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This Week In History: October 11-17
Sunday, October 11
1531 - Swiss Catholics defeat Protestants at Battle of Kappel, and the Protestant leader Huldrych Zwingli is killed.
1776 - The first naval battle of Lake Champlain is fought during the American Revolution.
1779 - Polish nobleman Casimir Pulaski is killed fighting for American independence at battle of Savannah, Georgia.
1797 - Dutch fleet is defeated by British off Camperdown, Holland.
1811 - The first steam-powered ferryboat, the Juliana, is put into operation in the United States between New York City and Hoboken, New Jersey.
1828 - Russians occupy Varna, now in Bulgaria, in war against Turkey.
1890 - The Daughters of the American Revolution, a nonprofit organization for the descendants of individuals who aided in achieving American independence, is founded in Washington, D.C.
1899 - The Boer War begins in South Africa, with Transvaal and the Orange Free State attacking the British.
1933 - Latin American countries sign Rio de Janeiro nonaggression pact.
1942 - World War II Battle of Cape Esperance begins in the Solomon Islands, resulting in an American victory over the Japanese.
1954 - Russia announces it will end its 10-year occupation of Port Arthur by June 1955 and give Communist China sole authority over the Manchurian naval base.
1968 - Apollo 7, the first manned Apollo mission, is launched; a cyclone that struck Bay of Bengal in India leaves half a million people homeless.
1980 - Police in India's southernmost state, Tamil Nadu, kill 12 members of the Naxalites, a Maoist extremist group committed to violent confrontation with government authorities.
1984 - Space shuttle Challenger astronaut Kathy Sullivan becomes the first American woman to walk in space.
1987 - Indian peacekeeping troops, using artillery and mortars, kill more than 120 Tamil rebels on Jaffna peninsula in Sri Lanka.
1992 - Voters in Lebanon's Kesrouan district elect five deputies, completing the country's first parliamentary elections in 20 years. But its legitimacy is eroded with most of the country's Christians boycotting the vote.
1993 - U.S. President Bill Clinton defends his administration's foreign policy and assails efforts by members of Congress to limit the president's authority to commit U.S. armed forces to peacekeeping efforts in foreign countries.
1996 - American military forces begin withdrawing from Bosnia.
1997 - Police in Germany arrest some 200 leftists and neo-Nazis to prevent clashes at a banned "chaos day" demonstration organized by right-wing radicals.
1998 - The pope canonizes Edith Stein, who was born Jewish but converted to Catholicism and died in Auschwitz.
2001 - Colombian rebels release two German hostages after holding them for almost three months.
2002 - French Defense Minister Michele Alliot-Marie says investigators found traces of explosives that indicate an explosion and fire aboard a French oil tanker off the coast of Yemen on October 6 was the result of a terrorist attack.
2004 - The U.N. nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, expresses concern at the disappearance of high-precision equipment from Iraq's nuclear facilities that could be used to make nuclear weapons.
2006 - Japan orders a total ban on North Korean imports late and declares that ships from the impoverished nation are prohibited from entering Japanese ports as punishment for its apparent nuclear test.
2007 - A bomb explodes at a famous Muslim shrine in northern India, killing at least two people and wounding 17 others after dusk as hundreds of men and women break the daily fasts they observed during the holy month of Ramadan.
2008 - A strong earthquake hits Chechnya and other parts of Russia's North Caucasus, killing at least 12 people and damaging scores of hospitals, schools and other buildings.
Monday, October 12
Highlights in history on this date:
1492 - Christopher Columbus makes his first landfall in the New World, in present-day Bahamas.
1822 - Brazil becomes independent of Portugal.
1908 - South Africa Constitutional Convention meets in Durban.
1915 - English nurse Edith Cavell is executed by the Germans in occupied Belgium during World War I.
1933 - Bank robber John Dillinger escapes from a jail in Allen County, Ohio, with the help of his gang.
1934 - Peter II becomes King of Yugoslavia following the assassination of his father, King Alexander.
1938 - Japanese troops seize Canton, severing the railway to the temporary Chinese capital in Wuhan.
1942 - American forces defeat the Japanese in Battle of Cape Esperance on Guadalcanal in World War II.
1945 - Allied Control Council in Germany orders dissolution of Nazi Party after World War II.
1951 - Under attack by French planes, the Viet Minh rebels suffer one of their worst defeats of the civil war with 1,200 dead and 5,000 captured, in an attempt to take Nghialo.
1956 - Britain tells Israel the English will assist Jordan if Israel attacks that country.
1960 - Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev upsets the decorum of U.N. General Assembly by pounding the desk with his shoe during a dispute.
1962 - India's Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru says Indian army has been ordered to oust Chinese forces from Indian territory near Tibetan border.
1964 - U.S. forces take control in South Vietnam, ousting government of Maj. Gen. Nguyen Khanh.
1969 - Soviet Union launches Soyuz VII spacecraft with three men aboard to join two men in orbit in Soyuz VI.
1973 - U.S. President Richard Nixon nominates House Minority Leader Gerald R. Ford to succeed Spiro T. Agnew as vice president. Agnew resigned after the Justice Department revealed he had taken kickbacks.
1975 - Pope Paul VI canonizes an Irish archbishop, Oliver Plunkett, who was executed by the British in 1681.
1977 - Sweden agrees to cancel over US$200 million in debts owed by eight Third World nations.
1984 - An Irish Republican Army bomb explodes at a hotel in Brighton, England, where Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was attending a conference, killing five people.
1989 - Rejecting democratic reforms, a high-ranking East German official says socialism will continue to dominate society.
1991 - Pope John Paul II makes his second visit to Brazil in an effort to renew interest in the Roman Catholic Church at a time when it is losing many Brazilian adherents to Protestant groups and African mystical cults.
1992 - A strong earthquake near Cairo kills 450 people and injures 4,000.
1993 - German Chancellor Helmut Kohl pledges to move most of nation's government to Berlin from Bonn, the current capital, by the end of the year 2000.
1994 - The U.S. spacecraft Magellan, launched in 1989 on a mission to study the planet Venus, concludes its mission with a final experiment, to make a suicidal descent toward Venus's surface, where temperatures reach 482 degrees Celsius (900 degrees Fahrenheit).
1995 - Panama grants asylum to Haiti's Raoul Cedras, who had taken power in a 1991 coup.
1996 - Commander Ramona of the Zapatista rebel movement marches into Mexico City at the head of a demonstration by indigenous people on the 504th anniversary of Columbus' arrival in America.
1997 - Cuban President Fidel Castro appoints his brother Raul as successor and urges the party to be unified in maintaining communism.
1998 - Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic agrees to withdraw his forces from Kosovo, initiate peace negotiations with ethnic Albanians and allow international observers to ensure U.N. demands are met.
1999 - A military coup throws Pakistan into political disarray as conflict with India continues over the disputed Kashmir territory. Army Chief Gen. Pervez Musharraf becomes the new leader and promises to hold elections.
2000 - Seventeen sailors are killed in a suicide bomb attack on the U.S. destroyer Cole in Yemen.
2001 - The United Nations and its secretary-general, Kofi Annan, win the Nobel Peace Prize.
2002 - A bomb explodes in a resort area on the Indonesian island of Bali, destroying two nightclubs, killing more than 180 people and wounding nearly 300 others.
2004 - Nine bodies in Tokyo are found in two parked cars with charcoal stoves at their feet and the windows sealed from inside in what is believed to be Japan's largest group suicide pact.
2005 - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez threatens to kick some Christian missionaries out of the country, as he presents property titles to indigenous groups who he said had been robbed of their ancient homelands.
2006 - Britain and Ireland announce they will present a plan to Northern Ireland's rival leaders spelling out how to resurrect a Catholic-Protestant administration as the province's peace deal intended.
2007 - Former Vice President Al Gore and the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change win the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize.
2008 - A Soyuz spacecraft with two Americans and a Russian on board lifts off from Kazakhstan for the international space station.
Tuesday, October 13
Highlights in history on this date:
1775 - The U.S. Navy is founded as the Continental Congress orders the construction of a naval fleet.
