Today in history

In 1927 the era of talking pictures arrived with the opening of “The Jazz Singer,” a movie starring Al Jolson which featured both silent and sound-synchronized scenes.

In 1939, Adolf Hitler denied having any intention of war against France and Britain.

In 1948 the Tennessee Williams play “Summer and Smoke” opened on Broadway.

In 1979 Pope John Paul II, on a weeklong U.S. tour, became the first pontiff to visit the White House, where he was received by President Jimmy Carter.

In 1981 Egyptian President Anwar Sadat was shot to death by extremists while reviewing a military parade.

In 1983 Cardinal Terence Cooke, spiritual head of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York, died; he was 62.

In 1987 the Senate Judiciary Committee voted 9-5 against the nomination of Robert Bork to the Supreme Court.

In 1991 reports surfaced that a former personal assistant to Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas, University of Oklahoma law professor Anita Hill, had accused Thomas of sexually harassing her.

In 1992 the U.N. Security Council voted unanimously to establish a war crimes commission for Bosnia-Herzegovina.

In 1993 Michael Jordan announced his retirement after nine years with the Bulls. (He would play professional baseball one season in the White Sox farm system before returning to the Bulls.)

In 2002 Pope John Paul II elevated to sainthood Josemaria Escriva de Balaguer, the Spanish priest who founded the conservative Catholic organization Opus Dei.

In 2003 American Paul Lauterbur and Briton Peter Mansfield won the Nobel Prize for medicine for discoveries that led to magnetic resonance imaging.

In 2004 the top U.S. arms inspector in Iraq, Charles Duelfer, reported finding no evidence Saddam Hussein’s regime had produced weapons of mass destruction after 1991.

Also in 2004 the Senate approved an intelligence reorganization bill endorsed by the Sept. 11 commission.

Also in 2004 Israelis Aaron Ciechanover and Avram Hershko and American Irwin Rose won the Nobel Prize in chemistry.

In 2012 former papal bulter Paolo Gabriele was found guilty of aggravated theft and sentenced to 18 months in prison in the “Vatileaks” scandal.

In 2014 the U.S. Supreme Court rejected appeals in five states that ban gay marriage, a decision that cleared the way for six more states to legalize same-sex marriage.

In 2017 the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to a coalition of activists calling themselves the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons.