TODAY IN HISTORY
Today is Tuesday, Oct. 2, the 275th day of 2018. There are 90 days left in the year.
Today’s Highlight in History:
On Oct. 2, 1944, German troops crushed the two-monthold Warsaw Uprising, during which a quarter of a million people had been killed.
On this date:
■ In 1780, British spy John Andre was hanged in Tappan, New York, during the Revolutionary War.
■ In 1919, President Woodrow Wilson suffered a serious stroke at the White House that left him paralyzed on his left side.
■ In 1941, during World War II, German armies launched an all-out drive against Moscow; Soviet forces succeeded in holding onto their capital.
■ In 1950, the comic strip “Peanuts,” created by Charles M. Schulz, was syndicated to seven newspapers.
■ In 1967, Thurgood Marshall was sworn as an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court as the court opened its new term.
■ In 1970, one of two chartered twin-engine planes flying the Wichita State University football team to Utah crashed into a mountain near Silver Plume, Colorado, killing 31 of the 40 people on board.
■ In 1971, the music program “Soul Train” made its debut in national syndication.
■ In 1984, Richard W. Miller became the first FBI agent to be arrested and charged with espionage. (Miller was tried three times; he was sentenced to 20 years in prison, but was released after nine years.)
■ In 2002, the Washington, D.C.-area sniper attacks began, setting off a frantic manhunt lasting three weeks. (John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo were finally arrested for killing 10 people and wounding three others; Muhammad was executed in 2009; Malvo was sentenced to life in prison.)
Ten years ago: Republican Sarah Palin and Democrat Joe Biden sparred over taxes, energy policy and the Iraq war in a high-profile vice-presidential debate at Washington University in St. Louis, in which Palin sought to reclaim her identity as a spirited reformer and Biden tried to undercut the maverick image of GOP presidential hopeful John McCain.
Five years ago: President Barack Obama met privately with congressional leaders at the White House for the first time since a partial government shutdown began, but there was no sign of progress toward ending the impasse. Overloaded websites and jammed phone lines frustrated consumers for a second day as they tried to sign up for coverage using new health insurance exchanges.
One year ago: Hours after the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history, President Donald Trump condemned the Las Vegas shooting that left 58 dead as an “act of pure evil.” The trial of Ahmed Abu Khattala, described as the mastermind of the 2012 attacks on a U.S. outpost in Benghazi, Libya, that left four Americans dead, got under way in Washington. (Khattala would be convicted of terrorism-related charges and sentenced to 22 years in prison.) Three Americans were awarded the Nobel Prize in medicine for discovering key genetic “gears” of the body’s 24-hour biological clock.
Today’s Birthdays: Country singer-musician Leon Rausch (Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys) is 91. Retired MLB All-Star Maury Wills is 86. Movie critic Rex Reed is 80. Singersongwriter Don McLean is 73. Cajun/country singer Jo-el Sonnier is 72. Actor Avery Brooks is 70. Fashion designer Donna Karan is 70. Photographer Annie Leibovitz is 69. Singeractor Sting is 67. Actress Robin Riker is 66. Actress Lorraine Bracco is 64. Rhythm-andblues singer Freddie Jackson is 62. Singer-producer Robbie Nevil is 60. Retro-soul singer James Hunter is 56. Former NFL quarterback Mark Rypien is 56. Country singer Kelly Willis is 50. Actor Joey Slotnick is 50. Actress-talk show host Kelly Ripa is 48. Singer Tiffany is 47. Tennis player Marion Bartoli is 34. Actor Christopher Larkin is 31. Actress Samantha Barks is 28.
Thought for Today: “The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.”— Mohandas K. Gandhi, Indian political and spiritual leader (born this date in 1869, died 1948).