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@weirdwny.bsky.social Oct 18, 2026, 4:41 PM

#OTD 1844: The original "October Surprise:" a gale drives Lake Erie into #Buffalo, raising the water about 22 feet in hours. Canal boats ended up on city streets and houses were swept away.

Read more here:
#WNYhistory #history #OnThisDay

@weirdwny.bsky.social Oct 15, 2026, 7:28 PM

OTD in 1897, a custody fight over a mastodon was settled in LeRoy. Two brothers burying a dead colt on a local farm had dug up a giant tusk, and the finders and the landowner all claimed the bones. The outcome: they went to a new historical society, and each claimant got $1. #WNYhistory #history

@weirdwny.bsky.social Oct 14, 2026, 5:11 PM

#OTD in 1901, saloon-smashing crusader Carrie Nation was arrested on the Pan-American Exposition Midway in Buffalo. Her crime? Peddling souvenir hatchets without a license.

Read more about it: www.panam1901.org/documents/pa...

#WNYhistory #Buffalo

Photograph of temprance activist Carrie Nation. Gelatin silver print. An older woman, standing in front of a table, holding a book, stares disapprovingly (one presumes) at the camera.

@weirdwny.bsky.social Oct 13, 2026, 3:48 PM

#OTD Oct. 13, 1827: A party from Batavia dug up a drowned stranger at Oak Orchard Harbor to prove he was William Morgan, the missing man who threatened to expose Masonic secrets. Morgan’s wife said yes. Then another widow described her husband’s clothes. It wasn’t Morgan. #WNYhistory

@weirdwny.bsky.social Oct 12, 2026, 1:34 PM

#OTD in 2006, Buffalo got thundersnow. In October. Nearly two feet of heavy, wet snow landed on trees still full of leaves, snapping limbs across the city and cutting power to some 400,000 customers. Locals called it the October Surprise. Some called it Arborgeddon. #WNYHistory #history #Buffalo

A beige sedan parked in the street in front of some houses is crushed under a large tree which has fallen across it vertically. The tree still has a quantity of yellow leaves on it, and there is slushy snow on the ground.

By The original uploader was DragonFire1024 at English Wikinews. - Transferred from en.wikinews to Commons., CC BY 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2326099

@weirdwny.bsky.social Oct 11, 2026, 6:05 PM

#OTD Oct. 11, 1812, Lewiston: US troops stood in a howling storm, ready to cross the Niagara and attack Queenston. The lead boat vanished into the dark carrying nearly all the oars, and its officer reportedly ran off. Invasion postponed. #WNYhistory #NiagaraHistory #History #OnThisDay

@weirdwny.bsky.social Oct 10, 2026, 6:15 PM

#OTD Oct. 10, 1925: Bobby Leach, who survived Niagara Falls in a barrel in 1911, reportedly parachuted from an airplane over the gorge and drifted into a Canadian cornfield. Months later he died after slipping on an orange peel in New Zealand.

#WNYhistory #NiagaraFalls #OnThisDay #History

@weirdwny.bsky.social Oct 9, 2026, 7:04 PM

Oct. 9, 1901, Buffalo: At the Pan-American Exposition, New York Day is kicked off with a 19-gun salute and the release of 10,000 homing pigeons.

Read more here: www.panam1901.org/thisday/octo...

#Buffalo #WNYhistory #Weird #OTD #OnThisDay

@weirdwny.bsky.social Oct 8, 2026, 1:23 PM

Not that weird: Oct. 8, 1812: two British brigs sat at anchor across the river from Black Rock. After midnight, about 100 Americans rowed out from Buffalo Creek and seized both. One, the Detroit, ran aground on Unity Island and was burned. #WNYhistory #Buffalo #History #NotWeird #OTD