Today In History
Today is Monday, Oct. 24, the 298th day of 2016. There are 68 days left in the year.
TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT › 1962: A naval quarantine of Cuba ordered by President John F. Kennedy went into effect during the missile crisis.
ON THIS DATE › 1648: The Peace of Westphalia ended the Thirty Years War and effectively destroyed the Holy Roman Empire. › 1861: The first transcontinental telegraph message was sent by Chief Justice Stephen J. Field of California from San Francisco to President Abraham Lincoln in Washington, D.C., over a line built by the Western Union Telegraph Co. › 1936: The short story “The Devil and Daniel Webster” by Stephen Vincent Benet was published in The Saturday Evening Post. › 1939: Du Pont began publicly selling its nylon stockings in Wilmington, Delaware. › 1945: The United Nations officially came into existence as its charter took effect. › 1996: Ty Ron Lewis, 18, a black motorist, was shot to death by police during a traffic stop in St. Petersburg, Florida; the incident sparked rioting. (Officer James Knight, who said that Lewis had lurched his car at him several times, knocking him onto the hood, was cleared by a grand jury and the Justice Department.) › 2002: Authorities apprehended Army veteran John Allen Muhammad and teenager Lee Boyd Malvo near Myersville, Maryland, in the Washington-area sniper attacks. (Malvo was later sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole; Muhammad was sentenced to death and executed in 2009.) › 2006: American officials unveiled a timeline for Iraq’s Shiite-led government to take specific steps to calm Baghdad and said more U.S. troops might be needed to quell the bloodshed. The St. Louis Cardinals gained a 2-1 World Series edge as they defeated the Detroit Tigers 5-0. (Before Game 3 began, baseball players and owners finalized a five-year collective bargaining agreement.) › 2011: President Barack Ob ama offered mortgage relief to hundreds of thousands of Americans during a visit to Las Vegas. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, visiting Yokota Air Base in Japan, lashed out at North Korea for “reckless and provocative” acts and criticized China for a secretive expansion of its military power. The Texas Rangers beat the St. Louis Cardinals 4-2 for a 3-2 World Series edge. › 2015: In a video released on Facebook, President Barack Obama called for capping standardized testing at 2 percent of classroom time, saying, “Learning is about so much more than just filling in the right bubble.”
TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS Football Hall of Famer Y.A. Tittle is 90. Rock musician Bill Wyman is 80. Actor F. Murray Abraham is 77. Movie director-screenwriter David S. Ward is 71. Actor Kevin Kline is 69. Former NAACP President Kweisi Mfume is 68. Country musician Billy Thomas (Terry McBride and the Ride) is 63. Actor Doug Davidson is 62. Actor B.D. Wong is 56. Actor Zahn McClarnon is 50. Singer Michael Trent (Americana duo Shovels & Rope) is 39. Rock musician Ben Gillies (Silverchair) is 37. Singer-actress Monica Arnold is 36. Actress-comedian Casey Wilson is 36. Rhythm and blues singer Adrienne Bailon (3lw) is 33. Actor Tim Pocock is 31. R&B singer-rapper-actor Drake is 30. Actress Shenae Grimes is 27. Actress Eliza Taylor is 27. Olympic gold medal gymnast Kyla Ross is 20. Actor Hudson Yang is 13.