SUNDAY IN HISTORY

Today is Sunday, Oct. 30, the 304th day of 2016. There are 62 days left in the year.

Highlight in History:

On Oct. 30, 1938, the radio play “The War of the Worlds,” starring Or son Welles, aired as part of “The Mercury Theater on the Air” on CBS. (The broadcast, which employed a series of fake news reports about a Martian invasion, was said to have panicked some listeners, although how many has never been definitively established.)

On this date:

In 1766, St. Paul’s Chapel, Manhattan’s oldest surviving house of worship, was consecrated in the Episcopal Diocese of New York.

In 1953, Gen. George C. Marshall was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

In 1961, the Soviet Union tested a hydrogen bomb, the “TsarBomba,” witha force estimated at about 50 megatons.

In 1974, Muhammad Ali knocked out George-Foreman in the eighth round of a 15-round bout in Kinshasa, Zaire, known as the “Rumble in the Jungle,” to regain his world heavyweight title.

In 1975, the New York Daily News ran the headline “Ford to City: Drop Dead” a day after President Gerald R. Ford said he would veto any proposed federal bailout of New York City.

In 1985, schoolteacher-astronaut Christa McAuliffe witnessed the launch of the space shuttle Challenger, the same craft that carried her and six other crew members to their deaths in Jan. 1986.

Ten years ago: Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry, addressing a campaign rally for California Democratic gubernatorial candidate Phil Angelides, told a college audience that young people who didn’t study hard might “get stuck in Iraq,” prompting harsh Republican criticism.

Five years ago: Britain’s Sunday Telegraph published an interview with Syrian President Bashar Assad, who warned that a western intervention in Syria would lead to an “earthquake” that “would burn the whole region.”

One year ago: The United States escalated its fight against the Islamic State in Syria, pledging the first open deployment of military boots on the ground.

Today’s Birthdays: Movie director Claude Lelouch is 79. Actress Joanna Shimkus is 73. Actor Henry Winkler is 71. Broadcast journalist Andrea Mitchell is 70. Country singer T. Graham Brown is 62. Comedian Ben Bailey is 46. Business executive Ivanka Trump is 35.

Thought for Today: “You cannot hope to build a better world without improving the individuals.” — Marie Curie, Polish Nobel Prize-winning chemist (1867-1934).