October 29, 1971
24-year-old Duane Allman, slide guitarist and leader of the Allman Brothers Band, dies after crashing his motorcycle. Allman was speeding on his motorcycle when he slowed for an oncoming flatbed truck turning left in front of him. Allman veered to the center of the lane to go around the truck, but the truck stopped suddenly and Allman slammed into the weight ball of the crane the truck was carrying causing severe internal injuries. He died later that day during surgery at the hospital.
The Allman Brothers Band had just released their live album, At Fillmore East. It was their breakout album and was their first album to go platinum and is considered one of the greatest live rock albums of all time.
October 30, 1938
Orson Welles panics the nation with his radio adaption of The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells about a Martian alien invasion. Broadcast in the style of an on going news event, many people missed the opening disclaimer and believed it was a live broadcast of an actual alien invasion.
October 31, 1941
The Mount Rushmore memorial is completed. Work had begun in 1927 by sculpture Gutzon Borglum who died in March of 1941 leaving his son to complete the task. The sculpture features the 60-foot (18 m) tall heads of U.S. Presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln. These presidents were chosen by Borglum to represent the nation’s birth, growth, development, and preservation, respectively.