DAILY ALMANAC
Today is Saturday, Oct. 24, the 298th day of 2020. There are 68 days left in the year.
On this date in:
1537: Jane Seymour, the third wife of England’s King Henry VIII, died 12 days after giving birth to Prince Edward, later King Edward VI.
1861: The first transcontinental telegraph message was sent by Chief Justice Stephen J. Field of California from San Francisco to President Abraham Lincoln in Washington, D.C., over a line built by the Western Union Telegraph Co.
1931: The George Washington Bridge, connecting New York and New Jersey, was officially dedicated (it opened to traffic the next day).
1940: The 40-hour work week went into effect under the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938.
1945: The United Nations officially came into existence as its charter took effect.
1952: Republican presidential candidate Dwight D. Eisenhower declared in Detroit, “I shall go to Korea” as he promised to end the conflict. (He made the visit over a month later.)
1962: A naval quarantine of Cuba ordered by President John F. Kennedy went into effect during the missile crisis.
1972: Hall of Famer Jackie Robinson, who’d broken Major League Baseball’s modern-era color barrier in 1947, died in Stamford, Connecticut, at age 53.
1992: The Toronto Blue Jays became the first non-u.s. team to win the World Series as they defeated the Atlanta Braves, 4-3, in Game 6.
1996: Tyron Lewis, 18, a Black motorist, was shot to death by police during a traffic stop in St. Petersburg, Florida; the incident sparked rioting. (Officer James Knight, who said that Lewis had lurched his car at him several times, knocking him onto the hood, was cleared by a grand jury and the Justice Department.)
2005: Civil rights icon Rosa Parks died in Detroit at age 92.
2018: Authorities said they had intercepted pipe bombs packed with shards of glass that had been sent to several prominent Democrats, including Hillary Clinton and former President Barack Obama; none of the bombs went off, and nobody was hurt. (Cesar Sayoc, a Florida amateur body builder who admitted sending the bombs to Democrats and to CNN, was sentenced to 20 years in prison by a judge who concluded that the bombs were not designed to explode.)
Former Rolling Stones bassist Bill Wyman is 84. Actor F. Murray Abraham is 81. Actor Kevin Kline is 73. Actor
Doug Davidson (“The Young and the Restless”) is 66. Actor B.D. Wong is 60. Singer Michael Trent of Shovels and Rope is 43. Drummer Ben Gillies of Silverchair is 41. Singer
Monica is 40. Singer-actor and co-host of “The Real” Adrienne Bailon Houghton of 3LW (“The Cheetah Girls”) is 37. Actor Tim Pocock (TV’S “Camp”) is 35. Rapper-actor Drake is 34. Actor Shenae Grimes (“90210”) is 31. Actor Eliza Taylor (“The 100”) is 31. Actor Ashton Sanders (“Moonlight”) is 25. Actor
Hudson Yang (“Fresh Off the Boat”) is 17.