DAILY ALMANAC
Today is Friday, Oct. 8, the 281st day of 2021. There are 84 days left in the year.
On this date:
1871: The Great Chicago Fire erupted; fires also broke out in Peshtigo, Wisconsin, and in several communities in Michigan.
1918: U.S. Army Cpl. Alvin C. York led an attack that killed 25 German soldiers and resulted in the capture of 132 others in the Argonne Forest in France.
1934: Bruno Hauptmann was indicted by a grand jury in New Jersey for murder in the death of the kidnapped son of Charles and Anne Morrow Lindbergh.
1945: President Harry S. Truman told a press conference in Tiptonville, Tennessee, that the secret scientific knowledge behind the atomic bomb would be shared only with Britain and Canada.
1956: Don Larsen pitched the only perfect game in a World Series to date as the New York Yankees beat the Brooklyn Dodgers in Game 5, 2-0.
1981: At the White House, President Ronald Reagan greeted former Presidents Jimmy Carter, Gerald Ford and Richard Nixon, who were preparing to travel to Egypt for the funeral of Anwar Sadat.
1985: The hijackers of the Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro killed American passenger Leon Klinghoffer, who was in a wheelchair, and threw his body overboard.
1997: Scientists reported the Mars Pathfinder had yielded what could be the strongest evidence yet that Mars might once have been hospitable to life.
1998: The House triggered an openended impeachment inquiry against President Bill Clinton in a momentous 258-176 vote; 31 Democrats joined majority Republicans in opening the way for nationally televised impeachment hearings.
2002: A federal judge approved President George W. Bush’s request to reopen West Coast ports, ending a 10day labor lockout that was costing the U.S. economy an estimated $1 to $2 billion a day.
2005: A magnitude 7.6 earthquake flattened villages on the Pakistan-india border, killing an estimated 86,000 people.
2010: British aid worker Linda Norgrove, who’d been taken captive in Afghanistan, was killed during a U.S. special forces rescue attempt, apparently by a U.S. grenade.
2015: Chef Paul Prudhomme, 75, who’d sparked a nationwide interest in Cajun food, died in New Orleans.
Actor-comedian Chevy Chase is 78. Author R.L. Stine (“Goosebumps”) is 78. Actor Sigourney Weaver is 72. Singer Robert “Kool” Bell of Kool and the Gang is 71. Comedian Darrell Hammond (“Saturday Night Live”) is 66. Actor Kim Wayans (“In The House,” “In Living Color”) is 60. Singer Cece Winans is 57. Actor Dylan Neal (“Blood Ties,” “Sabrina, The Teenage Witch”) is 52. Actor-screenwriter Matt Damon is 51. Actor Martin Henderson (“Grey’s Anatomy”) is 47. Actor Kristanna Loken (“The L Word,” “Burn Notice”) is 42. Actor Nick Cannon is 41. Singer-songwriter Bruno Mars is 36. Actor Angus T. Jones (“Two and a Half Men”) is 28. Actor Bella Thorne (TV’S “Shake It Up”) is 24.