Today’s highlights in history
On Oct. 4, 1957, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik 1, the first artificial satellite, into orbit.
On this date
during the Civil War, the U.S. Navy authorized construction of the first ironclad ship, the USS Monitor.
Jimmy Hoffa was elected president of the Teamsters Union.
In 1959, the Soviet Union launched Luna 3, a space probe that transmitted images of the far side of the moon.
rock singer Janis Joplin, 27, was found dead in her Hollywood hotel room.
for the first time in nearly six decades, German lawmakers met in the Reichstag for the first meeting of reunified Germany’s parliament.
26 nations, including the United States, signed the Madrid Protocol, which imposed a 50-year ban on oil exploration and mining in Antarctica.
the SpaceShipOne rocket plane broke through Earth’s atmosphere to the edge of space for the second time in five days, capturing the $10 million Ansari X prize aimed at opening the final frontier to tourists.
The U.S. military said it had killed an al-Qaida in Iraq leader (Mahir Ahmad Mahmud alZubaydi) suspected of masterminding one of the deadliest attacks in Baghdad, several other recent bombings and the 2006 videotaped killing of a Russian official.
Vo Nguyen Giap, the military commander who’d led Vietnamese Communist forces against the French and then the Americans, died in Hanoi at age 102.
Four U.S. soldiers were killed in the African country of Niger when a joint patrol of U.S. and Niger forces was ambushed by militants who were believed linked to the Islamic State group.