TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT
Today is Wednesday, Oct. 18.
On Oct. 18, 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.
ON THIS DATE
In 1685, King Louis
XIV signed the Edict of Fontainebleau, revoking the Edict of Nantes that had established legal toleration of France’s Protestant population, the Huguenots.
In 1867, the United States took formal possession of Alaska from Russia. The cornerstone was laid for Baltimore City Hall.
In 1892, the first longdistance 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, New Jersey, at age 84. In 1954, Texas Instruments unveiled the Regency TR-1, the first commercially produced transistor radio. In 1967, the first issue of Rolling Stone magazine (which carried a cover date of Nov. 9) was published. In 1969, the federal government banned artificial sweeteners known as cyclamates (SY’-kluhmaytz) 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 1982, former first lady Bess Truman died at her home in Independence, Missouri, at age 97.
In 1997, a monument honoring American servicewomen, past and present, was dedicated at Arlington National Cemetery.
Ten years ago: Former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto returned to Pakistan, ending eight years of self-imposed exile; a suicide bombing in a crowd welcoming her killed more than 140 people, but Bhutto escaped unhurt. (However, she was slain in Dec. 2007.)
Five years ago: In a case that would reach the U.S. Supreme Court, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York ruled that a federal law defining marriage as a union between a man and a woman was unconstitutional and said the gay population had “suffered a history of discrimination.” The Detroit Tigers completed a fourgame sweep of the New York Yankees, winning the finale of the American League Championship Series 8-1. The St. Louis Cardinals beat the San Francisco Giants 8-3 to take a 3-1 lead in the National League Championship Series. One year ago: President Barack Obama hosted his final state dinner as he welcomed Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi and his wife, Agnese Landini, to the White House.
THOUGHT FOR TODAY
“I do not prize the word cheap. It is not a badge of honor … it is a symbol of despair. Cheap prices make for cheap goods; cheap goods make for cheap men; and cheap men make for a cheap country!” — President William McKinley (18431901)
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS