TODAY IN HISTORY

Today is Saturday, Oct. 21, the 294th day of 2023. There are 71 days left in the year.

Today’s highlight

On Oct. 21, 1879, Thomas Edison perfected a workable electric light at his laboratory in Menlo Park, N.J.

On this date

In 1797, the U.S. Navy frigate Constitution, also known as “Old Ironsides,” was christened in Boston’s harbor.

In 1944, U.S. troops captured the German city of Aachen.

In 1960, Democrat John F. Kennedy and Republican Richard M. Nixon clashed in their fourth and final presidential debate in New York.

144 people, 116 of them children, were killed when a coal waste landslide engulfed a school and some 20 houses in Aberfan, Wales.

In 1976, Saul Bellow won the

In 1966,

Nobel Prize for literature, the first American honored since John Steinbeck in 1962.

In 1985, Ex-San Francisco Supervisor Dan White — who had served five years in prison for killing Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk — was found dead in a garage after killing himself.

In 2014, former Washington Post executive editor Ben Bradlee died at age 93.

In 2021, actor Alec Baldwin was pointing a gun on a movie set in New Mexico when it went off and killed cinematographer Halyna Hutchins and wounded director Joel Souza.

Today’s birthdays

Singer Manfred Mann is 83. Singer Elvin Bishop is 81. TV’s Judge Judy Sheindlin is 81. Actor Everett McGill is 78. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is 74. Musician Charlotte Caffey (The Go-Go’s) is 70. Actor Ken Watanabe is 64. Kim Kardashian is 43. Actor Glenn Powell is 35.