1792 - The cornerstone of the Executive Mansion, later known as the White House, is laid during a ceremony in Washington, D.C.
1815 - British occupy South Atlantic island of Ascension to prevent Napoleon's escape from St. Helena, the closest island.
1880 - Transvaal declares independence from Britain.
1889 - Boers rebel against British in South Africa.
1923 - Ankara, formerly Angora, becomes new capital of Turkey.
1937 - Germany guarantees inviolability of Belgium.
1943 - Italy, during World War II, declares war on Germany — its former Axis partner.
1952 - Egypt reaches agreement with Sudan on Nile waters.
1957 - The East German government seals its borders and recalls all East-mark holdings for conversion into a new currency.
1960 - Richard M. Nixon and John F. Kennedy participate in the third televised debate of their presidential campaign, with Nixon in Hollywood, California, and Kennedy in New York.
1968 - New military government in Panama names civilian cabinet.
1969 - Soviet Union sends third spacecraft into orbit in as many days, putting seven cosmonauts in space.
1970 - Canada and China announce they will establish diplomatic relations. Taiwan promptly breaks ties with Canada.
1974 - Iran keeps its troops in Oman and sends reinforcements to help the government army fight rebel forces there despite an official Omani announcement that Teheran was withdrawing its soldiers.
1981 - Voters in Egypt participate in a referendum to elect Vice President Hosni Mubarak as the new president, one week after the assassination of Anwar Sadat.
1985 - Tamil guerrillas attack government troops in two cease-fire violations in Sri Lanka.
1987 - Costa Rica's President Oscar Arias Sanchez wins Nobel Peace Prize for sponsoring plan to end civil wars in Central America.
1988 - Egyptian author Naguib Mahfouz becomes first Arabic-language writer to win Nobel Prize for literature.
1990 - Gen. Michel Aoun, the Christian army commander who defied the Syrian-backed Lebanese government for more than two years, surrenders power in the face of a Syrian-led military attack during the civil war.
1991 - Twenty-one blacks are killed in a series of attacks in South Africa's black townships.
1992 - The pyramids, the Sphinx and other monuments survive Cairo earthquake that kills at least 400 and injures more than 4,000.
1993 - A fanatic fan of tennis star Steffi Graf is convicted in the stabbing of rival Monica Seles and receives a two-year suspended sentence.
1994 - In the largest deal between software firms, Intuit Inc. accepts a US$1.5 billion takeover offer from Microsoft Corp.
1995 - A Dusseldorf court finds four young right-wing extremists guilty of setting fire to a house in Solingen, killing five Turks in the deadliest attack on foreigners in Germany since the Nazi era.
1996 - In response to strikes in its Canadian plants, General Motors Corp. lays off more than 1,300 workers at its Cadillac assembly plant outside Detroit.
1997 - Queen Elizabeth II begins visit to India to mark the 50th anniversary of the subcontinent's independence from Britain.
1999 - French lawmakers adopt a law giving unwed gay and straight couples the same rights previously limited to the married. Similar legislation already exists in several European countries.
2000 - Muslim Christian riots result in the deaths of 13 Nigerians in the capital Lagos.
2001 - President Hosni Mubarak issues an order that 83 suspected Islamic militants stand trial in Egypt's state security court.
2005 - Islamic militants launch a major attack on police and government buildings in the provincial capital of Nalchik in Russia's volatile Caucasus region, turning the city into a war zone wracked by gunfire and explosions. At least 49 people including 25 militants are killed.
2006 - Bangladeshi economist Muhammad Yunus and the Grameen Bank he founded win the Nobel Peace Prize for their pioneering use of tiny loans — microcredit — to lift millions out of poverty.
2007 - Myanmar's junta arrests three of the country's most prominent political activists, believed to be among the last leaders remaining at large from a student group at the forefront of a 1988 democracy uprising and the protests that started in August.
2008 - Police fire tear gas at thousands of angry pro-Serb Montenegrins who pelt state buildings with rocks and flares to protest their government's recognition of Kosovo's independence. At least 34 are injured.
Wednesday, October 14
Highlights in history on this date:
1066 - Normans under William the Conqueror defeat the English in the Battle of Hastings.
1529 - Turkish Ottoman ruler Sultan Suleyman II ends the first Turkish siege of Vienna.
1806 - Napoleon Bonaparte defeats Prussians at Jena, and Saxons at Auerstadt.
1912 - Theodore Roosevelt, campaigning for the U.S. presidency, is shot in the chest in Milwaukee. The bullet hit a metal eyeglasses case and a thick paper copy of a speech he was to give, making the wound relatively shallow, and he went ahead with the scheduled speech.
1933 - Germany leaves disarmament conference and League of Nations.
1936 - Belgium renounces military alliance with France.
1939 - A German submarine sinks the British battleship Royal Oak in Scapa Flow, with loss of 833 lives.
1944 - British and Greek troops liberate Athens from Germans; German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel commits suicide rather than face execution for allegedly conspiring against Adolf Hitler.
1947 - U.S. Air Force Capt. Chuck Yeager becomes the first person to fly faster than sound as he tests a rocket-powered research plane over California.
1960 - The idea of a Peace Corps is first suggested by Democratic U.S. presidential candidate John F. Kennedy to an audience of students at the University of Michigan.
1964 - U.S. civil rights leader Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. wins the Nobel Peace Prize.
1968 - The first live telecast from a manned U.S. spacecraft is transmitted from Apollo 7.
1973 - Sanya Thammasak, university administrator, is named premier of Thailand after violent clashes between troops and students.
1982 - Vietnam turns over to U.S. officials the remains of five Americans believed to have been murdered in Cambodia under Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge regime.
1986 - Holocaust survivor and human rights advocate Elie Wiesel wins the Nobel Peace Prize.
1987 - Governor general Ratu Sir Penaia Ganilau resigns after Fiji is declared a republic following two coups d'etats.
1989 - Jordan officially launches its first national election campaign in 22 years.
1990 - Israeli government decides against cooperating with U.N. team investigating shooting deaths of 19 Palestinians at the Temple Mount.
1991 - Burmese pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi wins Nobel Peace Prize for her struggle to achieve democracy in her homeland.
1992 - A judge in Rostov-on-Don, Russia convicts Andrei Chikatilo of the sex murders of 52 children and young women over a 12-year period. The horrific nature of the crimes makes Chikatilo one of the worst serial killers in history.
1993 - Within hours of a U.N. police team pullout of Haiti, gunmen assassinate Justice Minister Guy Malary, creating another setback to plans for ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide's return.
1994 - Israeli leaders Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres share the Nobel Peace Prize with PLO leader Yasser Arafat.
1995 - Greece lifts its embargo on the former Yugoslav republic of Macedonia, which agrees to change its flag and declare that it has no claims on Greek territory.
1996 - Truckloads of Taliban soldiers reinforce their battered defenses north of Kabul, Afghanistan, after losing two strategic towns to former government soldiers.
1997 - Dozens of protesters shouting "Clinton go home!" burn an effigy of U.S. President Bill Clinton and throw manure on his limousine, marring an otherwise smooth visit to Brazil.
1998 - Wole Soyinka, Nobel laureate and a critic of the Nigerian government, returns to his homeland for the first time in four years and is greeted by jubilant crowds.
1999 - Former Tanzanian President Julius Nyerere, the father of Tanzanian independence and a symbol of Africa's hopes as it emerged from the shadow of colonial rule, dies at 77 of leukemia.
2000 - Alija Izetbegovic, who led the Bosnian Muslims through Europe's bloodiest conflict since World War II, resigns from the Bosnian presidency, leaving power in a manner rare in the Balkans.
2002 - Britain suspends the Northern Ireland assembly, saying direct British rule was being introduced over the province because of "a loss of confidence on both sides of the community." It was the fourth suspension since December 1999.
2003 - John Allen Muhammad, one of two suspects in a series of October 2002 sniper shootings in the Washington, D.C. area that killed 10 people and wounded three others, pleads not guilty to four murder charges
2004 - Soldiers attack kidnappers holding two Chinese engineers near the Afghan border, killing all five of the militants led by a former Guantanamo prisoner who Pakistani officials say has ties to al-Qaida.
