Shoot, jump, surrender

• On Oct. 19, 1781, British General Lord Cornwallis surrenders 7,087 officers and men, 900 seamen, 144 cannons, 15 galleys, a frigate and 30 transport ships to a larger French-American force. Pleading illness, Lord Cornwallis did not attend the surrender ceremony.

• On Oct. 22, 1797, the first parachute jump of note is made by Andre-Jacques Garnerin from a hydrogen balloon 3,200 feet above Paris. He landed shaken but unhurt a half-mile from the balloon’s takeoff point.

• On Oct. 18, 1922, “Robin Hood,” starring Douglas Fairbanks, opens at Grauman’s Egyptian Theater in Hollywood. As a publicity stunt two weeks before the premiere, Fairbanks and several others shot arrows from atop a hotel and accidentally injured a man through an open window (the man agreed not to press charges).

• On Oct. 20, 1947, the House Un-American Activities Committee of the U.S. Congress opens its investigation into communist infiltration of the American movie industry. Protesting witnesses, called the “Hollywood Ten,” were found in contempt of Congress and went on to serve jail terms.

• On Oct. 21, 1967, violence erupts as more than 100,000 protesters march on the Pentagon to ask for an end to the Vietnam conflict. By the time order was restored, 683 people, including novelist Norman Mailer and two UPI reporters, had been arrested.

• On Oct. 23, 1971, Walt Disney World opens in Orlando, Fla. Disney World would later include EPCOT Center, based on Walt Disney’s vision of a Utopian planned community. (EPCOT stands for Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow.)

• On Oct. 17, 1994, taxicab driver Jeremy Levine returns to London from a round-trip journey to Cape Town, South Africa. Passengers Mark Aylett and Carlos Aresse paid 40,000 pounds, or approximately $65,000, for the 21,691-mile trip.