TODAY IN HISTORY
Today is Tuesday, Oct. 19, the 292nd day of 2021. There are 73 days left in the year.
Today’s highlight
On Oct. 19, 2001, U.S. special forces began operations on the ground in Afghanistan, opening a significant new phase of the assault against the Taliban and al-Qaida.
On this date
In 1781, British troops under Gen. Lord Cornwallis surrendered at Yorktown, Virginia, as the American Revolution neared its end.
In 1789, John Jay was sworn in as the first Chief Justice of the United States.
In 1944, the U.S. Navy began accepting Black women into WAVES (Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service).
In 1950, during the Korean Conflict, United Nations forces entered the North Korean capital of Pyongyang.
In 1953, the Ray Bradbury novel “Fahrenheit 451,” set in a dystopian future where books are banned and burned by the government, was first published by Ballantine Books.
In 1960, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was arrested during a sit-down protest at a lunch counter in Atlanta. (Sent to prison for a parole violation over a traffic offense, King was released after three days following an appeal by Robert F. Kennedy.)
In 1977, the supersonic Concorde made its first landing in New York City.
In 1987, the stock market crashed as the Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged 508 points, or 22.6 percent in value (its biggest daily percentage loss), to close at 1,738.74 in what came to be known as “Black Monday.”
In 2002, in York, Pennsylvania, former mayor Charlie Robertson was acquitted and two other men were convicted in the shotgun slaying of Lillie Belle Allen, a young Black woman, during race riots that tore the city apart in 1969.
In 2003, Pope John Paul II beatified Mother Teresa during a ceremony in St. Peter’s Square.
In 2010, the Pentagon directed the military to accept openly gay recruits for the first time in the nation’s history.
Ten years ago: Authorities in the Zanesville, Ohio, area wound down their hunt for wild animals unleashed by a private farm owner who’d taken his own life; sheriff ’s deputies shot and killed a total of 48 animals.
Five years ago: In the third and final 2016 presidential debate, Republican Donald Trump stunned the forum in Las Vegas by refusing to say he would accept the results of the election if he were to lose; Democrat Hillary Clinton declared Trump’s resistance “horrifying.”
One year ago: Health officials in northwestern Kansas said 10 residents of a nursing home had died of the coronavirus and that all 62 residents of the nursing home and an unspecified number of employees had tested positive. British guitarist and bandleader Spencer Davis, whose eponymous rock group had 1960s hits including “Gimme Some Lovin’” and “I’m a Man,” died at the age of 81.