2005 - The famed La Scala opera house closes its doors along with most other Italian theaters and cinemas as performers and staff go on strike against planned government budget cuts they say will cripple funding for the arts.
2006 - The U.N. Security Council votes unanimously to impose punishing sanctions on North Korea for its claimed nuclear test, declaring that its action posed "a clear threat to international peace and security."
2007 - A landslide triggered by local residents digging for rumored deposits of gold in an abandoned mine kills at least 21 people and injures 26 in southern Colombia.
2008 -_Syria formally recognizes Lebanon by establishing diplomatic relations with the nation.
Thursday, Oct. 15
Today's Highlight in History:
On Oct. 15, 1969, peace demonstrators staged activities across the country, including a candlelight march around the White House, as part of a "moratorium" against the Vietnam War.
On this date:
In 1858, the seventh and final debate between senatorial candidates Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas took place in Alton, Ill.
In 1860, 11-year-old Grace Bedell of Westfield, N.Y., wrote a letter to presidential candidate Abraham Lincoln, suggesting he could improve his appearance by letting his whiskers grow.
In 1914, the Clayton Antitrust Act was signed into law by President Woodrow Wilson.
In 1917, Dutch dancer Mata Hari, convicted of spying for the Germans, was executed by a French firing squad outside Paris.
In 1928, the German dirigible Graf Zeppelin landed in Lakehurst, N.J., completing its first commercial flight across the Atlantic.
In 1945, the former premier of Vichy France, Pierre Laval, was executed for treason.
In 1946, Nazi war criminal Hermann Goering fatally poisoned himself hours before he was to have been executed.
In 1964, it was announced that Soviet leader Nikita S. Khrushchev had been removed from office.
In 1976, in the first debate of its kind between vice-presidential nominees, Democrat Walter F. Mondale and Republican Bob Dole faced off in Houston.
In 2003, 11 people were killed when a Staten Island ferry slammed into a maintenance pier. (The ferry's pilot, who'd blacked out at the controls, later pleaded guilty to 11 counts of manslaughter and was sentenced to 18 months in prison.)
Ten years ago: The humanitarian group Doctors Without Borders was named winner of the Nobel Peace Prize. Irish tenor Josef Locke, whose life inspired the 1992 film "Hear My Song," died in County Kildare, Ireland, at age 82.
Five years ago: The FDA ordered that all antidepressants carry strong warnings that they "increase the risk of suicidal thinking and behavior" in children who take them. Several thousand people opposed to gay marriage gathered on the National Mall in Washington to call for a constitutional amendment defining marriage as being between a man and a woman.
One year ago: Republican John McCain repeatedly assailed Democrat Barack Obama's character and campaign positions on taxes, abortion and more in a debate at Hofstra University; Obama parried each accusation, and leveled a few of his own, saying "100 percent" of McCain's campaign ads were negative. The Philadelphia Phillies beat the Los Angeles Dodgers 5-1 to win the NLCS 4-1 for the team's first pennant since 1993. Pop star Madonna and movie director Guy Ritchie announced they were divorcing after nearly eight years of marriage. Actress-singer Edie Adams died in Los Angeles at age 81. Longtime game show host Jack Narz died in Los Angeles at age 85.
Friday, Oct. 16
Today's Highlight in History:
On Oct. 16, 1859, radical abolitionist John Brown led a group of 21 men in a raid on Harpers Ferry in western Virginia, where they seized a U.S. arsenal in hopes of sparking a slave revolt. (In the siege that followed, 10 of Brown's men were killed and five escaped. Brown and six followers ended up being captured; all were executed.)
On this date:
In 1793, during the French Revolution, Marie Antoinette, the queen of France, was beheaded.
In 1909, the Pittsburgh Pirates won the World Series, defeating the Detroit Tigers 8-0 at Bennett Park in Game 7.
In 1916, Margaret Sanger opened the first birth control clinic, in the New York borough of Brooklyn. (The clinic ended up being raided by police and Sanger was arrested.)
In 1939, the comedy "The Man Who Came to Dinner," by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart, opened on Broadway.
In 1959, American military leader and statesman George C. Marshall died in Washington, D.C., at age 78.
In 1962, the Cuban missile crisis began as President John F. Kennedy was informed that reconnaissance photographs had revealed the presence of missile bases in Cuba.
In 1968, American athletes Tommie Smith and John Carlos sparked controversy at the Mexico City Olympics by giving "black power" salutes during a victory ceremony after they'd won gold and bronze medals in the 200-meter race.
In 1969, the New York Mets capped their miracle season by winning the World Series, defeating the Baltimore Orioles 5-3 in Game 5 played at Shea Stadium.
In 1978, the College of Cardinals of the Roman Catholic Church chose Cardinal Karol Wojtyla be the new pope; he took the name John Paul II.
In 1991, a deadly shooting rampage took place in Killeen, Texas, as George Hennard opened fire at a Luby's Cafeteria, killing 23 people before taking his own life.
Ten years ago: A New York Air National Guard plane rescued Dr. Jerri Nielsen from a South Pole research center after she'd spent five months isolated by the Antarctic winter, which forced her to treat herself for a breast lump. Writer and radio raconteur Jean Shepherd died on Sanibel Island, Fla., at age 78. ******
Five years ago: The Soyuz spacecraft was forced to manually dock with the international space station after it closed in on the station at a dangerously high speed. Pierre Salinger, a journalist who'd served as press secretary in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, died in Le Thon, France, at age 79.
One year ago: A volatile Wall Street pulled off another stunning U-turn, transforming a 380-point loss for the Dow Jones industrial average into a 401-point gain.
Saturday, Oct. 17
Today's Highlight in History:
On Oct. 17, 1989, an earthquake measuring magnitude 7.1 struck northern California, killing 63 people and causing $6 billion worth of damage. (The quake hit just before Game 3 of the World Series between the Oakland Athletics and San Francisco Giants at Candlestick Park; the Series was suspended until Oct. 27, at which time the A's resumed their four-game sweep of the Giants.)
On this date:
In 1777, British forces under Gen. John Burgoyne surrendered to American troops in Saratoga, N.Y., in a turning point of the Revolutionary War.
In 1807, Britain declared it would continue to reclaim British-born sailors from American ships and ports regardless of whether they held U.S. citizenship.
In 1907, Guglielmo Marconi began offering limited commercial wireless telegraph service between Nova Scotia and Ireland.
In 1919, Radio Corporation of America was chartered.
In 1931, mobster Al Capone was convicted of income tax evasion. (Sentenced to 11 years in prison, Capone was released in 1939.)
In 1933, Albert Einstein arrived in the United States as a refugee from Nazi Germany.
In 1939, Frank Capra's comedy-drama "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington," starring James Stewart as an idealistic junior U.S. senator, had its premiere in the nation's capital.
In 1941, the U.S. destroyer Kearny was torpedoed by a German submarine off the coast of Iceland; 11 people died.
In 1973, Arab oil-producing nations announced they would begin cutting back oil exports to Western nations and Japan; the result was a total embargo that lasted until March 1974.
In 1979, Mother Teresa of India was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
Ten years ago: The FBI reported that serious crimes reported to police declined for seventh straight year in 1998 and murder and robbery rates reached 30-year lows. Former nurse Orville Lynn Majors was convicted of murdering six patients at a western Indiana hospital; the jury deadlocked on a seventh count. (Majors is serving a 360-year prison sentence.)
Five years ago: The Iraqi militant group of terror mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi declared its allegiance to Osama bin Laden. Betty Hill, who claimed that she and her husband, Barney, had been abducted, examined and released by extraterrestrials in 1961, died in Portsmouth, N.H., at age 85.
One year ago: Wall Street ended a tumultuous week that turned out to be its best in five years. The Dow Jones industrial average lost 127 points, closing at 8,852.22, but turned in the strong week because of two huge days of gains — a record 936-point jump the previous Monday and an increase of 401 points on Thursday. Four Tops frontman Levi Stubbs died in Detroit at age 72.
Tuesday, October 13
1775 - The U.S. Navy is founded as the Continental Congress orders the construction of a naval fleet.
