no small part by First Nation allies www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lqct...

War of 1812 Six Nation memorial unveiling

YouTube video by CBC News

youtube.com

The Battle of Queenston Heights happened OTD in 1812. It was a poorly planned, half-assed attempt by the U.S. to invade Canada, and it failed. islandjohnny65.blogspot.com/2026/10/the-...

The Battle for Queenston Heights – 13 October 1812

The Battle for Queenston Heights – 13 October 1812 General Henry Dearborn was in desperate need of a victory. President James Madison appoin...

islandjohnny65.blogspot.com

#OTD Oct. 13, 1827: A party from Batavia dug up a drowned stranger at Oak Orchard Harbor to prove he was William Morgan, the missing man who threatened to expose Masonic secrets. Morgan’s wife said yes. Then another widow described her husband’s clothes. It wasn’t Morgan. #WNYhistory

#OTD in 2006, Buffalo got thundersnow. In October. Nearly two feet of heavy, wet snow landed on trees still full of leaves, snapping limbs across the city and cutting power to some 400,000 customers. Locals called it the October Surprise. Some called it Arborgeddon. #WNYHistory #history #Buffalo

#OTD (Oct 11) Events in U.S. organized crime #history. #NiagaraFallsNY #Chicago #LasVegas #Cleveland #Milwaukee #Pittsburgh #Brooklyn #LasVegas #NewYork #Mafia #MafiaHistory 🗃️ #Skystorians

#OTD Oct. 11, 1812, Lewiston: US troops stood in a howling storm, ready to cross the Niagara and attack Queenston. The lead boat vanished into the dark carrying nearly all the oars, and its officer reportedly ran off. Invasion postponed. #WNYhistory #NiagaraHistory #History #OnThisDay Read more:

#OTD Oct. 10, 1925: Bobby Leach, who survived Niagara Falls in a barrel in 1911, reportedly parachuted from an airplane over the gorge and drifted into a Canadian cornfield. Months later he died after slipping on an orange peel in New Zealand. More: #WNYhistory #NiagaraFalls #OnThisDay #History

Bobby Leach - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

10 October 415 The second church structure of Hagia Sophia was inaugurated. #History #HistoryMatters

OTD 1812, Niagara River near Black Rock. Lt Jesse Elliot's raiding force boarded and captured the British ships CALEDONIA and DETROIT at 0300. As they attempted to maneuver the ships back to Black Rock, British soldiers and artillery opened fire.