Today in History....October 31

* 1892, Arthur Conan Doyle publishes The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

* 1912, the Musketeers of Pig Alley, directed by D.W. Griffith, debuts as the first gangster film

* 1926, magician Harry Houdini dies of gangrene and peritonitis that developed after his appendix ruptured

* 1938, in an effort to try restore investor confidence, the New York Stock Exchange unveils a fifteen-point program aimed to upgrade protection for the investing public

* 1941, after 14 years of work, drilling is completed on Mount Rushmore. ALSO: The destroyer USS Reuben James is torpedoed by a German U-boat near Iceland, killing more than 100 United States Navy sailors. It is the first U.S. Navy vessel sunk by enemy action in WWII

* 1943, F4U Corsair accomplishes the first successful radar guided interception

* 1956, the United Kingdom and France begin bombing Egypt to force the reopening of the Suez Canal

* 1959, Lee Harvey Oswald attempted to renounce his American citizenship at the US Embassy in Moscow, USSR

* 1961, in the Soviet Union, Joseph Stalin's body is removed from Lenin's Tomb

* 1968, the "October surprise". Citing progress with the Paris peace talks, US President Lyndon B. Johnson announces to the nation that he has ordered a complete cessation of "all air, naval, and artillery bombardment of North Vietnam" effective November 1

* 1984, Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi is assassinated by two Sikh security guards (riots soon broke out in New Delhi and nearly 2,000 innocent Sikhs were killed)

* 1991, a three day long snow and ice storm, dubbed the Halloween Blizzard, begins over portions of the Upper Midwest of the United States