1792 - The cornerstone of the Executive Mansion, later known as the White House, is laid during a ceremony in Washington, D.C.
1815 - British occupy South Atlantic island of Ascension to prevent Napoleon's escape from St. Helena, the closest island.
1880 - Transvaal declares independence from Britain.
1889 - Boers rebel against British in South Africa.
1923 - Ankara, formerly Angora, becomes new capital of Turkey.
1937 - Germany guarantees inviolability of Belgium.
1943 - Italy, during World War II, declares war on Germany — its former Axis partner.
1991 - Twenty-one blacks are killed in a series of attacks in South Africa's black townships.
1992 - The pyramids, the Sphinx and other monuments survive Cairo earthquake that kills at least 400 and injures more than 4,000.
1993 - A fanatic fan of tennis star Steffi Graf is convicted in the stabbing of rival Monica Seles and receives a two-year suspended sentence.
1994 - In the largest deal between software firms, Intuit Inc. accepts a US$1.5 billion takeover offer from Microsoft Corp.
1995 - A Dusseldorf court finds four young right-wing extremists guilty of setting fire to a house in Solingen, killing five Turks in the deadliest attack on foreigners in Germany since the Nazi era.
1996 - In response to strikes in its Canadian plants, General Motors Corp. lays off more than 1,300 workers at its Cadillac assembly plant outside Detroit.
1997 - Queen Elizabeth II begins visit to India to mark the 50th anniversary of the subcontinent's independence from Britain.
1999 - French lawmakers adopt a law giving unwed gay and straight couples the same rights previously limited to the married. Similar legislation already exists in several European countries.
2000 - Muslim Christian riots result in the deaths of 13 Nigerians in the capital Lagos.
2001 - President Hosni Mubarak issues an order that 83 suspected Islamic militants stand trial in Egypt's state security court.
2005 - Islamic militants launch a major attack on police and government buildings in the provincial capital of Nalchik in Russia's volatile Caucasus region, turning the city into a war zone wracked by gunfire and explosions. At least 49 people including 25 militants are killed.
2006 - Bangladeshi economist Muhammad Yunus and the Grameen Bank he founded win the Nobel Peace Prize for their pioneering use of tiny loans — microcredit — to lift millions out of poverty.
2007 - Myanmar's junta arrests three of the country's most prominent political activists, believed to be among the last leaders remaining at large from a student group at the forefront of a 1988 democracy uprising and the protests that started in August.
2008 - Police fire tear gas at thousands of angry pro-Serb Montenegrins who pelt state buildings with rocks and flares to protest their government's recognition of Kosovo's independence. At least 34 are injured.
Wednesday, October 14
1529 - Turkish Ottoman ruler Sultan Suleyman II ends the first Turkish siege of Vienna.
1806 - Napoleon Bonaparte defeats Prussians at Jena, and Saxons at Auerstadt.
1912 - Theodore Roosevelt, campaigning for the U.S. presidency, is shot in the chest in Milwaukee. The bullet hit a metal eyeglasses case and a thick paper copy of a speech he was to give, making the wound relatively shallow, and he went ahead with the scheduled speech.
1933 - Germany leaves disarmament conference and League of Nations.
1936 - Belgium renounces military alliance with France.
1939 - A German submarine sinks the British battleship Royal Oak in Scapa Flow, with loss of 833 lives.
1944 - British and Greek troops liberate Athens from Germans; German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel commits suicide rather than face execution for allegedly conspiring against Adolf Hitler.
1947 - U.S. Air Force Capt. Chuck Yeager becomes the first person to fly faster than sound as he tests a rocket-powered research plane over California.
1960 - The idea of a Peace Corps is first suggested by Democratic U.S. presidential candidate John F. Kennedy to an audience of students at the University of Michigan.
1964 - U.S. civil rights leader Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. wins the Nobel Peace Prize.
1968 - The first live telecast from a manned U.S. spacecraft is transmitted from Apollo 7.
1973 - Sanya Thammasak, university administrator, is named premier of Thailand after violent clashes between troops and students.
1982 - Vietnam turns over to U.S. officials the remains of five Americans believed to have been murdered in Cambodia under Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge regime.
1986 - Holocaust survivor and human rights advocate Elie Wiesel wins the Nobel Peace Prize.
1987 - Governor general Ratu Sir Penaia Ganilau resigns after Fiji is declared a republic following two coups d'etats.
1989 - Jordan officially launches its first national election campaign in 22 years.
1990 - Israeli government decides against cooperating with U.N. team investigating shooting deaths of 19 Palestinians at the Temple Mount.
1991 - Burmese pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi wins Nobel Peace Prize for her struggle to achieve democracy in her homeland.
1992 - A judge in Rostov-on-Don, Russia convicts Andrei Chikatilo of the sex murders of 52 children and young women over a 12-year period. The horrific nature of the crimes makes Chikatilo one of the worst serial killers in history.
1993 - Within hours of a U.N. police team pullout of Haiti, gunmen assassinate Justice Minister Guy Malary, creating another setback to plans for ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide's return.
1994 - Israeli leaders Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres share the Nobel Peace Prize with PLO leader Yasser Arafat.
1995 - Greece lifts its embargo on the former Yugoslav republic of Macedonia, which agrees to change its flag and declare that it has no claims on Greek territory.
Thursday, Oct. 15
Today's Highlight in History:
On Oct. 15, 1969, peace demonstrators staged activities across the country, including a candlelight march around the White House, as part of a "moratorium" against the Vietnam War.
On this date:
In 1858, the seventh and final debate between senatorial candidates Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas took place in Alton, Ill.
In 1860, 11-year-old Grace Bedell of Westfield, N.Y., wrote a letter to presidential candidate Abraham Lincoln, suggesting he could improve his appearance by letting his whiskers grow.
In 1914, the Clayton Antitrust Act was signed into law by President Woodrow Wilson.
In 1917, Dutch dancer Mata Hari, convicted of spying for the Germans, was executed by a French firing squad outside Paris.
Five years ago: The FDA ordered that all antidepressants carry strong warnings that they "increase the risk of suicidal thinking and behavior" in children who take them. Several thousand people opposed to gay marriage gathered on the National Mall in Washington to call for a constitutional amendment defining marriage as being between a man and a woman.
Friday, Oct. 16
In 1793, during the French Revolution, Marie Antoinette, the queen of France, was beheaded.
In 1909, the Pittsburgh Pirates won the World Series, defeating the Detroit Tigers 8-0 at Bennett Park in Game 7.
In 1916, Margaret Sanger opened the first birth control clinic, in the New York borough of Brooklyn. (The clinic ended up being raided by police and Sanger was arrested.)
In 1969, the New York Mets capped their miracle season by winning the World Series, defeating the Baltimore Orioles 5-3 in Game 5 played at Shea Stadium.
In 1978, la be the new pope; he took the name John Paul II.
In 1991, a deadly shooting rampage took place in Killeen, Texas, as George Hennard opened fire at a Luby's Cafeteria, killing 23 people before taking his own life.
Saturday, Oct. 17
In 1777, British forces under Gen. John Burgoyne surrendered to American troops in Saratoga, N.Y., in a turning point of the Revolutionary War.
In 1807, Britain declared it would continue to reclaim British-born sailors from American ships and ports regardless of whether they held U.S. citizenship.
In 1907, Guglielmo Marconi began offering limited commercial wireless telegraph service between Nova Scotia and Ireland.
In 1919, Radio Corporation of America was chartered.
In 1931, mobster Al Capone was convicted of income tax evasion. (Sentenced to 11 years in prison, Capone was released in 1939.)
In 1933, Albert Einstein arrived in the United States as a refugee from Nazi Germany.
In 1939, Frank Capra's comedy-drama "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington," starring James Stewart as an idealistic junior U.S. senator, had its premiere in the nation's capital.
In 1941, the U.S. destroyer Kearny was torpedoed by a German submarine off the coast of Iceland; 11 people died.
In 1973, Arab oil-producing nations announced they would begin cutting back oil exports to Western nations and Japan; the result was a total embargo that lasted until March 1974.
