TODAY IN HISTORY
Today is Thursday, Oct. 4, the 277th day of 2018. There are 88 days left in the year.
Today’s Highlights in History:
On Oct. 4, 1957, the Space Age began as the Soviet Union launched Sputnik 1, the first artificial satellite, into orbit.
On this date:
■ In 1777, Gen. George Washington’s troops launched an assault on the British at Germantown, Pennsylvania, resulting in heavy American casualties.
■ In 1861, during the Civil War, the United States Navy authorized construction of the first ironclad ship, the USS Monitor.
■ In 1940, Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini conferred at Brenner Pass in the Alps.
■ In 1957, Jimmy Hoffa was elected president of the Teamsters Union.
■ In 1959, the Soviet Union launched Luna 3, a space probe which transmitted images of the far side of the moon.
■ In 1960, an Eastern Air Lines Lockheed L-188A Electra crashed on takeoff from Boston’s Logan International Airport, killing all but 10 of the 72 people on board.
■ In 1970, rock singer Janis Joplin, 27, was found dead in her Hollywood hotel room.
■ In 1989, Triple Crownwinning racehorse Secretariat, suffering a hoof ailment, was humanely destroyed at age 19.
■ In 1990, for the first time in nearly six decades, German lawmakers met in the Reichstag for the first meeting of reunified Germany’s parliament.
■ In 1991, 26 nations, including the United States, signed the Madrid Protocol, which imposed a 50-year ban on oil exploration and mining in Antarctica.
■ In 2002, “American Taliban” John Walker Lindh received a 20-year sentence after a sobbing plea for forgiveness before a federal judge in Alexandria, Virginia. In a federal court in Boston, a laughing Richard Reid pleaded guilty to trying to blow up a trans-Atlantic flight with explosives in his shoes (the British citizen was later sentenced to life in prison).
■ In 2004, the SpaceShipOne rocket plane broke through Earth’s atmosphere to the edge of space for the second time in five days, capturing the $10 million Ansari X prize aimed at opening the final frontier to tourists. Pioneering astronaut Gordon Cooper died in Ventura, California, at age
77.
Ten years ago: Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice met with her Indian counterpart, External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee, in New Delhi, where they lauded but did not sign a new agreement opening up U.S. nuclear trade with India. The U.S. military said it had killed an al-Qaida in Iraq leader (Mahir Ahmad Mahmud al-Zubaydi) suspected of masterminding one of the deadliest attacks in Baghdad, several other recent bombings and the 2006 videotaped killing of a Russian official. A North Korean news agency reported on leader Kim Jong Il’s first public appearance in nearly two months.
Five years ago: Vo Nguyen Giap, the military commander who’d led Vietnamese Communist forces against the French and then the Americans, died in Hanoi at age 102.
One year ago: Four U.S. soldiers were killed in the African country of Niger when a joint patrol of U.S. and Niger forces was ambushed by militants who were believed linked to the Islamic State group. President Donald Trump visited hospital bedsides and a police base in Las Vegas in the aftermath of the shooting rampage three nights earlier that left 58 people dead.
Thought for Today:
“Sometimes even to live is an act of courage.”—Seneca the Younger, Roman statesman and philosopher (3 B.C.-A.D 65).