In 1918, Alvin York almost single-handedly kills two dozen German soldiers and captured 132 prisoners in France's Argonne Forest. The most famous American warrior of World War I was a reluctant hero.

This day in 1780 brought the Battle of Kings Mountain, a fight Thomas Jefferson called the 'turn of the tide of success' in the Revolutionary War. Patriot militia forces annihilate a Loyalist army at Kings Mountain in South Carolina.

October 31st is Halloween. Halloween is a holiday with ancient origins that has been gradually Americanized.

On this day in 1735, John Adams, the second U.S. president, is born in Braintree, Massachusetts.