In 1979, Mother Teresa of India was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
1531 - Swiss Catholics defeat Protestants at Battle of Kappel, and the Protestant leader Huldrych Zwingli is killed.
1776 - The first naval battle of Lake Champlain is fought during the American Revolution.
1779 - Polish nobleman Casimir Pulaski is killed fighting for American independence at battle of Savannah, Georgia.
1797 - Dutch fleet is defeated by British off Camperdown, Holland.
1811 - The first steam-powered ferryboat, the Juliana, is put into operation in the United States between New York City and Hoboken, New Jersey.
1828 - Russians occupy Varna, now in Bulgaria, in war against Turkey.
1890 - The Daughters of the American Revolution, a nonprofit organization for the descendants of individuals who aided in achieving American independence, is founded in Washington, D.C.
1899 - The Boer War begins in South Africa, with Transvaal and the Orange Free State attacking the British.
1933 - Latin American countries sign Rio de Janeiro nonaggression pact.
1942 - World War II Battle of Cape Esperance begins in the Solomon Islands, resulting in an American victory over the Japanese.
1954 - Russia announces it will end its 10-year occupation of Port Arthur by June 1955 and give Communist China sole authority over the Manchurian naval base.
1968 - Apollo 7, the first manned Apollo mission, is launched; a cyclone that struck Bay of Bengal in India leaves half a million people homeless.
1980 - Police in India's southernmost state, Tamil Nadu, kill 12 members of the Naxalites, a Maoist extremist group committed to violent confrontation with government authorities.
1984 - Space shuttle Challenger astronaut Kathy Sullivan becomes the first American woman to walk in space.
1987 - Indian peacekeeping troops, using artillery and mortars, kill more than 120 Tamil rebels on Jaffna peninsula in Sri Lanka.
1992 - Voters in Lebanon's Kesrouan district elect five deputies, completing the country's first parliamentary elections in 20 years. But its legitimacy is eroded with most of the country's Christians boycotting the vote.
1993 - U.S. President Bill Clinton defends his administration's foreign policy and assails efforts by members of Congress to limit the president's authority to commit U.S. armed forces to peacekeeping efforts in foreign countries.
1996 - American military forces begin withdrawing from Bosnia.
1997 - Police in Germany arrest some 200 leftists and neo-Nazis to prevent clashes at a banned "chaos day" demonstration organized by right-wing radicals.
1998 - The pope canonizes Edith Stein, who was born Jewish but converted to Catholicism and died in Auschwitz.
2001 - Colombian rebels release two German hostages after holding them for almost three months.
2002 - French Defense Minister Michele Alliot-Marie says investigators found traces of explosives that indicate an explosion and fire aboard a French oil tanker off the coast of Yemen on October 6 was the result of a terrorist attack.
2004 - The U.N. nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, expresses concern at the disappearance of high-precision equipment from Iraq's nuclear facilities that could be used to make nuclear weapons.
2006 - Japan orders a total ban on North Korean imports late and declares that ships from the impoverished nation are prohibited from entering Japanese ports as punishment for its apparent nuclear test.
2007 - A bomb explodes at a famous Muslim shrine in northern India, killing at least two people and wounding 17 others after dusk as hundreds of men and women break the daily fasts they observed during the holy month of Ramadan.
2008 - A strong earthquake hits Chechnya and other parts of Russia's North Caucasus, killing at least 12 people and damaging scores of hospitals, schools and other buildings.
Monday, October 12
Highlights in history on this date:
1492 - Christopher Columbus makes his first landfall in the New World, in present-day Bahamas.
1822 - Brazil becomes independent of Portugal.
1908 - South Africa Constitutional Convention meets in Durban.
1915 - English nurse Edith Cavell is executed by the Germans in occupied Belgium during World War I.
1933 - Bank robber John Dillinger escapes from a jail in Allen County, Ohio, with the help of his gang.
1934 - Peter II becomes King of Yugoslavia following the assassination of his father, King Alexander.
1938 - Japanese troops seize Canton, severing the railway to the temporary Chinese capital in Wuhan.
1942 - American forces defeat the Japanese in Battle of Cape Esperance on Guadalcanal in World War II.
1945 - Allied Control Council in Germany orders dissolution of Nazi Party after World War II.
1951 - Under attack by French planes, the Viet Minh rebels suffer one of their worst defeats of the civil war with 1,200 dead and 5,000 captured, in an attempt to take Nghialo.
1956 - Britain tells Israel the English will assist Jordan if Israel attacks that country.
1960 - Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev upsets the decorum of U.N. General Assembly by pounding the desk with his shoe during a dispute.
1962 - India's Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru says Indian army has been ordered to oust Chinese forces from Indian territory near Tibetan border.
1964 - U.S. forces take control in South Vietnam, ousting government of Maj. Gen. Nguyen Khanh.
1969 - Soviet Union launches Soyuz VII spacecraft with three men aboard to join two men in orbit in Soyuz VI.
1973 - U.S. President Richard Nixon nominates House Minority Leader Gerald R. Ford to succeed Spiro T. Agnew as vice president. Agnew resigned after the Justice Department revealed he had taken kickbacks.
1975 - Pope Paul VI canonizes an Irish archbishop, Oliver Plunkett, who was executed by the British in 1681.
1977 - Sweden agrees to cancel over US$200 million in debts owed by eight Third World nations.
1984 - An Irish Republican Army bomb explodes at a hotel in Brighton, England, where Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was attending a conference, killing five people.
1989 - Rejecting democratic reforms, a high-ranking East German official says socialism will continue to dominate society.
1991 - Pope John Paul II makes his second visit to Brazil in an effort to renew interest in the Roman Catholic Church at a time when it is losing many Brazilian adherents to Protestant groups and African mystical cults.
1992 - A strong earthquake near Cairo kills 450 people and injures 4,000.
1993 - German Chancellor Helmut Kohl pledges to move most of nation's government to Berlin from Bonn, the current capital, by the end of the year 2000.
1994 - The U.S. spacecraft Magellan, launched in 1989 on a mission to study the planet Venus, concludes its mission with a final experiment, to make a suicidal descent toward Venus's surface, where temperatures reach 482 degrees Celsius (900 degrees Fahrenheit).
1995 - Panama grants asylum to Haiti's Raoul Cedras, who had taken power in a 1991 coup.
1996 - Commander Ramona of the Zapatista rebel movement marches into Mexico City at the head of a demonstration by indigenous people on the 504th anniversary of Columbus' arrival in America.
1997 - Cuban President Fidel Castro appoints his brother Raul as successor and urges the party to be unified in maintaining communism.
1998 - Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic agrees to withdraw his forces from Kosovo, initiate peace negotiations with ethnic Albanians and allow international observers to ensure U.N. demands are met.
1999 - A military coup throws Pakistan into political disarray as conflict with India continues over the disputed Kashmir territory. Army Chief Gen. Pervez Musharraf becomes the new leader and promises to hold elections.
2000 - Seventeen sailors are killed in a suicide bomb attack on the U.S. destroyer Cole in Yemen.
2001 - The United Nations and its secretary-general, Kofi Annan, win the Nobel Peace Prize.
2002 - A bomb explodes in a resort area on the Indonesian island of Bali, destroying two nightclubs, killing more than 180 people and wounding nearly 300 others.
2004 - Nine bodies in Tokyo are found in two parked cars with charcoal stoves at their feet and the windows sealed from inside in what is believed to be Japan's largest group suicide pact.
2005 - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez threatens to kick some Christian missionaries out of the country, as he presents property titles to indigenous groups who he said had been robbed of their ancient homelands.
2006 - Britain and Ireland announce they will present a plan to Northern Ireland's rival leaders spelling out how to resurrect a Catholic-Protestant administration as the province's peace deal intended.
2007 - Former Vice President Al Gore and the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change win the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize.
2008 - A Soyuz spacecraft with two Americans and a Russian on board lifts off from Kazakhstan for the international space station.
Tuesday, October 13
Highlights in history on this date:
1775 - The U.S. Navy is founded as the Continental Congress orders the construction of a naval fleet.
1792 - The cornerstone of the Executive Mansion, later known as the White House, is laid during a ceremony in Washington, D.C.
