SUNDAY IN HISTORY

Today is Sunday, Oct. 8, the 281st day of 2017. There are 84 days left in the year.

Highlight in History:

On Oct. 8, 1871, the Great Chicago Fire erupted; fires also broke out in Peshtigo, Wisconsin, and in several communities in Michigan.

On this date:

In 1869, the 14th president of the United States, Franklin Pierce, died in Concord, N.H.

In1918, 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.

In1934, 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.

In 1945, President Harry S. Truman told a press conference that the secret scientific knowledge behind the atomic bomb would be shared only with Britain and Canada.

In 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.

In 1998, the House triggered an open-ended impeachment inquiry against President Bill Clinton in a momentous 258-176 vote.

In 2001, an SAS airliner taking off from Milan, Italy, hit a private jet, careened into an airport building and exploded; all 110 people on the MD-87, four people in the private jet and four people on the ground were killed.

In 2005, a magnitude 7.6 earthquake flattened villages on the Pakistan-India border, killing an estimated 86,000 people.

Ten years ago: British Prime Minister Gordon Brown announced his country would cut in half its remaining troop contingent in Iraq in the spring of 2008. (Britain ended up postponing the withdrawal amid a spike in militia violence.)

Five years ago: Canadian Joshua Boyle and his U.S.born wife, Caitlan Coleman, were last heard from in Afghanistan before being kidnapped by the Taliban; they remain in captivity.

One year ago: Three Palm Springs, Calif., police officers were shot, two fatally, in what authorities called an ambush during a domestic dispute call by a gang member; a suspect has pleaded not guilty to murder.

Today’s Birthdays: Actor Paul Hogan is 78. Civil rights activist Rev. Jesse Jackson is 76. Comedian Chevy Chase is 74. Author R.L. Stine is 74 Actress Sigourney Weaver is 68. Actorscreenwriter Matt Damon is 47. Singer-song writerproducer Bruno Mars is 32.

Thought for Today: “History is the propaganda of the victors.” — Ernst Toller, German poet and dramatist (1893-1939).