TODAY IN HISTORY
TODAY IS WEDNESDAY, OCT. 18,
the 291st day of 2017. There are 74 days left in the year.
TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT IN HISTORY:
On this date in 1767, the Mason-Dixon line, the boundary between colonial Pennsylvania, Maryland and Delaware, was set as astronomers Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon completed their survey.
In 1685, King Louis XIV signed the Edict of Fontainebleau, revoking the legal toleration of France’s Protestant population, the Huguenots. In 1867, the United States took formal possession of Alaska from Russia.
In 1892, the first long-distance telephone line between New York and Chicago was officially opened (it could only handle one call at a time).
In 1922, the British Broadcasting Co., Ltd. (later the British Broadcasting Corp.) was founded. In 1931, inventor Thomas Alva Edison died in West Orange, N.J., at age 84. In 1944, Soviet troops invaded Czechoslovakia during World War II.
In 1954, Texas Instruments unveiled the Regency TR-1, the first commercially produced transistor radio.
In 1967, the first issue of Rolling Stone magazine (with a cover date of Nov. 9) was published.
In 1969, the federal government banned artificial sweeteners known as cyclamates because of evidence they caused cancer in laboratory rats.
In 1977, West German commandos stormed a hijacked Lufthansa jetliner on the ground in Mogadishu, Somalia, freeing all 86 hostages and killing three of the four hijackers.
In 1997, a monument honoring American servicewomen, past and present, was dedicated at Arlington National Cemetery.
TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS:
Sportscaster Keith Jackson is 89. College and Pro Football Hall-of-Famer Mike Ditka is 78. Author Terry McMillan is 66. Writer-producer Chuck Lorre is 65. Director-screenwriter David Twohy is 62. International Tennis Hall-of-Famer Martina Navratilova is 61. International Hall of Fame boxer Thomas Hearns is 59. Actor Jean-Claude Van Damme is 57. Jazz musician Wynton Marsalis is 56. Tennis player Michael Stich is 49. Rock musician Peter Svenson (The Cardigans) is 43. Rhythm-and-blues singer-actor Ne-Yo is 38. Olympic gold medal skier Lindsey Vonn and jazz singer-musician Esperanza Spalding are 33. Actor Zac Efron is 30. TV personality Bristol Palin is 27. Actors Tyler Posey is 26.