1815 - British occupy South Atlantic island of Ascension to prevent Napoleon's escape from St. Helena, the closest island.
1880 - Transvaal declares independence from Britain.
1889 - Boers rebel against British in South Africa.
1923 - Ankara, formerly Angora, becomes new capital of Turkey.
1937 - Germany guarantees inviolability of Belgium.
1943 - Italy, during World War II, declares war on Germany — its former Axis partner.
1952 - Egypt reaches agreement with Sudan on Nile waters.
1957 - The East German government seals its borders and recalls all East-mark holdings for conversion into a new currency.
1960 - Richard M. Nixon and John F. Kennedy participate in the third televised debate of their presidential campaign, with Nixon in Hollywood, California, and Kennedy in New York.
1968 - New military government in Panama names civilian cabinet.
1969 - Soviet Union sends third spacecraft into orbit in as many days, putting seven cosmonauts in space.
1970 - Canada and China announce they will establish diplomatic relations. Taiwan promptly breaks ties with Canada.
1974 - Iran keeps its troops in Oman and sends reinforcements to help the government army fight rebel forces there despite an official Omani announcement that Teheran was withdrawing its soldiers.
1981 - Voters in Egypt participate in a referendum to elect Vice President Hosni Mubarak as the new president, one week after the assassination of Anwar Sadat.
1985 - Tamil guerrillas attack government troops in two cease-fire violations in Sri Lanka.
1987 - Costa Rica's President Oscar Arias Sanchez wins Nobel Peace Prize for sponsoring plan to end civil wars in Central America.
1988 - Egyptian author Naguib Mahfouz becomes first Arabic-language writer to win Nobel Prize for literature.
1990 - Gen. Michel Aoun, the Christian army commander who defied the Syrian-backed Lebanese government for more than two years, surrenders power in the face of a Syrian-led military attack during the civil war.
1991 - Twenty-one blacks are killed in a series of attacks in South Africa's black townships.
1992 - The pyramids, the Sphinx and other monuments survive Cairo earthquake that kills at least 400 and injures more than 4,000.
1993 - A fanatic fan of tennis star Steffi Graf is convicted in the stabbing of rival Monica Seles and receives a two-year suspended sentence.
1994 - In the largest deal between software firms, Intuit Inc. accepts a US$1.5 billion takeover offer from Microsoft Corp.
1995 - A Dusseldorf court finds four young right-wing extremists guilty of setting fire to a house in Solingen, killing five Turks in the deadliest attack on foreigners in Germany since the Nazi era.
1996 - In response to strikes in its Canadian plants, General Motors Corp. lays off more than 1,300 workers at its Cadillac assembly plant outside Detroit.
1997 - Queen Elizabeth II begins visit to India to mark the 50th anniversary of the subcontinent's independence from Britain.
1999 - French lawmakers adopt a law giving unwed gay and straight couples the same rights previously limited to the married. Similar legislation already exists in several European countries.
2000 - Muslim Christian riots result in the deaths of 13 Nigerians in the capital Lagos.
2001 - President Hosni Mubarak issues an order that 83 suspected Islamic militants stand trial in Egypt's state security court.
2005 - Islamic militants launch a major attack on police and government buildings in the provincial capital of Nalchik in Russia's volatile Caucasus region, turning the city into a war zone wracked by gunfire and explosions. At least 49 people including 25 militants are killed.
2006 - Bangladeshi economist Muhammad Yunus and the Grameen Bank he founded win the Nobel Peace Prize for their pioneering use of tiny loans — microcredit — to lift millions out of poverty.
2007 - Myanmar's junta arrests three of the country's most prominent political activists, believed to be among the last leaders remaining at large from a student group at the forefront of a 1988 democracy uprising and the protests that started in August.
2008 - Police fire tear gas at thousands of angry pro-Serb Montenegrins who pelt state buildings with rocks and flares to protest their government's recognition of Kosovo's independence. At least 34 are injured.
Wednesday, October 14
Highlights in history on this date:
1066 - Normans under William the Conqueror defeat the English in the Battle of Hastings.
1529 - Turkish Ottoman ruler Sultan Suleyman II ends the first Turkish siege of Vienna.
1806 - Napoleon Bonaparte defeats Prussians at Jena, and Saxons at Auerstadt.
1912 - Theodore Roosevelt, campaigning for the U.S. presidency, is shot in the chest in Milwaukee. The bullet hit a metal eyeglasses case and a thick paper copy of a speech he was to give, making the wound relatively shallow, and he went ahead with the scheduled speech.
1933 - Germany leaves disarmament conference and League of Nations.
1936 - Belgium renounces military alliance with France.
1939 - A German submarine sinks the British battleship Royal Oak in Scapa Flow, with loss of 833 lives.
1944 - British and Greek troops liberate Athens from Germans; German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel commits suicide rather than face execution for allegedly conspiring against Adolf Hitler.
1947 - U.S. Air Force Capt. Chuck Yeager becomes the first person to fly faster than sound as he tests a rocket-powered research plane over California.
1960 - The idea of a Peace Corps is first suggested by Democratic U.S. presidential candidate John F. Kennedy to an audience of students at the University of Michigan.
1964 - U.S. civil rights leader Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. wins the Nobel Peace Prize.
1968 - The first live telecast from a manned U.S. spacecraft is transmitted from Apollo 7.
1973 - Sanya Thammasak, university administrator, is named premier of Thailand after violent clashes between troops and students.
1982 - Vietnam turns over to U.S. officials the remains of five Americans believed to have been murdered in Cambodia under Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge regime.
1986 - Holocaust survivor and human rights advocate Elie Wiesel wins the Nobel Peace Prize.
1987 - Governor general Ratu Sir Penaia Ganilau resigns after Fiji is declared a republic following two coups d'etats.
1989 - Jordan officially launches its first national election campaign in 22 years.
1990 - Israeli government decides against cooperating with U.N. team investigating shooting deaths of 19 Palestinians at the Temple Mount.
1991 - Burmese pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi wins Nobel Peace Prize for her struggle to achieve democracy in her homeland.
1992 - A judge in Rostov-on-Don, Russia convicts Andrei Chikatilo of the sex murders of 52 children and young women over a 12-year period. The horrific nature of the crimes makes Chikatilo one of the worst serial killers in history.
1993 - Within hours of a U.N. police team pullout of Haiti, gunmen assassinate Justice Minister Guy Malary, creating another setback to plans for ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide's return.
1994 - Israeli leaders Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres share the Nobel Peace Prize with PLO leader Yasser Arafat.
1995 - Greece lifts its embargo on the former Yugoslav republic of Macedonia, which agrees to change its flag and declare that it has no claims on Greek territory.
1996 - Truckloads of Taliban soldiers reinforce their battered defenses north of Kabul, Afghanistan, after losing two strategic towns to former government soldiers.
1997 - Dozens of protesters shouting "Clinton go home!" burn an effigy of U.S. President Bill Clinton and throw manure on his limousine, marring an otherwise smooth visit to Brazil.
1998 - Wole Soyinka, Nobel laureate and a critic of the Nigerian government, returns to his homeland for the first time in four years and is greeted by jubilant crowds.
1999 - Former Tanzanian President Julius Nyerere, the father of Tanzanian independence and a symbol of Africa's hopes as it emerged from the shadow of colonial rule, dies at 77 of leukemia.
2000 - Alija Izetbegovic, who led the Bosnian Muslims through Europe's bloodiest conflict since World War II, resigns from the Bosnian presidency, leaving power in a manner rare in the Balkans.
2002 - Britain suspends the Northern Ireland assembly, saying direct British rule was being introduced over the province because of "a loss of confidence on both sides of the community." It was the fourth suspension since December 1999.
2003 - John Allen Muhammad, one of two suspects in a series of October 2002 sniper shootings in the Washington, D.C. area that killed 10 people and wounded three others, pleads not guilty to four murder charges
2004 - Soldiers attack kidnappers holding two Chinese engineers near the Afghan border, killing all five of the militants led by a former Guantanamo prisoner who Pakistani officials say has ties to al-Qaida.
