Today in History
Today is Wednesday, Oct. 3, the 276th day of 2018. There are 89 days left in the year.
Today's Highlight in History:
On Oct. 3, 1995, the jury in the O.J. Simpson murder trial in Los Angeles found the former football star not guilty of the 1994 slayings of his former wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and Ronald Goldman (however, Simpson was later found liable for damages in a civil trial).
On this date:
In 1789, President George Washington declared Nov. 26, 1789, a day of Thanksgiving to express gratitude for the creation of the United States of America.
In 1863, President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed the last Thursday in November Thanksgiving Day.
In 1932, Iraq became independent of British administration.
In 1941, Adolf Hitler declared in a speech in Berlin that Russia had been "broken" and would "never rise again." ''The Maltese Falcon" — the version starring Humphrey Bogart and directed by John Huston — premiered in New York.
In 1955, "Captain Kangaroo" and "The Mickey Mouse Club" premiered on C-B-S and A-B-C, respectively.
In 1962, astronaut Wally Schirra (shih-RAH') became the fifth American to fly in space as he blasted off from Cape Canaveral aboard the Sigma 7 on a 9-hour flight.
In 1967, folk singer-songwriter Woody Guthrie, the Dust Bowl Troubadour best known for "This Land Is Your Land," died in New York of complications from Huntington's disease; he was 55.
In 1981, Irish nationalists at the Maze Prison near Belfast, Northern Ireland, ended seven months of hunger strikes that had claimed 10 lives.
In 1991, Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton entered the race for the Democratic presidential nomination.
In 2001, the Senate approved an agreement normalizing trade between the United States and Vietnam.
In 2003, a tiger attacked magician Roy Horn of duo "Siegfried & Roy" during a performance in Las Vegas, leaving the superstar illusionist in critical condition on his 59th birthday.
In 2008, O.J. Simpson was found guilty of robbing two sports-memorabilia dealers at gunpoint in a Las Vegas hotel room. (Simpson was later sentenced to nine to 33 years in prison; he was granted parole in July 2017 and released from prison in October of that year.)
Ten years ago:
Amid dire warnings of economic disaster, a reluctant Congress abruptly reversed course and approved a historic $700 billion government bailout of the battered financial industry; President George W. Bush swiftly signed it. Thirteen years to the day after O.J. Simpson was acquitted of murdering his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ronald Goldman, the former football star was found guilty of robbing two sports-memorabilia dealers at gunpoint in a Las Vegas hotel room. (Simpson was later sentenced to nine to 33 years in prison.)
Five years ago:
A Connecticut woman driving a black Infiniti with her 1-year-old daughter inside tried to ram a White House barricade, then led police on a chase toward the U.S. Capitol, where police shot and killed her. (The unarmed woman, 34-yearold Miriam Carey, had been diagnosed with postpartum depression and psychosis; her child was unharmed.) President Barack Obama canceled a trip to Asia to stay in Washington and push for an elusive funding agreement that would end a partial government shutdown. A smugglers' ship packed with African migrants sank off the coast of a southern Italian island, killing more than 365 people.
One year ago:
President Donald Trump, visiting Puerto Rico in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria, congratulated the U.S. island territory for escaping the higher death toll of what he called "a real catastrophe like Katrina;" at a church used to distribute supplies, Trump handed out flashlights and tossed rolls of paper towels into the friendly crowd. The United States expelled 15 of Cuba's diplomats to protest Cuba's failure to protect Americans from unexplained attacks in Havana. Yahoo announced that the largest data breach in history had affected all 3 billion accounts on its service, not the 1 billion it had revealed earlier.
Thought for Today: "The worst disease in the world is the plague of vengeance." -- Dr. Karl Menninger, American psychiatrist (1893-1990).