Today In History

Today is Monday, Oct. 1, the 274th day of 2018. There are 91 days left in the year.

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT

› 1908: Henry Ford introduced his Model T automobile to the market.

ON THIS DATE

› 1890: Congress passed the McKinley Tariff Act, which raised tariffs to a record level.

› 1910: The offices of the Los Angeles Times were destroyed by a bomb explosion and fire; 21 Times employees were killed.

› 1937: Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black delivered a radio address in which he acknowledged being a former member of the Ku Klux Klan, but said he had dropped out of the organization before becoming a U.S. senator.

› 1949: Mao Zedong proclaimed the People’s Republic of China during a ceremony in Beijing.

› 1957: The motto “In God We Trust” began appearing on U.S. paper currency.

› 1964: Japan’s first high-speed “bullet train,” the Tokaido Shinkansen, went into operation between Tokyo and Osaka.

› 1971: Walt Disney World opened near Orlando, Fla.

› 1982: Sony began selling the first commercial compact disc player, the CDP-101, in Japan.

› 1994: National Hockey League team owners began a 103-day lockout of their players.

› 1996: The federal minimum wage rose 50 cents to $4.75 an hour.

› 2008: After one spectacular failure in the House, the $700 billion financial industry bailout won lopsided passage in the Senate, 74-25, after it was loaded with tax breaks and other sweeteners.

› 2013: The federal government partially shut down because of a budget impasse in Congress, the same day Americans got their first chance to shop for health insurance using the online marketplaces that were at the heart of President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul (however, government websites designed to sell the policies struggled to handle the traffic, with many frustrated users reporting trouble setting up accounts).

› 2017: A gunman opened fire from a room at the Mandalay Bay casino hotel in Las Vegas on a crowd of 22,000 country music fans at a concert below, leaving 58 people dead and more than 800 injured in the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history. O.J. Simpson was released from a prison in Nevada after serving nine years for a botched hotel-room heist in Las Vegas. Germany celebrated its first samesex weddings, after a law took effect putting gay and lesbian couples on an equal legal footing with heterosexual couples.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS

Former President Jimmy Carter is 94. Actress-singer Julie Andrews is 83. Actress Stella Stevens is 80. Rock musician Jerry Martini (Sly and the Family Stone) is 75. Baseball Hall of Famer Rod Carew is

73. Jazz musician Dave Holland is 72. Actress Yvette Freeman is 68. Actor Randy Quaid is

68. Rhythm and blues singer Howard Hewett is 63. British Prime Minister Theresa May is 62. Alt-country-rock musician Tim O’Reagan (The Jayhawks) is 60. Singer Youssou N’Dour is 59. Actor Esai Morales is 56. Actor Christopher Titus is 54. Actress-model Cindy Margolis is 53. Producer John Ridley is

53. Rock singer-musician Kevin Griffin (Better Than Ezra) is 50. Actor Zach Galifianakis is 49. Singer Keith Duffy is 44. Actress Kate Aselton is

40. Actress Sarah Drew is

38. Actor-comedian Beck Bennett is 34. Actress Jurnee Smollett-Bell is

32. Actress Brie Larson is 29. Singer/songwriter Jade Bird is 21. Actor Jack Stanton is 10.