Today in history
Today is Monday, Oct. 1, the 274th day of 2018. There are 91 days left in the year. Today’s Highlight in History: On Oct. 1, 1908, Henry Ford introduced his Model T automobile to the market.
On this date:
In 1890, Congress passed the McKinley Tariff Act, which raised tariffs to a record level. In 1910, the offices of the Los Angeles Times were destroyed by a bomb explosion and fire; 21 Times employees were killed.
In 1937, Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black delivered a radio address in which he acknowledged being a former member of the Ku Klux Klan, but said he had dropped out of the organization before becoming a U.S. senator.
In 1949, Mao Zedong proclaimed the People’s Republic of China during a ceremony in Beijing. A 42-day strike by the United Steelworkers of America began over the issue of retirement benefits. In 1957, the motto “In God We Trust” began appearing on U.S. paper currency.
In 1964, the Free Speech Movement began at the University of California, Berkeley. Japan’s first highspeed “bullet train,” the Tokaido Shinkansen, went into operation between Tokyo and Osaka.
In 1971, Walt Disney World opened near Orlando, Florida. In 1972, the book “The Joy of Sex” by Alex Comfort was first published by Mitchell Beazley of London.
In 1982, Sony began selling the first commercial compact disc player, the CDP-101, in Japan.
In 1987, eight people were killed when an earthquake measuring magnitude 5.9 struck the Los Angeles area.
In 1994, National Hockey League team owners began a 103-day lockout of their players.
In 1996, a federal grand jury indicted Unabomber suspect Theodore Kaczynski in the 1994 mail bomb slaying of advertising executive Thomas Mosser. (Kaczynski was later sentenced to four life terms plus 30 years.) The federal minimum wage rose 50 cents to four dollars, 75 cents an hour.
Ten years ago: After one spectacular failure in the House, the $700 billion financial industry bailout won lopsided passage in the Senate, 74-25, after it was loaded with tax breaks and other sweeteners. Nick Reynolds, a founding member of the Kingston Trio, died in San Diego at age 75. TV actor House Peters Jr., the original “Mr. Clean,” died in Los Angeles at age 92.
Five years ago: The federal government partially shut down because of a budget impasse in Congress, the same day Americans got their first chance to shop for health insurance using the online marketplaces that were at the heart of President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul (however, government websites designed to sell the policies struggled to handle the traffic, with many frustrated users reporting trouble setting up accounts). Novelist Tom Clancy, 66, died in Baltimore.
One year ago: A gunman opened fire from a room at the Mandalay Bay casino hotel in Las Vegas on a crowd of 22,000 country music fans at a concert below, leaving 58 people dead and more than 800 injured in the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history; the gunman, 64-year-old Stephen Craig Paddock, killed himself before officers arrived. O.J. Simpson was released from a prison in Nevada a few minutes after midnight, after serving nine years for a botched hotelroom heist in Las Vegas.