Not Your Century

The King of Magicians dies on Halloween. Of course he does. Joe Posnanski, author of the new biography "The Life and Afterlife of Harry Houdini," talks about what made Houdini great — which also might be what killed him. 

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Orson Welles' radio adaptation of H.G. Wells' "The War of the Worlds" causes nationwide panic about a Martian invasion. At least, that's the legend. Really, hardly anyone heard the show, and the few people who panicked thought it was the Germans who were coming. 

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Here comes the Great Depression. The stock market crash wasn't a one-day event, but the one day known as Black Tuesday shattered records, and it was a wild day on the Wall Street of the West, Montgomery Street in San Francisco.

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A week and a half before Election Day, Frank Jordan, running for re-election, thinks it'll be fun to go along with a morning radio show stunt. One result is a photo of him and two DJs naked in his shower. Another is a very happy opponent, Willie Brown.

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Albert B. Fall, secretary of the Interior under President Warren G. Harding, is found guilty of taking a bribe in the Teapot Dome scandal. He's the first Cabinet member ever convicted of a felony.

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The grand jury is in session. The boodlers who may end up in the dock? — that's how the Chronicle put it. Mayor Eugene "Handsome Gene" Schmitz and Abe Ruef, the Boss Tweed of San Francisco, the head of the city's political machine. 

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Yolanda Saldivar said she meant to kill herself, not Selena Quintanilla, when they met in a motel room to hash out charges that Saldivar was embezzling money from "the queen of Tejano music." A jury didn't believe her. 

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With those words, on the cover of Time magazine, Air Force Technical Sgt. Leonard Matlovich becomes the face of the gay rights movement in America.

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After four of the saddest days in Bay Area history, at last there's a reason for hope and joy: Longshoreman Buck Helm has been found alive in the rubble of the Cypress Structure.

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San Francisco Chronicle reporters talk about where they were when the earth shook on Oct. 17, 1989, and what they did once it stopped. Memories from Kevin Fagan, Nanette Asimov, John Wildermuth, Bruce Jenkins and Sam Whiting. See the Chronicle's look back at the 1989 earthquake.

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