Alexander Grant (born 1825)

In 1825, in the year that Alexander Grant was born, on October 26th, the Erie Canal opened. Construction had begun in 1817 and the completion of the canal provided passage from Albany New York to Buffalo New York and Lake Erie. Previously, pack animals had to be used to transport goods - there were no railroads - and the canal allowed goods to be shipped relatively easily and quickly.

In 1855, on November 17th, David Livingstone, a Scottish missionary and explorer, became the first known European to see Victoria Falls. He named the falls in honor of Queen Victoria but locally it was - and is - Mosi-oa-Tunya, which means "The Smoke That Thunders".

In 1912, the Girl Scouts of the USA was started by Juliette Gordon Low with the help of Sir Robert Baden-Powell, the founder of Boy Scouts in Great Britain. She said after a meeting with Baden-Powell, "I've got something for the girls of Savannah, and all of America, and all the world, and we're going to start it tonight!" And she did.

In 1978, on November 18th, Jim Jones's Peoples Temple followers committed mass suicide in Jonestown, Guyana - where they had moved, from San Francisco, as a group. Jones was the leader of the cult and ordered his followers to drink cyanide-laced punch, which they did. Whole families (women and children included) died - more than 900 people in all.

In 1984, due to outrage about "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom" (it seemed too "dark" to many and it was rated PG), a new rating was devised - PG-13. The first film rated PG-13 was "Red Dawn".