TODAY'S HIGHLIGHT

Today is Wednesday, Oct. 25.

the “Charge of the Light Brigade” took place during the Crimean War as an English brigade of more than 600 men charged the Russian army, suffering heavy losses.

ON THIS DATE

Britain’s King George III succeeded his late grandfather, George II.

former Interior Secretary Albert B. Fall was convicted in Washington, D.C. of accepting a $100,000 bribe from oil tycoon Edward L. Doheny. (Fall was sentenced to a year in prison and fined $100,000; he ended up serving nine months.)

the play“The Time of Your Life,” by William Saroyan, opened in New York.

mob boss Albert Anastasia of“Murder Inc.” notoriety was shot to death by masked gunmen in a barber shop inside the Park Sheraton Hotel in New York.

during a meeting of the U.N. Security Council, U.S. Ambassador Adlai E. Stevenson II demanded that Soviet Ambassador Valerian Zorin confirm or deny the existence of Sovietbuilt missile bases in Cuba; Stevenson then presented photographic evidence of the bases to the Council.

the U.N. General Assembly voted to admit mainland China and expel Taiwan.

a U.S.-led force invaded Grenada at the order of President Ronald Reagan, who said the action was needed to protect U.S. citizens there.

Susan Smith of Union, South Carolina, claimed that a black carjacker had driven off with her two young sons (Smith later confessed to drowning the children in John D. Long Lake, and was convicted of murder).

U.S. Sen. Paul Wellstone, D-Minn., was killed in a plane crash in northern Minnesota along with his wife, daughter and five others, a week and a-half before the election. Actor Richard Harris died in London at age 72.

President George W. Bush visited Southern California, telling residents weary from five days of wildfires: “We’re not going to forget you in Washington, D.C.”

President Barack Obama, seeking to shore up support among women, intensified his pressure on Mitt Romney to break any ties with a Republican Senate candidate, Richard Mourdock of Indiana, who said that if a woman became pregnant from rape it was “something God intended.” Romney ignored the emotional social issue, holding to an optimistic campaign tone as he fought for victory in crucial Ohio.

A federal judge in San Francisco approved a nearly $15 billion settlement, giving nearly a half-million Volkswagen owners and leaseholders the choice between selling their diesel engine cars back or having them repaired so they didn’t cheat on emissions tests and spew excess pollution.

THOUGHT FOR TODAY

“Bureaucracy, the rule of no one, has become the modern form of despotism.” — Mary McCarthy, author and critic (born 1912, died this date in 1989)

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS