TODAY IN HISTORY

TODAY IS SATURDAY, OCTOBER 21, 2017 On this day in history: 1805 - The Battle of Trafalgar occurred off the coast of Spain. The British defeated the French and Spanish fleet. 1858 - The Can-Can was performed for the first time in Paris.

1879 - Thomas Edison invented the electric incandescent lamp. It would last 131⁄2 hours before it would burn out. 1944 - During the Second World War, the German city of Aachen was captured by US troops.

1945 - Women in France were allowed to vote for the first time.

1950 - Chinese forces invaded Tibet.

1966 - 144 people are killed, including 116 children, as a coal slag tip buries a school in Wales.

1971 - A gas explosion kills 22 people at a shopping center in Clarkston, East Renfrewshire, near Glasgow, Scotland. 1978 - Australian civilian pilot Frederick Valentich vanishes in a Cessna 182 over the Bass Strait south of Melbourne, after reporting contact with an unidentified aircraft.

1983 - The Pentagon reported that 2000 Marines were headed to Grenada to protect and evacuate Americans living there.

1986 - In Lebanon, pro-Iran kidnappers claim to have abducted American writer Edward Tracy (he is released in August 1991).

1987 -Jaffna hospital massacre is carried out by Indian Peace Keeping Force in Sri Lanka killing 70 ethnic Tamil patients, doctors and nurses.

1994 - In Seoul, 32 people are killed when the Seongsu Bridge collapses.

1994 - North Korea and the US signed an agreement requiring North Korea to halt its nuclear program and agree to inspections.

2002 - Two students are killed when a gunman opens fire at Monash University in Melbourne.

2005 - Images of the dwarf planet Eris are taken and subsequently used in documenting its discovery by the team of Michael E. Brown, Chad Trujillo, and David L. Rabinowitz.

2014 - Australia’s 21st Prime Minister, Edward Gough Whitlam, dies.