2005 - The famed La Scala opera house closes its doors along with most other Italian theaters and cinemas as performers and staff go on strike against planned government budget cuts they say will cripple funding for the arts.
2006 - The U.N. Security Council votes unanimously to impose punishing sanctions on North Korea for its claimed nuclear test, declaring that its action posed "a clear threat to international peace and security."
2007 - A landslide triggered by local residents digging for rumored deposits of gold in an abandoned mine kills at least 21 people and injures 26 in southern Colombia.
2008 -_Syria formally recognizes Lebanon by establishing diplomatic relations with the nation.
Thursday, Oct. 15
Today's Highlight in History:
On Oct. 15, 1969, peace demonstrators staged activities across the country, including a candlelight march around the White House, as part of a "moratorium" against the Vietnam War.
On this date:
In 1858, the seventh and final debate between senatorial candidates Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas took place in Alton, Ill.
In 1860, 11-year-old Grace Bedell of Westfield, N.Y., wrote a letter to presidential candidate Abraham Lincoln, suggesting he could improve his appearance by letting his whiskers grow.
In 1914, the Clayton Antitrust Act was signed into law by President Woodrow Wilson.
In 1917, Dutch dancer Mata Hari, convicted of spying for the Germans, was executed by a French firing squad outside Paris.
In 1928, the German dirigible Graf Zeppelin landed in Lakehurst, N.J., completing its first commercial flight across the Atlantic.
In 1945, the former premier of Vichy France, Pierre Laval, was executed for treason.
In 1946, Nazi war criminal Hermann Goering fatally poisoned himself hours before he was to have been executed.
In 1964, it was announced that Soviet leader Nikita S. Khrushchev had been removed from office.
In 1976, in the first debate of its kind between vice-presidential nominees, Democrat Walter F. Mondale and Republican Bob Dole faced off in Houston.
In 2003, 11 people were killed when a Staten Island ferry slammed into a maintenance pier. (The ferry's pilot, who'd blacked out at the controls, later pleaded guilty to 11 counts of manslaughter and was sentenced to 18 months in prison.)
Ten years ago: The humanitarian group Doctors Without Borders was named winner of the Nobel Peace Prize. Irish tenor Josef Locke, whose life inspired the 1992 film "Hear My Song," died in County Kildare, Ireland, at age 82.
Five years ago: The FDA ordered that all antidepressants carry strong warnings that they "increase the risk of suicidal thinking and behavior" in children who take them. Several thousand people opposed to gay marriage gathered on the National Mall in Washington to call for a constitutional amendment defining marriage as being between a man and a woman.
One year ago: Republican John McCain repeatedly assailed Democrat Barack Obama's character and campaign positions on taxes, abortion and more in a debate at Hofstra University; Obama parried each accusation, and leveled a few of his own, saying "100 percent" of McCain's campaign ads were negative. The Philadelphia Phillies beat the Los Angeles Dodgers 5-1 to win the NLCS 4-1 for the team's first pennant since 1993. Pop star Madonna and movie director Guy Ritchie announced they were divorcing after nearly eight years of marriage. Actress-singer Edie Adams died in Los Angeles at age 81. Longtime game show host Jack Narz died in Los Angeles at age 85.
Friday, Oct. 16
Today's Highlight in History:
On Oct. 16, 1859, radical abolitionist John Brown led a group of 21 men in a raid on Harpers Ferry in western Virginia, where they seized a U.S. arsenal in hopes of sparking a slave revolt. (In the siege that followed, 10 of Brown's men were killed and five escaped. Brown and six followers ended up being captured; all were executed.)
On this date:
In 1793, during the French Revolution, Marie Antoinette, the queen of France, was beheaded.
In 1909, the Pittsburgh Pirates won the World Series, defeating the Detroit Tigers 8-0 at Bennett Park in Game 7.
In 1916, Margaret Sanger opened the first birth control clinic, in the New York borough of Brooklyn. (The clinic ended up being raided by police and Sanger was arrested.)
In 1939, the comedy "The Man Who Came to Dinner," by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart, opened on Broadway.
In 1959, American military leader and statesman George C. Marshall died in Washington, D.C., at age 78.
In 1962, the Cuban missile crisis began as President John F. Kennedy was informed that reconnaissance photographs had revealed the presence of missile bases in Cuba.
In 1968, American athletes Tommie Smith and John Carlos sparked controversy at the Mexico City Olympics by giving "black power" salutes during a victory ceremony after they'd won gold and bronze medals in the 200-meter race.
In 1969, the New York Mets capped their miracle season by winning the World Series, defeating the Baltimore Orioles 5-3 in Game 5 played at Shea Stadium.
In 1978, the College of Cardinals of the Roman Catholic Church chose Cardinal Karol Wojtyla be the new pope; he took the name John Paul II.
In 1991, a deadly shooting rampage took place in Killeen, Texas, as George Hennard opened fire at a Luby's Cafeteria, killing 23 people before taking his own life.
Ten years ago: A New York Air National Guard plane rescued Dr. Jerri Nielsen from a South Pole research center after she'd spent five months isolated by the Antarctic winter, which forced her to treat herself for a breast lump. Writer and radio raconteur Jean Shepherd died on Sanibel Island, Fla., at age 78. ******
Five years ago: The Soyuz spacecraft was forced to manually dock with the international space station after it closed in on the station at a dangerously high speed. Pierre Salinger, a journalist who'd served as press secretary in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, died in Le Thon, France, at age 79.
One year ago: A volatile Wall Street pulled off another stunning U-turn, transforming a 380-point loss for the Dow Jones industrial average into a 401-point gain.
Saturday, Oct. 17
Today's Highlight in History:
On Oct. 17, 1989, an earthquake measuring magnitude 7.1 struck northern California, killing 63 people and causing $6 billion worth of damage. (The quake hit just before Game 3 of the World Series between the Oakland Athletics and San Francisco Giants at Candlestick Park; the Series was suspended until Oct. 27, at which time the A's resumed their four-game sweep of the Giants.)
On this date:
In 1777, British forces under Gen. John Burgoyne surrendered to American troops in Saratoga, N.Y., in a turning point of the Revolutionary War.
In 1807, Britain declared it would continue to reclaim British-born sailors from American ships and ports regardless of whether they held U.S. citizenship.
In 1907, Guglielmo Marconi began offering limited commercial wireless telegraph service between Nova Scotia and Ireland.
In 1919, Radio Corporation of America was chartered.
In 1931, mobster Al Capone was convicted of income tax evasion. (Sentenced to 11 years in prison, Capone was released in 1939.)
In 1933, Albert Einstein arrived in the United States as a refugee from Nazi Germany.
In 1939, Frank Capra's comedy-drama "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington," starring James Stewart as an idealistic junior U.S. senator, had its premiere in the nation's capital.
In 1941, the U.S. destroyer Kearny was torpedoed by a German submarine off the coast of Iceland; 11 people died.
In 1973, Arab oil-producing nations announced they would begin cutting back oil exports to Western nations and Japan; the result was a total embargo that lasted until March 1974.
In 1979, Mother Teresa of India was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
Ten years ago: The FBI reported that serious crimes reported to police declined for seventh straight year in 1998 and murder and robbery rates reached 30-year lows. Former nurse Orville Lynn Majors was convicted of murdering six patients at a western Indiana hospital; the jury deadlocked on a seventh count. (Majors is serving a 360-year prison sentence.)
Five years ago: The Iraqi militant group of terror mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi declared its allegiance to Osama bin Laden. Betty Hill, who claimed that she and her husband, Barney, had been abducted, examined and released by extraterrestrials in 1961, died in Portsmouth, N.H., at age 85.
One year ago: Wall Street ended a tumultuous week that turned out to be its best in five years. The Dow Jones industrial average lost 127 points, closing at 8,852.22, but turned in the strong week because of two huge days of gains — a record 936-point jump the previous Monday and an increase of 401 points on Thursday. Four Tops frontman Levi Stubbs died in Detroit at age 72.
Tuesday, October 13
1775 - The U.S. Navy is founded as the Continental Congress orders the construction of a naval fleet.
1792 - The cornerstone of the Executive Mansion, later known as the White House, is laid during a ceremony in Washington, D.C.
