Also on this date
In 1961, U.S. Air Force Maj. Robert M. White became the first pilot to fly an X-15 rocket plane at six times the speed of sound.
In 1965, the great Northeast blackout began as a series of power failures lasting up to 131⁄2 hours, leaving 30 million people in seven states and part of Canada without electricity.
In 1976, the U.N. General Assembly approved resolutions condemning apartheid in South Africa, including one characterizing the white-ruled government as “illegitimate.”
In 1989, Communist East Germany threw open its borders, allowing citizens to travel freely to the West; joyous Germans danced atop the Berlin Wall.
In 2000, George W. Bush’s lead over Al Gore in all-or-nothing Florida slipped beneath 300 votes in a suspense-filled recount, as Democrats threw the presidential election to the courts.
In 2007, President Gen. Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan placed opposition leader Benazir Bhutto under house arrest and rounded up thousands of her supporters to block a rally against his emergency rule.
In 2011, after 46 seasons as Penn State’s head football coach, Joe Paterno was fired along with the university president, Graham Spanier, over their handling of child sex abuse allegations against former assistant coach Jerry Sandusky.
In 2012, retired four-star Army Gen. David Petraeus resigned as CIA director after an affair with his biographer, Paula Broadwell, was revealed by an FBI investigation.
In 2018, President Donald Trump issued an order to deny asylum to migrants who enter the country illegally; the measure would be blocked by court challenges.
Ten years ago: A special prosecutor cleared the CIA’s former top clandestine officer and others of any charges for destroying agency videotapes showing waterboarding of terror suspects, but continued an investigation into whether the questioning was legal.
Five years ago: The president of the University of Missouri system and the head of its flagship campus resigned with the football team and others on campus in open revolt over what they saw as indifference to racial tensions at the school.
One year ago: Police in Hong Kong announced the arrests of six prodemocracy lawmakers.