TODAY IN HISTORY

TODAY IS MONDAY, OCT. 23, the 296th day of 2017. There are 69 days left in the year.

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT IN HISTORY: On this date in 1942, during World War II, Britain launched a major offensive against Axis forces at El Alamein in Egypt, resulting in an Allied victory.

In 1864, forces led by Union Maj. Gen. Samuel R. Curtis repelled Confederate Maj. Gen. Sterling Price’s army in the Civil War Battle of Westport in Missouri.

In 1915, tens of thousands of women paraded up Fifth Avenue in New York City, demanding the right to vote.

In 1941, the Walt Disney animated feature “Dumbo” premiered in New York.

In 1946, the United Nations General Assembly convened in New York for the first time, at an auditorium in Flushing Meadow.

In 1973, President Richard Nixon agreed to turn over White House tape recordings subpoenaed by the Watergate special prosecutor to Judge John J. Sirica.

In 1983, 241 U.S. service members, most of them Marines, were killed in a suicide truck-bombing at Beirut International Airport in Lebanon.

In 2001, the nation’s anthrax scare hit the White House with the discovery of a small concentration of spores at an offsite mail processing center.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS: Movie director Philip Kaufman is 81. Soccer great Pele is 77. ABC News investigative reporter Brian Ross is 69. Movie director Ang Lee is 63. Jazz singer Dianne Reeves and country singer Dwight Yoakam are 61. Community activist Martin Luther King III is 60. Movie director Sam Raimi and parodist “Weird Al” Yankovic are 58. Rock musician Robert Trujillo (Metallica) is 53. Country singermusician Junior Bryant is 49. Actor Jon Huertas, movie director Chris Weitz and CNN medical reporter Dr. Sanjay Gupta are 48. Bluegrass musician Eric Gibson (The Gibson Brothers) is 47. TV personality and host Cat Deeley and actor Ryan Reynolds are 41. Actresses Emilia Clarke, Briana Evigan and Jessica Stroup are 31. Actress Amandla Stenberg is 19.