TODAY IN HISTORY

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT

Oct. 14, 1947

U.S. Air Force Capt. Charles E. Yeager became the first test pilot to break the sound barrier as he flew the experimental Bell XS-1 rocket plane over Muroc Dry Lake in California.

ALSO ON THIS DATE 1066

Normans under William the Conqueror defeated the English at the Battle of Hastings.

1890

Dwight D. Eisenhower, 34th president of the United States, was born in Denison, Texas.

1912

Former President Theodore Roosevelt, campaigning for the White House as the Progressive candidate, went ahead with a speech in Milwaukee after being shot and wounded in the chest by New York saloonkeeper John Schrank, declaring, “It takes more than one bullet to kill a bull moose.”

1926

“Winnie-the-Pooh” by A.A. Milne was first published by Methuen & Co. of London.

1939

A German U-boat torpedoed and sank the HMS Royal Oak, a British battleship anchored at Scapa Flow in Scotland’s Orkney Islands; 833 of the more than 1,200 men aboard were killed.

1944

German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel committed suicide rather than face trial and certain execution for allegedly conspiring against Adolf Hitler.