This Day in History – 6 Cheshvan/October 10

6 Cheshvan

In 3340/422 B.C.E., Nevuchadnetzar killed King Tzidkiyahu’s sons in front of his eyes, and subsequently blinded him. (See Shulchan Aruch Orach Chaim 580:2)

In 3427/355 B.C.E., the Yevanim implemented a mass slaughter of the Jews of Beis She’an.

In 4174/413, the Jews of Alexandria, Egypt, were expelled by Christian masses.

In 4926/1165, Rambam arrived in Yerushalayim and celebrated his arrival ever afterward as a private Yom Tov.

In 5127/1366, the king of Sicily forbade decorating the outside of shuls.

In 5461/1700, Rabbeinu Yehudah Chassid built his shul in the old city of Yerushalayim.

In 5704/1943, 100 Jews of Florence, Italy, were deported to extermination camps.

Yahrtzeiten

5202/1441, Harav Shmuel Chaim, zt”l, mechaber of Shemen Hamishchah

5704/1943, Harav Shlomo Dovid Yehoshua Weinberg, Hy”d, the Slonimer Rebbe

5749/1988, Harav Yechiel Menachem Singer, zt”l, of Alexander-America

5564/1803

Harav Yitzchak Eliyahu Igra of Tismenitz, zt”l

Harav Yitzchak Eliyahu was born in 5544/1784 in Tismenitz. His father was the famed Harav Meshulam Igra, zt”l, Rav of Pressburg and author of She’eilos U’Teshuvos Igrah Ramah.

His father commented about him, “He has a sharper mind than I have.”

In 5662/1802, Reb Yitzchak Eliyahu married the daughter of Harav Yissachar Berish Falk, the Rav of Hanover. Reb Yissachar Berish was the son of Harav Aryeh Leib Falk, the author of Pnei Aryeh on the Torah and a sefer she’eilos u’teshuvos by the same name, who was in turn the son of Harav Yaakov Yehoshua Falk, the Pnei Yehoshua, zt”l.

Although the Noda BiYehudah had been niftar some years earlier, by 17 Iyar 5553/1793 the community of Prague had not yet appointed a new Rav to succeed him. Harav Meshulam Igra told them that his son would be a worthy successor. It is astounding that Harav Meshulam Igra thought so highly of his son that he would recommend him as Rav of a city of the stature of Prague, with a predecessor like the Noda BiYehudah — especially as this son was just 18 years old at the time!

Sadly, on 6 Cheshvan 5564/1803, just 14 months after his marriage, Reb Yitzchak Eliyahu was niftar at the age of 20.

Yehi zichro baruch.

October 10

In 1845, the U.S. Naval Academy was established in Annapolis, Md.

In 1911, Chinese revolutionaries launched an uprising which led to the collapse of the Qing (or Manchu) Dynasty and the establishment of the Republic of China.

California voters approved Proposition 4, giving women the right to vote, and Proposition 7, which established the initiative process for proposing and enacting new laws.

In 1913, the Panama Canal was effectively completed as President Woodrow Wilson sent a signal from the White House by telegraph, setting off explosives that destroyed a section of the Gamboa dike.

In 1938, Nazi Germany completed its annexation of Czechoslovakia’s Sudetenland.

In 1943, Chiang Kai-shek took the oath of office as president of China.

In 1957, President Dwight D. Eisenhower apologized to the finance minister of Ghana, Komla Agbeli Gbdemah, after the official was refused seating in a Howard Johnson’s restaurant near Dover, Del.

In 1962, President John F. Kennedy, responding to the thalidomide birth defects crisis, signed an amendment to the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act requiring pharmaceutical companies to prove that their products were safe and effective prior to marketing.

In 1967, the Outer Space Treaty, prohibiting the placing of weapons of mass destruction on the moon or elsewhere in space, entered into force.

In 1970, Quebec Labor Minister Pierre Laporte was kidnapped by the Quebec Liberation Front, a militant separatist group. (Laporte’s body was found a week later.)

Fiji became independent after nearly a century of British rule.

In 1973, Vice President Spiro T. Agnew, accused of accepting bribes, pleaded no contest to one count of federal income tax evasion, and resigned his office.

In 1985, U.S. fighter jets forced an Egyptian plane carrying the hijackers of the Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro to land in Italy, where the gunmen were taken into custody.