On this day...

October 5

• In 1813, Shawnee Chief Tecumseh was killed in battle. Said to be the twin brother of Teuskwatawa the Prophet, he worked long and hard to unite the Indian tribes and improve their conditions. He doggedly fought the white man when Indian lands were stolen, recruited many tribes to his confederation, and at the outbreak of the 1812 War led his warriors into action on the British side. He was killed in action in the Battle of the Thames Rivers, which was a U.S. victory. Tecumseh had vowed, “Someday I will embrace our brother tribes and draw them into a bundle, and together we will win our country back from the whites.” With his death, all hope of Indian unity died.

• In 1969, the first “Monty Python’s Flying Circus” baffled British audiences as it later baffled the United States. It soon became a cult, however, and fans were horrified when in 1975 U.S. censors cut the last two words of a sketch. On screen were two men sitting in a bath, and a voice-over intoned: “First they washed their arms, then they washed their legs, and then they washed their bleep bleep.” (naughty bits)

— from Today’s the Day! By Jeremy Beadle

In Christian history

• In 1744, David Brainerd began missionary work among the Indians along New Jersey’s Susquehanna River.

— from This Day in Christian History  By William D. Blake

In the Philippines

• In 1923, the Boy Scouts of the Philippines, was formally established as a branch of the Boy Scout of America (BSA). The Manila council of the BSA, was initially funded through the help of various civic-organizations namely: the YMCA, Knights of Columbus, Masons, Elks, Filipino and Chinese Chambers of Commerce, the U.S. Army, the Catholic and Protestant churches, and the American Legion. Scouting history in the Philippines dates back to the American occupation of the islands. The Boy Scouts first documented formation of a scout troop in the islands was that of the Lorillard Spencer’s troop of Zamboanga, formed in 1914 by a U.S. Navy Lieutenant named Sherman Kiser. This is just seven years after Lord Baden-Powell founded Scouting in England in 1907 and four years after the establishment of the Boy Scouts of America in 1910. Lt. Kiser got the idea of putting up a Boy Scout in the Philippines upon the suggestion of American charity worker Caroline Spencer of whom he was initially assigned to escort in Sulu. Realizing the benefits that Scouting was bringing to the boys, Assemblyman Tomas Confesor of Iloilo sponsored a bill in the National Assembly providing for the establishment of the Boy Scouts of the Philippines to replace the Boy Scout of America. The bill was signed into law as Commonwealth Act No. 111 by President Manuel L. Quezon on October 31, 1936, thus marking the month of October as Scouting Month. Hence, it was formally established on January 1, 1938, and recognized on October 1, 1946, by the Boy Scouts World Bureau.

— www.kahimyang.info

In Cebu

• In 1847, a Bishop’s decree confirmed the establishment of Ginatilan, Cebu, as a parish under the patronage of San Gregorio Magno. The parish of Ginatilan was created by royal orders on August 9, 1847. It formerly belonged to the jurisdiction of Samboan.

— from Cebuano Studies Center, University of San Carlos