Today in history

In 1864 Union forces led by Gen. Samuel Curtis defeated Gen. Stirling Price’s army in Missouri.

In 1910 Blanche Scott became the first woman to fly solo when her airplane rose 12 feet over a park in Fort Wayne, Ind.

In 1915 25,000 women marched in New York to demand the right to vote.

In 1940 soccer legend Pele was born Edson Arantes do Nascimento in Tres Coracoes, Brazil.

In 1941 the Walt Disney animated feature “Dumbo,” about a young circus elephant who learns how to fly, premiered in New York.

In 1944 the Battle of Leyte Gulf began in the Philippines.

In 1946 the United Nations General Assembly convened in New York for the first time, in an auditorium in Flushing Meadows.

In 1956 an anti-Stalinist revolt that was subsequently crushed by Soviet troops began in Hungary.

In 1973 President Richard Nixon reversed himself and agreed to turn over the Watergate tapes to U.S. District Judge John Sirica.

In 1980 the resignation of Soviet Premier Alexei Kosygin was announced. In 1984 “NBC Nightly News” aired BBC television footage of the drought in Ethiopia, resulting in an outpouring of charitable contributions.

In 1987 the Senate rejected the Supreme Court nomination of Robert Bork by a vote of 58-42.

In 1993 the Toronto Blue Jays repeated as baseball champions as they defeated the Philadelphia Phillies 8-6 in Game 6 of the World Series.

In 1995 a Houston jury convicted Yolanda Saldivar of murdering Tejano singing star Selena, whose fan club Saldivar had once headed.

In 1996 the civil trial of O.J. Simpson opened in Santa Monica, Calif. (Simpson later was found liable in the deaths of his ex-wife, Nicole, and her friend Ronald Goldman.)

In 2012 GOP U.S. Senate candidate Richard Mourdock of Indiana said during an election debate that pregnancy resulting from rape was “something God intended to happen.” (He lost the Nov. 6 race to Democratic Rep. Joe Donnelly.)

In 2013 Pope Francis removed German Bishop Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst, known as the “bishop of Bling,” from his diocese in Limburg for spending $43 million of church funds on his residence.