1815 - British occupy South Atlantic island of Ascension to prevent Napoleon's escape from St. Helena, the closest island.
1880 - Transvaal declares independence from Britain.
1889 - Boers rebel against British in South Africa.
1923 - Ankara, formerly Angora, becomes new capital of Turkey.
1937 - Germany guarantees inviolability of Belgium.
1943 - Italy, during World War II, declares war on Germany — its former Axis partner.
1991 - Twenty-one blacks are killed in a series of attacks in South Africa's black townships.
1992 - The pyramids, the Sphinx and other monuments survive Cairo earthquake that kills at least 400 and injures more than 4,000.
1993 - A fanatic fan of tennis star Steffi Graf is convicted in the stabbing of rival Monica Seles and receives a two-year suspended sentence.
1994 - In the largest deal between software firms, Intuit Inc. accepts a US$1.5 billion takeover offer from Microsoft Corp.
1995 - A Dusseldorf court finds four young right-wing extremists guilty of setting fire to a house in Solingen, killing five Turks in the deadliest attack on foreigners in Germany since the Nazi era.
1996 - In response to strikes in its Canadian plants, General Motors Corp. lays off more than 1,300 workers at its Cadillac assembly plant outside Detroit.
1997 - Queen Elizabeth II begins visit to India to mark the 50th anniversary of the subcontinent's independence from Britain.
1999 - French lawmakers adopt a law giving unwed gay and straight couples the same rights previously limited to the married. Similar legislation already exists in several European countries.
2000 - Muslim Christian riots result in the deaths of 13 Nigerians in the capital Lagos.
2001 - President Hosni Mubarak issues an order that 83 suspected Islamic militants stand trial in Egypt's state security court.
2005 - Islamic militants launch a major attack on police and government buildings in the provincial capital of Nalchik in Russia's volatile Caucasus region, turning the city into a war zone wracked by gunfire and explosions. At least 49 people including 25 militants are killed.
2006 - Bangladeshi economist Muhammad Yunus and the Grameen Bank he founded win the Nobel Peace Prize for their pioneering use of tiny loans — microcredit — to lift millions out of poverty.
2007 - Myanmar's junta arrests three of the country's most prominent political activists, believed to be among the last leaders remaining at large from a student group at the forefront of a 1988 democracy uprising and the protests that started in August.
2008 - Police fire tear gas at thousands of angry pro-Serb Montenegrins who pelt state buildings with rocks and flares to protest their government's recognition of Kosovo's independence. At least 34 are injured.
Wednesday, October 14
1529 - Turkish Ottoman ruler Sultan Suleyman II ends the first Turkish siege of Vienna.
1806 - Napoleon Bonaparte defeats Prussians at Jena, and Saxons at Auerstadt.
1912 - Theodore Roosevelt, campaigning for the U.S. presidency, is shot in the chest in Milwaukee. The bullet hit a metal eyeglasses case and a thick paper copy of a speech he was to give, making the wound relatively shallow, and he went ahead with the scheduled speech.
1933 - Germany leaves disarmament conference and League of Nations.
1936 - Belgium renounces military alliance with France.
1939 - A German submarine sinks the British battleship Royal Oak in Scapa Flow, with loss of 833 lives.
1944 - British and Greek troops liberate Athens from Germans; German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel commits suicide rather than face execution for allegedly conspiring against Adolf Hitler.
1947 - U.S. Air Force Capt. Chuck Yeager becomes the first person to fly faster than sound as he tests a rocket-powered research plane over California.
1960 - The idea of a Peace Corps is first suggested by Democratic U.S. presidential candidate John F. Kennedy to an audience of students at the University of Michigan.
1964 - U.S. civil rights leader Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. wins the Nobel Peace Prize.
1968 - The first live telecast from a manned U.S. spacecraft is transmitted from Apollo 7.
1973 - Sanya Thammasak, university administrator, is named premier of Thailand after violent clashes between troops and students.
1982 - Vietnam turns over to U.S. officials the remains of five Americans believed to have been murdered in Cambodia under Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge regime.
1986 - Holocaust survivor and human rights advocate Elie Wiesel wins the Nobel Peace Prize.
1987 - Governor general Ratu Sir Penaia Ganilau resigns after Fiji is declared a republic following two coups d'etats.
1989 - Jordan officially launches its first national election campaign in 22 years.
1990 - Israeli government decides against cooperating with U.N. team investigating shooting deaths of 19 Palestinians at the Temple Mount.
1991 - Burmese pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi wins Nobel Peace Prize for her struggle to achieve democracy in her homeland.
1992 - A judge in Rostov-on-Don, Russia convicts Andrei Chikatilo of the sex murders of 52 children and young women over a 12-year period. The horrific nature of the crimes makes Chikatilo one of the worst serial killers in history.
1993 - Within hours of a U.N. police team pullout of Haiti, gunmen assassinate Justice Minister Guy Malary, creating another setback to plans for ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide's return.
1994 - Israeli leaders Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres share the Nobel Peace Prize with PLO leader Yasser Arafat.
1995 - Greece lifts its embargo on the former Yugoslav republic of Macedonia, which agrees to change its flag and declare that it has no claims on Greek territory.
Thursday, Oct. 15
Today's Highlight in History:
On Oct. 15, 1969, peace demonstrators staged activities across the country, including a candlelight march around the White House, as part of a "moratorium" against the Vietnam War.
On this date:
In 1858, the seventh and final debate between senatorial candidates Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas took place in Alton, Ill.
In 1860, 11-year-old Grace Bedell of Westfield, N.Y., wrote a letter to presidential candidate Abraham Lincoln, suggesting he could improve his appearance by letting his whiskers grow.
In 1914, the Clayton Antitrust Act was signed into law by President Woodrow Wilson.
In 1917, Dutch dancer Mata Hari, convicted of spying for the Germans, was executed by a French firing squad outside Paris.
Five years ago: The FDA ordered that all antidepressants carry strong warnings that they "increase the risk of suicidal thinking and behavior" in children who take them. Several thousand people opposed to gay marriage gathered on the National Mall in Washington to call for a constitutional amendment defining marriage as being between a man and a woman.
Friday, Oct. 16
In 1793, during the French Revolution, Marie Antoinette, the queen of France, was beheaded.
In 1909, the Pittsburgh Pirates won the World Series, defeating the Detroit Tigers 8-0 at Bennett Park in Game 7.
In 1916, Margaret Sanger opened the first birth control clinic, in the New York borough of Brooklyn. (The clinic ended up being raided by police and Sanger was arrested.)
In 1969, the New York Mets capped their miracle season by winning the World Series, defeating the Baltimore Orioles 5-3 in Game 5 played at Shea Stadium.
In 1978, la be the new pope; he took the name John Paul II.
In 1991, a deadly shooting rampage took place in Killeen, Texas, as George Hennard opened fire at a Luby's Cafeteria, killing 23 people before taking his own life.
Saturday, Oct. 17
In 1777, British forces under Gen. John Burgoyne surrendered to American troops in Saratoga, N.Y., in a turning point of the Revolutionary War.
In 1807, Britain declared it would continue to reclaim British-born sailors from American ships and ports regardless of whether they held U.S. citizenship.
In 1907, Guglielmo Marconi began offering limited commercial wireless telegraph service between Nova Scotia and Ireland.
In 1919, Radio Corporation of America was chartered.
In 1931, mobster Al Capone was convicted of income tax evasion. (Sentenced to 11 years in prison, Capone was released in 1939.)
In 1933, Albert Einstein arrived in the United States as a refugee from Nazi Germany.
In 1939, Frank Capra's comedy-drama "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington," starring James Stewart as an idealistic junior U.S. senator, had its premiere in the nation's capital.
In 1941, the U.S. destroyer Kearny was torpedoed by a German submarine off the coast of Iceland; 11 people died.
In 1973, Arab oil-producing nations announced they would begin cutting back oil exports to Western nations and Japan; the result was a total embargo that lasted until March 1974.
In 1979, Mother Teresa of India was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
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| Henry VIII In Wedding Dress (1540) By Hans Holbein The Younger | This Week On Television |
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