History Highlights

Today is Monday, Oct. 19, the 293rd day of 2020. There are 73 days left in the year.

Today’s Highlight in History:

On Oct. 19, 1781, British troops under Gen. Lord Cornwallis surrendered at Yorktown, Virginia, as the American Revolution neared its end.

On this date:

In 1765, the Stamp Act Congress, meeting in New York, adopted a declaration of rights and liberties, which the British Parliament ignored.

In 1812, French forces under Napoleon Bonaparte began their retreat from Moscow.

In 1944, the U.S. Navy began accepting Black women into WAVES (Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service).

In 1960, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was arrested during a sit-down protest at a lunch counter in Atlanta. Sent to prison for a parole violation over a traffic offense, King was released after three days following an appeal by Robert F. Kennedy.)

In 1977, the supersonic Concorde made its first landing in New York City.

In 1987, the stock market crashed as the Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged 508 points, or 22.6 percent in value (its biggest daily percentage loss), to close at 1,738.74 in what came to be known as “Black Monday.”

In 2001, U.S. special forces began operations on the ground in Afghanistan, opening a significant new phase of the assault against the Taliban and al-Qaida.

In 2002, in York, Pa., former mayor Charlie Robertson was acquitted and two other men were convicted in the shotgun slaying of Lillie Belle Allen, a young Black woman, during race riots that tore the city apart in 1969.

In 2005, a defiant Saddam Hussein pleaded innocent to charges of premeditated murder and torture as his trial opened under heavy security in the former headquarters of his Baath Party in Baghdad.

In 2014, Peyton Manning broke Brett Favre’s NFL record of 508 career touchdown passes as he threw four TD passes in Denver’s 42-17 victory over the San Francisco 49ers. (The record would later be broken by Drew Brees and Tom Brady.)

Ten years ago: The Pentagon directed the military to accept openly gay recruits for the first time in the nation’s history. Hosam Smadi, a Jordanian man caught in an FBI sting trying to blow up a Dallas skyscraper, was sentenced to 24 years in prison after telling the court he was ashamed of his actions and renouncing al-Qaida.