HIGHLIGHTS IN HISTORY
Today’s highlight:
On Oct. 24, 1972, Hall of Famer Jackie Robinson, who’d broken Major League Baseball’s color barrier in 1947, died in Stamford, Connecticut, at age 53.
On this date:
1861: The first transcontinental telegraph message was sent by Chief Justice Stephen J. Field of California from San Francisco to President Abraham Lincoln in Washington, D.C., over a line built by the Western Union Telegraph Co.
1931: The George Washington Bridge, connecting New York and New Jersey, was officially dedicated
1940: The 40-hour work week went into effect under the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938.
1945: The United Nations officially came into existence as its charter took effect.
1952: Republican presidential candidate Dwight D.
Eisenhower declared in Detroit, “I shall go to Korea” as he promised to end the conflict. 1962: A naval quarantine of Cuba ordered by President John F. Kennedy went into effect during the missile crisis.
1980: The merchant freighter
SS Poet departed Philadelphia, bound for Port Said, Egypt, with a crew of 34 and a cargo of grain; it disappeared en route and has not been heard from since.
1989: Former television evangelist Jim Bakker was sentenced by a judge in Charlotte, N.C., to 45 years in prison for fraud and conspiracy. The sentence was later reduced to eight years; it was further reduced to four for good behavior.
2002: Authorities apprehended Army veteran John Allen Muhammad and teenager Lee Boyd Malvo near Myersville, Maryland, in the Washington-area sniper attacks. Malvo was later sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole; Muhammad was sentenced to death and executed in 2009.
2005: Civil rights icon Rosa Parks died in Detroit at age 92.
Ten years ago: Singer-actress Jennifer Hudson’s mother and brother were found slain in their Chicago home; the body of her 7-year-old nephew was found three days later. Hudson’s estranged brother-in-law was convicted of the murders and sentenced to life in prison. A Russian Soyuz capsule touched down in Kazakhstan after delivering the first two men to follow their fathers into space, a Russian and an American, to the international space station.
Five years ago: President Barack Obama made a plea for Republican cooperation on immigration, telling a White House event, “Rather than create problems, let’s prove to the American people that Washington can actually solve some problems.” In an apparent first, a majority-female officiating crew worked an NCAA college football game; head linesman Yvonda Lewis, line judge Tangela Mitchell, field judge
Sebrina Brunson and back judge Krystle Apellaniz were part of the seven-person crew for the Division II game between Miles and Lane, which Miles won, 38-26.
One year ago: Republican Sen. Jeff Flake of Arizona announced that he would not seek re-election in 2018; he’d been critical of the path the GOP had taken under President
Donald Trump. Actor Robert Guillaume, who won Emmy awards for his portrayal of the sharp-tongued butler in the sitcoms “Soap” and “Benson,” died in Los Angeles at 89. In a game that began in 103-degree heat, the Los Angeles Dodgers opened the World Series with a 3-1 victory over the Houston Astros in Los Angeles; Clayton Kershaw was the winning pitcher in his World Series debut.