Today in history
Today is Monday, Oct. 8, the 281st day of 2018. There are 84 days left in the year. Today is Columbus Day in the United States and Thanksgiving in Canada.
Today’s Highlight in History:
On Oct. 8, 1998, the House triggered an open-ended 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. On this date:
In 1871, the Great Chicago Fire erupted; fires also broke out in Peshtigo, Wisconsin, and in several communities in Michigan.
In 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.
In 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.
In 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.
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 1970, Soviet author Alexander Solzhenitsyn was named winner of the Nobel Prize for literature.
In 1981, at the White House, President Reagan greeted former Presidents Carter, Ford and Nixon, who were preparing to travel to Egypt for the funeral of Anwar Sadat.
In 1982, all labor organizations in Poland, including Solidarity, were banned.
In 2001, The United States pounded terrorist targets in Afghanistan from the air for a second night.
In 2002, A federal judge approved President George W. Bush’s request to reopen West Coast ports, ending a 10- day labor lockout that was costing the U.S. economy an estimated $1 to $2 billion a day.
In 2004, thirty-four people, most of them Israelis, were killed when suicide bombers blew up the Taba Hilton Hotel in Egypt.
In 2005, a magnitude 7.6 earthquake flattened villages on the Pakistan-India border, killing an estimated 86,000 people.
Ten years ago: After a day of bouncing higher and lower, Wall Street plunged again. The Dow Jones industrial average lost another 189 points to close at 9,258 — the sixth straight day of losses for the Dow. German farmer Karl Merk, who received the world’s first complete double arm transplant, told reporters that incredulity gave way to joy when he woke from surgery to discover he had arms again. Japan’s Osamu Shimomura and Americans Martin Chalfie and Roger Tsien won the Nobel Prize in chemistry.
Five years ago: The White House said President Barack Obama would nominate Federal Reserve vice chair Janet Yellen to succeed Ben Bernanke as chairman of the nation’s central bank. Britain’s Peter Higgs and Belgian colleague Francois Englert won the Nobel Prize in physics for helping to explain how matter formed after the Big Bang. Phil Chevron, 56, the guitarist for the boisterous Anglo-Irish band the Pogues, died in Dublin.
One year ago: Harvey Weinstein was fired from The Weinstein Company amid allegations that he was responsible for decades of sexual harassment against actresses and employees.