Today in history

In 1921, the silent film classic “The Sheik,” starring Rudolph Valentino, premiered in Los Angeles.

In 1938, the radio play “The War of the Worlds,” starring Orson Welles, aired on CBS.

In 1945, the U.S. government announced the end of shoe rationing, effective at midnight.

In 1953, Gen. George C. Marshall was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Dr. Albert Schweitzer received the Peace Prize for 1952.

In 1961, The Soviet Party Congress unanimously approved a resolution ordering the removal of Josef Stalin’s body from Lenin’s tomb.

In 1974, Muhammad Ali knocked out George Foreman in the eighth round of a 15-round bout in Kinshasa, Zaire, known as the “Rumble in the Jungle,” to regain his world heavyweight title.

In 1975, the New York Daily News ran the headline “Ford to City: Drop Dead” a day after President Gerald R. Ford said he would veto any proposed federal bailout of New York City.

In 1985, schoolteacher-astronaut Christa McAuliffe witnessed the launch of the space shuttle Challenger, the same craft that carried her and six other crew members to their deaths in Jan. 1986.

In 1997, a jury in Cambridge, Massachusetts, convicted British au pair Louise Woodward of second-degree murder in the death of eight-month-old Matthew Eappen. (The judge, Hiller B. Zobel, later reduced the verdict to manslaughter and set Woodward free.)