Good morning.
There is a particular kind of time travel in an old television listing: familiar titles, a few forgotten names, and an entire evening waiting to happen. Today we’re opening that paper to 1979, when Herb Alpert supplied the soundtrack and a football-playing mule had a place on the family screen. First, five stories attached to October 23 itself.
📅 On This Day
1915 — New Yorkers marched for women’s voting rights. A suffrage parade moved along Fifth Avenue ahead of a state referendum. The signs made the purpose unmistakable: votes for women.
1956 — Hungary’s uprising began. A large demonstration in Budapest demanded political freedoms and the withdrawal of Soviet troops. The protest developed into revolution.
1983 — Beirut suffered a devastating attack. A bombing of the U.S. barracks killed 241 American service members. We remember the people behind that number and the families whose lives changed that morning.
1998 — The Wye River Memorandum was signed. Benjamin Netanyahu and Yasser Arafat signed the Israeli-Palestinian agreement in Washington, with President Bill Clinton as witness. It addressed steps toward implementing earlier agreements, including redeployment and security responsibilities.
2001 — Apple introduced the iPod. The announcement promised room for up to 1,000 songs. This was its unveiling; Apple gave November 10 as the availability date.
Now, let’s turn the dial back to Tuesday, October 23, 1979.
⏪ REWIND: 1979
A newspaper’s television grid gives the evening a shape: comedies on ABC, a teen drama on CBS, and a sheriff with a distinctly unconventional approach to law enforcement on NBC. Keep that page open. The world beyond the screen has a much more serious story unfolding in Prague.
📰 The Headlines
A prison sentence for Václav Havel
After a trial on October 22–23, the playwright and dissident Václav Havel received a four-and-a-half-year prison sentence. He was among six members of the Committee for the Defense of the Unjustly Persecuted, known as VONS, convicted in Prague.
The group had been founded by Charter 77 signatories in 1978. Its work included helping political prisoners and seeking redress from the Czechoslovak authorities. That made the case about more than a writer’s career: people who documented others’ treatment were themselves being prosecuted.
Looking ahead, Havel would become president of Czechoslovakia in December 1989. That later chapter can make his rise seem inevitable. On this October day in 1979, it was anything but.
🎬 At the Movies
An approaching asteroid, and an uneasy partnership
Meteor, released October 19, brings Sean Connery and Natalie Wood into a disaster story in which American and Soviet specialists must cooperate against a threat from space. Ronald Neame directed it.
It is an especially vivid bit of 1979 moviegoing: the Cold War is still part of the story, even when the danger is an asteroid. The premise offers a familiar big-screen question—can people put their differences aside before time runs out?
🎵 On the Charts
“Rise” — Herb Alpert
On the Billboard Hot 100 dated October 20, 1979, Alpert’s “Rise” held the No. 1 spot. Its instrumental groove leaves the trumpet to carry the conversation. No lyrics needed: sometimes the record you remember is a sound rather than a line you can sing.
🏁 In Sports
Grete Waitz takes New York again
Two days earlier, on October 21, Norway’s Grete Waitz won the women’s New York City Marathon in 2:27:33, the time recorded in the race organizer’s results. She had also won in 1978.
That finish puts her comfortably below two and a half hours. For the rest of us, it is a reminder of how astonishing a marathon can look when someone at the front makes the distance seem manageable.
📺 On Television
An October 23 newspaper listing from Midland, Texas, offers this evening’s snapshot:
ABC — Happy Days, Angie, Three’s Company, Taxi and Hart to Hart.
CBS — California Fever, followed by the movie Mind Over Murder.
NBC — The Misadventures of Sheriff Lobo, followed by Undercover with the KKK.
Would you have stayed with one network, or negotiated control of the dial between shows?
🏰 Disney Vault
The kicker has four legs
On Sunday, October 21, Disney’s Wonderful World showed the first part of Gus. The 1976 comedy turns an extraordinarily talented mule into a football placekicker.
It is the sort of premise that needs almost no explanation before someone in the room starts smiling. In an era’s television listings, the family-night choices can be as revealing as the headlines.
❤️ Health Snap
A small list worth keeping current
Before your next appointment, review your medication list. Include prescription medicines, over-the-counter products, vitamins and supplements. Keep it updated when something changes, and carry a copy or a photo so you can share it with a health professional. The FDA recommends this practical habit; it is a way to keep useful information close at hand.
🎂 October 23 Birthdays
Johnny Carson — would have turned 101 (1925). The longtime host of The Tonight Show helped define late-night conversation. Back on our Rewind date, he was turning 54.
Pelé — would have turned 86 (1940). The Brazilian football great played for Santos and the New York Cosmos. He was turning 39 in 1979.
Ang Lee — turns 72 (1954). The filmmaker’s work includes Sense and Sensibility and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.
“Weird Al” Yankovic — turns 67 (1959). The musical parodist behind “Eat It” and “White & Nerdy” was turning 20 in our Rewind year.
Born on October 23—or know someone who was? Forward this edition as a little birthday time capsule. Which story belongs in their version of the day?
From a Prague courtroom to a New York finish line, 1979 held very different kinds of determination. Alongside them were the small choices that made an ordinary evening: a record, a movie, a favorite show.
Have an October 23 memory of your own? Share it with someone who remembers it with you. If a friend brought you here, subscribe free to Yesterday Today.
Until tomorrow,
Yesterday Today
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