history at a glance
TODAY is Sunday October 29 the 302nd day of the year. There are 63 days left in the year. Highlights in history on this date:
1923 – Turkey becomes a republic following the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire. 1929 – The New York Stock Exchange crashes in what will be called the Crash of ‘29 or “Black Tuesday”, ending the Great Bull Market of the 1920s and beginning the Great Depression. 1944 – World War II: The Soviet Red Army enters Hungary. 1953 – BCPA Flight 304 DC-6 crashes near San Francisco. Pianist William Kapell is among the
19 killed. 1956 – Suez Crisis begins: Israeli forces invade the Sinai Peninsula and push Egyptian forces
back toward the Suez Canal. 1957 – Israel’s prime minister David Ben-Gurion and five of his ministers are injured when a
hand grenade is tossed into Israel’s parliament, the Knesset. 1960 – In Louisville, Kentucky, Cassius Clay (who later takes the name Muhammad Ali) wins
his first professional fight. 1961 – Syria exits from the United Arab Republic. 1964 – The United Republic of Tanganyika and Zanzibar is renamed the United Republic of
Tanzania. 1964 – A collection of irreplaceable gems, including the 565 carat (113 g) Star of India, is stolen by a group of thieves (among them is “Murph the surf”) from the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. 1969 – The first-ever computer-to-computer link is established on ARPANET, the precursor to
the Internet. 1972 – The three surviving perpetrators of the Munich massacre are released from prison in
exchange for the hostages of hijacked Lufthansa Flight 615. 1991 – The American Galileo spacecraft makes its closest approach to 951 Gaspra, becoming
the first probe to visit an asteroid. 1998 – Apartheid: In South Africa, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission presents its report, which condemns both sides for committing atrocities. 1998 – Space Shuttle Discovery blasts off on STS-95 with 77-year old John Glenn on board,
making him the oldest person to go into space. 1998 – While en route from Adana to Ankara, a Turkish Airlines flight with a crew of six and 33 passengers is hijacked by a Kurdish militant who orders the pilot to fly to Switzerland. The plane instead lands in Ankara after the pilot tricked the hijacker into thinking that he is landing in the Bulgarian capital of Sofia to refuel. 1999 – A large cyclone devastates Odisha, India. 2002 – Ho Chi Minh City ITC fire, a fire destroys a luxurious department store where 1500 people are shopping. Over 60 people die and over 100 are unaccounted for. It is the deadliest disaster in Vietnam during peacetime. 2004 – The Arabic-language news network Al Jazeera broadcasts an excerpt from a 2004 Osama bin Laden video in which the terrorist leader first admits direct responsibility for the September 11, 2001 attacks and references the 2004 US presidential election. 2005 – Bombings in Delhi kill more than 60. 2008 – Delta Air Lines merges with Northwest Airlines, creating the world’s largest airline and
reducing the number of US legacy carriers to five. 2012 – Hurricane Sandy hits the east coast of the United States, killing 148 directly and 138 indirectly, while leaving nearly $70 billion in damages and causing major power outages. 2013 – Turkey opens a sea tunnel connecting Europe and Asia across the Bosphorus Strait in
Istanbul.