Today in History

1871 – A two-day blaze kills between 200 and 300 people in Chicago.

1918 – United States Sergeant Alvin C York almost single-handedly kills 25 German soldiers and captures 132 in the Argonne Forest in France during World War I.

1939 – Germany incorporates western Poland into the Third Reich during World War II.

1941 – West Coast dairy farmer

Stanley Graham, left, shoots dead three police officers after he refuses to hand over his rifle. One of New Zealand’s largest manhunts ended on October 20 when Graham was shot and killed. Seven others died in the standoff.

1952 – The crash of three trains in northwest London kills 112 and injures more than 200.

1957 – Jerry Lee Lewis records Great Balls of Fire. 1995 – A huge earthquake hits the island of Sumatra, Indonesia, killing at least 100.

1998 – The US Congress approves an impeachment inquiry of president Bill Clinton’s actions in the Monica Lewinsky affair.

2002 – Pakistan conducts a second test of a medium-range missile capable of carrying a nuclear warhead. India responded to the first with its own missile test.

2005 – A 7.6-magnitude earthquake strikes the Kashmir border region between India and Pakistan. An estimated 70,000 people, nearly half of them children, are killed.