On this day: October 23
POSTED: 11:20 AM PDT Oct 22, 2012
UPDATED: 11:00 PM PDT Oct 22, 2012
The Smurfs are born, the U.S. Marines barracks in Beirut are hit by a truck bomb, Robert Bork's Supreme Court nomination is rejected, and the iPod is introduced, all on this day.
Wellcome Library, London
1814: Surgeon Joseph Carpue performs the first modern plastic surgery at the Duke of York's Hospital in Chelsea, England, using a technique created in India several centuries earlier. Carpue uses a flaps of skin taken from the forehead to operate on a British military officer who had lost his nose to the toxic effects of mercury treatments and another whose nose was mutilated by a sword.
