HISTORY AT A GLANCE

TODAY is Saturday, October 14, the 287th day of 2017. There are 78 days left in the year. Highlights in history on this date: 1947 – Captain Chuck Yeager of the United States Air Force flies a Bell X-1 rocket-powered experimental aircraft, the Glamorous Glennis, faster than the speed of sound over the high desert of Southern California and becomes the first pilot and the first airplane to do so in level flight. 1949 – Chinese Civil War: Chinese Communist forces occupy the city of Guangzhou (Canton), in Guangdong, China. 1952 – Korean War: United Nations and South Korean forces launch Operation Showdown against Chinese strongholds at the Iron Triangle. The resulting Battle of Triangle Hill is the biggest and bloodiest battle of 1952. 1962 – The Cuban missile crisis begins: A U.S. Air Force U-2 reconnaissance plane and its pilot fly over the island of Cuba and take photographs of Soviet missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads being installed and erected in Cuba. 1964 – Martin Luther King, Jr. received the Nobel Peace Prize for combating racial inequality through nonviolence. 1973 – In the Thammasat student uprising over 100,000 people protest in Thailand against the Thanom military government, 77 are killed and 857 are injured by soldiers. 1981 – Citing official misconduct in the investigation and trial, Amnesty International charges the US Federal Government with holding Richard Marshall of the American Indian Movement as a political prisoner. 1981 – Vice President Hosni Mubarak is elected as the President of Egypt one week after the assassination of the President of Egypt, Anwar Sadat. 1991 – Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize 1994 – The Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat, The Prime Minister of Israel, Yitzhak Rabin, and the Foreign Minister of Israel, Shimon Peres, receive the Nobel Peace Prize for their role in the establishment of the Oslo Accords and the framing of the future Palestinian Self Government. 1998 – Eric Rudolph is charged with six bombings including the 1996 Centennial Olympic Park bombing in Atlanta, Georgia. 2014 – A snowstorm and avalanche in the Nepalese Himalayas triggered by the remnants of Cyclone Hudhud kills 43 people. 2015 – A suicide bomb attack in Pakistan, kills at least seven people and injures 13 others.