TODAY IN HISTORY
Today is Sunday, Oct. 8, the 281st day of 2017. There are 84 days left in the year.
Today’s Highlight in History
On Oct. 8, 1871, the Great Chicago Fire erupted; fires also broke out in Peshtigo, Wisconsin, and in several communities in Michigan.
On this date
1869 — The 14th president of the United States, Franklin Pierce, died in Concord, New Hampshire. 1910 — Former President Teddy Roosevelt visited Martha Berry and all of Rome came out to meet him. 1918 — U.S. Army Cpl. Alvin C. York led an attack that killed 25 German soldiers and resulted in the capture of 132 others in the Argonne Forest in France. 1934 — Bruno Hauptmann was indicted by a grand jury in New Jersey for murder in the death of the kidnapped son of Charles and Anne Morrow Lindbergh. 1945 — President Harry S. Truman told a press conference in Tiptonville, Tennessee, that the secret scientific knowledge behind the atomic bomb would be shared only with Britain and Canada. 1951 — Al H. Mahrt, president of the newly organized Rome Kraft Co., announced the construction of the Mead Corp.’s new multi-million dollar Kraft container board mill 12 miles from Rome on the Coosa River. The mill would hire an estimated 650 employees. 1956 — Don Larsen pitched the only perfect game in a World Series to date as the New York Yankees beat the Brooklyn Dodgers in Game 5, 2-0. 1957 — The Brooklyn Baseball Club announced it was accepting an offer to move the Dodgers from New York to Los Angeles. 1982 — All labor organizations in Poland, including Solidarity, were banned. 1998 — The House triggered an open-ended impeachment inquiry against President Bill Clinton in a momentous 258-176 vote; 31 Democrats joined majority Republicans in opening the way for nationally televised impeachment hearings. 2001 — An SAS airliner taking off from Milan, Italy, hit a private jet, careened into an airport building and exploded; all 110 people on the MD-87, four people in the private jet and four people on the ground were killed. 2005 — A magnitude 7.6 earthquake flattened villages on the Pakistan-India border, killing an estimated 86,000 people. 2007 — Michael Devlin was sentenced in Union, Missouri, to life in prison for kidnapping one of two boys he’d held captive in his suburban St. Louis apartment. (Devlin pleaded guilty the next day to dozens of other counts, resulting in a total of 74 life sentences.)
Five years ago
Canadian Joshua Boyle and his U.S.-born wife, Caitlan Coleman, were last heard from in Afghanistan before being kidnapped by the Taliban; they remain in captivity.
President Barack Obama designated the Keene, California, home of Cesar Chavez, the late founder of the United Farmworkers Union, as a national monument.
One year ago
Three Palm Springs, California, police officers were shot, two fatally, in what authorities called an ambush during a domestic dispute call by a gang member; a suspect has pleaded not guilty to murder.
Today’s Birthdays
Entertainment reporter Rona Barrett is 81. Actor Paul Hogan is 78. Civil rights activist Rev. Jesse Jackson is 76. Comedian Chevy Chase is 74. Author R.L. Stine is 74. Rhythm-and-blues singer Airrion Love (The Stylistics) is 68. Actress Sigourney Weaver is 68. Rhythm-and-blues singer Robert “Kool” Bell (Kool & the Gang) is 67. Producer-director Edward Zwick is 65. Actress Stephanie Zimbalist is 61. Rock singer Steve Perry (Cherry Poppin’ Daddies) is 54. Gospel/rhythm-and-blues singer CeCe Winans is 53. Rock musician C.J. Ramone (The Ramones) is 52. Actor-screenwriter Matt Damon is 47. Rocksoul singer-musician Noelle Scaggs (Fitz and the Tantrums) is 38. Actor Nick Cannon is 37. Actor Max Crumm is 32. Singer-songwriter-producer Bruno Mars is 32. Actor Angus T. Jones is 24.