TODAY IN HISTORY
TODAY IS SUNDAY, OCT. 8, the 281st day of 2017. There are 84 days left in the year.
TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT IN HISTORY: On this date in 1871, the Great Chicago Fire erupted; fires also broke out in Peshtigo, Wis., and in several communities in Michigan.
In 1918, U.S. Army Cpl. Alvin C. York led an attack that killed 25 German soldiers and resulted in the capture of 132 others in the Argonne Forest in France.
In 1945, President Harry S. Truman told a press conference in Tiptonville, Tenn., that the secret scientific knowledge behind the atomic bomb would be shared only with Britain and Canada.
In 1956, Don Larsen pitched the only perfect game in a World Series to date as the New York Yankees beat the Brooklyn Dodgers in Game 5, 2-0.
In 1957, the Brooklyn Baseball Club announced it was accepting an offer to move the Dodgers from New York to Los Angeles.
In 1970, Soviet author Alexander Solzhenitsyn was named winner of the Nobel Prize for literature.
In 1998, the House triggered an openended impeachment inquiry against President Bill Clinton in a momentous 258-176 vote; 31 Democrats joined majority Republicans in opening the way for nationally televised impeachment hearings.
In 2001, an SAS airliner taking off from Milan, Italy, hit a private jet, careered into an airport building and exploded; all 110 people on the MD-87, four people in the private jet and four people on the ground were killed.
In 2005, a magnitude-7.6 earthquake flattened villages on the Pakistan-India border, killing an estimated 86,000 people.
TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS: Entertainment reporter Rona Barrett is 81. Actor Paul Hogan is 78. Civil rights activist Rev. Jesse Jackson is 76. Comedian Chevy Chase and author R.L. Stine are 74. Rhythm-and-blues singer Airrion Love (The Stylistics) and actress Sigourney Weaver are 68. Rhythm-and-blues singer Robert “Kool” Bell (Kool & the Gang) is 67. Producer-director Edward Zwick is 65. Country singer-musician Ricky Lee Phelps is 64. Comedian Darrell Hammond is 62. Actress Stephanie Zimbalist is 61. Actor Ian Hart and gospel/rhythm-and-blues singer CeCe Winans are 53. Rock musician C.J. Ramone (The Ramones) is 52. Actress Emily Procter is 49. Actor Dylan Neal is 48. Actor-screenwriter Matt Damon, actor-comedian Robert Kelly and the mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, are 47. Actor Nick Cannon is
37. Actor Max Crumm and singersongwriter-producer Bruno Mars are
32. Actor Angus T. Jones and actress Molly Quinn are 24.