Today in history
Today is Thursday, Oct. 18, the 291st day of 2018. There are 74 days left in the year.
Today’s Highlight in History:
On Oct. 18, 1892, the first long-distance telephone line between New York and Chicago was officially opened (it could only handle one call at a time). On this date:
In 1648, Boston shoemakers were authorized to form a guild to protect their interests; it’s the first American labor organization on record.
In 1767, the Mason-Dixon line, the boundary between colonial Pennsylvania, Maryland and Delaware, was set as astronomers Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon completed their survey.
In 1898, the American flag was raised in Puerto Rico shortly before Spain formally relinquished control of the island to the U-S.
In 1931, inventor Thomas Alva Edison died in West Orange, New Jersey, at age 84.
In 1944, Soviet troops invaded Czechoslovakia during World War II.
In 1962, James D. Watson, Francis Crick and Maurice Wilkins were honored with the Nobel Prize for Medicine and Physiology for determining the double-helix molecular structure of DNA.
In 1968, the U-S Olympic Committee suspended Tommie Smith and John Carlos for giving a “black power” salute as a protest during a victory ceremony in Mexico City.
In 1969, the federal government banned artificial sweeteners known as cyclamates (SY’-kluh-maytz) because of evidence they caused cancer in laboratory rats.
In 1977, West German commandos stormed a hijacked Lufthansa jetliner on the ground in Mogadishu, Somalia, freeing all 86 hostages and killing three of the four hijackers.
In 1982, former first lady Bess Truman died at her home in Independence, Missouri, at age 97.
In 1997, a monument honoring American servicewomen, past and present, was dedicated at Arlington National Cemetery.
In 2001, CBS News announced that an employee in anchorman Dan Rather’s office had tested positive for skin anthrax. Four disciples of Osama bin Laden were sentenced in New York to life without parole for their roles in the deadly 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa.
Ten years ago: President George W. Bush, speaking at Camp David, said he would host an international summit in response to the global financial crisis, but did not set a date or place for the meeting. Anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr urged Iraq’s parliament to reject a pact that would extend U.S. presence in Iraq for three years. Soul singer Dee Dee Warwick died in Essex County, N.J. at age 63.
Five years ago: People in the San Francisco Bay area faced a frustrating Friday commute as workers for the region’s largest transit system walked off the job for the second time in four months. President Barack Obama nominated the Pentagon’s former top lawyer, Jeh ( jay) C. Johnson, to be the next Secretary of Homeland Security. In a stunning aboutface, Saudi Arabia rejected a coveted seat on the U.N. Security Council, denouncing the body for failing to resolve world conflicts such as Syria’s civil war.