HISTORY AT A GLANCE
TODAY is Wednesday, October 18, the 291st day of 2017. There are 74 days left in the year. Highlights in history on this date: 1922 – The British Broadcasting Company (later Corporation) is founded by a consortium, to establish a nationwide network of radio transmitters to provide a national broadcasting service. 1944 – World War II: Soviet Union begins the liberation of
Czechoslovakia from Nazi Germany. 1945 – The USSR’s nuclear program receives plans for the United States plutonium bomb from Klaus Fuchs at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. 1945 – A group of the Venezuelan Armed Forces, led by Mario Vargas, Marcos Pérez Jiménez and Carlos Delgado Chalbaud, stages a coup d’état against president Isaías Medina Angarita, who is overthrown by the end of the day. 1945 – Argentine military officer and politician Juan Perón
marries actress Eva “Evita” Duarte. 1954 – Texas Instruments announces the first Transistor
radio. 1964 – The 1964-1965 New York World’s Fair closes for its
first season after a six-month run. 1967 – The Soviet probe Venera 4 reaches Venus and becomes the first spacecraft to measure the atmosphere of another planet. 1968 – The US Olympic Committee suspends Tommie Smith and John Carlos for giving a “Black Power” salute during a victory ceremony at the Mexico City games. 1977 – German Autumn: a set of events revolving around the kidnapping of Hanns Martin Schleyer and the hijacking of a Lufthansa flight by the Red Army Faction (RAF) comes to an end when Schleyer is murdered and various RAF members allegedly commit suicide. 1989 – Peaceful Revolution: Erich Honecker resigns as General Secretary of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany. 1991 – The Supreme Council of Azerbaijan adopts a
declaration of independence from the Soviet Union. 2003 – Bolivian gas conflict: Bolivian President Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada, is forced to resign and leave Bolivia. 2004 – Myanmar prime minister Khin Nyunt is ousted and placed under house arrest by the State Peace and Development Council on charges of corruption. 2007 – Karachi bombing: A suicide attack on a motorcade carrying former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto kills 139 and wounds 450 more. Bhutto herself is uninjured.