page_title: October 1901
section_title: October 24, 1901 (Thursday)
hierarchical_section_title: October 1901 / October 24, 1901 (Thursday)
caption_attribution_description: English: Photograph of en:Annie Edson Taylor, the first person who'd survived a trip over Niagara Falls in a barrel on 24 October 1901.
context_page_description: The following events occurred in October 1901:
context_section_description: Annie Edson Taylor, a 63-year old schoolteacher from Bay City, Michigan, became the first person to plunge over Niagara Falls in a barrel and to survive.  At 4:05 in the afternoon, the barrel and Mrs. Taylor were released into the currents of the Niagara River after being towed by a boat from Grand Island.  Eighteen minutes later, at 4:23 "the barrel made its plunge over the crest of the horseshoe" (Horseshoe Falls) as thousands of spectators watched, and was out of sight for a minute before it was seen floating in the rapids.  Taylor was towed to shore 17 minutes after the plunge, climbed out, and waved to the crowd.  After she emerged from the barrel to talk to the press, she said, "After the men set me adrift, I closed my eyes and prayed... I knew when I went over the fall and I lost my senses just a minute."  She added, "I would warn anybody not to do it.... I would rather face a cannon, knowing that I would be blown to pieces, than go over the falls again."  
  The British Psychological Society was founded by ten professionals who gathered at University College London, including W. R. Boyce Gibson, William McDougall, W. H. R. Rivers, James Sully, Robert Armstrong-Jones, Frederick Mott and Sophie Bryant.
  Sociology Professor H. H. Powers of Cornell University shocked a group of students by advocating the euthanasia of mentally retarded Americans.  "I am strongly in favor of killing off the weak in society for the benefit of the strong," he said.  "Kill off the feeble-minded and those who are a burden to the rest of society as you would kill off so many rattlesnakes, not because we hate them but because they are troublesome to have around.  I believe the time will come when society will see the benefit of exterminating the weak by artificial means." 
  Born: 
  Gilda Gray, Polish-born dancer and actress who popularized the "shimmy"; in Kraków, Austria-Hungary (now Poland) (d. 1959)
  Hjalmar Mäe, Estonian politician who served as Director-General of Nazi Germany's puppet government of occupied Estonia, the Estonian Self-Administration; in Tuhala (d. 1978)
  Moultrie Kelsall, Scottish film and television actor, in Bearsden (d. 1980)
  Gerald Fitzmaurice, British judge and legal scholar who served on the International Court of Justice and the Permanent Court of Arbitration (d. 1982)
  Harry Breuer, American musician known for his compositions for the xylophone; in Brooklyn (d. 1989)
  Fritz Eichenberg, German-born American illustrator, in Köln (d. 1990)
  Died:
  James McDougal Hart, 73, American landscape painter
  Prince Joachim Napoleon Murat, 67, American-born French general
caption: First to survive the plunge
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