October 5 in History: Native American setbacks, Milosevic’s resignation, anthrax attacks begin, Marion Jones’ confession, and more

Above, Shawnee chief Tecumseh, war criminal Slobodan Milosevic, athlete Marion Jones, and the original logo of the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS).

1793:  France is officially “deChristianized,” after a year of violence perpetrated by revolutionaries against anyone suspected of supporting the French monarchy, during one of the bloodiest phases of the French Revolution.

1812: Shawnee chief Tecumseh, who had joined British forces to protect his tribe’s lands, dies in the Battle of Thames in Ontario, Can., an event considered the end of Native resistance to the United States’ colonialization of western North America.

1877: The Nez Perce War ends when Nez Perce Chief Joseph and his people surrender to the US Army, after attemptint to flee to safety in Canada. American officials had promised Chief Joseph his people could live on their native lands in Idaho, but the tribe was instead moved to the Colville Indian Reservation in the state of Washington.

1937: Samuel Caldwell is the first person to be arrested under the Marijuana Tax Act, triggering this day to become known as the Victims of Prohibition Commemoration, to honor people in the United States arrested and jailed for cannabis.  Since 1995, over 17 million people in the U.S. have been arrested for cannabis offenses.

1947: Harry Truman delivers the first presidential address televised from the White House.

1970: The Public Broadasting Service (PBS) debuts as a US television network.

1986:  Eugene Hasenfus is captured by Sandinasta troops after his plane is shot down while flying over Nicaragua and confesses to his captors that he was transporting CIA-funded military supplies to their opponent, the Contras., Hasenfus’ confession starts what will become known as the Iran-Contra Scandal.

2000: In Serbia, the Bulldozer Revolution draws up to 1 million people to demand the resignation of Slobodan Milošević, for his campaign of ethnic cleansing that led to thousands of non-Serbians being tortured, killed or imprisoned between 1991 and 1999. 

2001: Robert Stevens, a photo editor at the tabloid newspaper The Sun, becomes the first victim in the 2001 anthrax attacks.

2007: Triple gold medal-winning American sprinter Marion Jones admits she used steroids, human growth hormones, and other performance-enhancing drugs during her Olympic victories in 2000-01. Jones had denied taking performance-enhancing drugs for years, and after acknowledging the doping, also explained she didn’t know the substances recommended by her trainer were performance-enhancing drugs. Jones retires, returns her medals, pleads guilty to lying to federal investigators, and serves six months in jail, two years of probation, and 400 hours of community service.

References for today’s history nuggets include history.com, On This Day and blackfacts.org. Photos courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.