TODAY IN HISTORY
TODAY IS WEDNESDAY, OCT. 23, the 296th day of 2019. There are 69 days left in the year.
ON THIS DATE 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 1707, the first Parliament of Great Britain, created by the Acts of Union between England and Scotland, held its first meeting.
In 1910, Blanche S. Scott became the first woman to make a public solo airplane flight, reaching an altitude of 12 feet at a park in Fort Wayne, Indiana.
In 1915, tens of thousands of women paraded up Fifth Avenue in New York City, demanding the right to vote.
In 1925, talk show host Johnny Carson was born in Corning, Iowa.
In 1944, the World War II Battle of Leyte Gulf began, resulting in a major Allied victory against Japanese forces.
In 1956, a student-sparked revolt against Hungary’s Communist rule began. (As the revolution spread, Soviet forces started entering the country, and the uprising was put down within weeks.)
In 1983, 241 U.S. service members, most of them Marines, were killed in a suicide truck-bombing at Beirut International Airport in Lebanon; a nearly simultaneous attack on French forces killed 58 paratroopers.
In 1984, BBC Television reported on the famine in Ethiopia. (The story, which shocked viewers, prompted rock star Bob Geldof to organize “Band Aid,” a group of celebrities who recorded the song “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” for charity.)
In 1995, a jury in Houston convicted Yolanda Saldivar of murdering Tejano singing star Selena. (Saldivar is serving a life prison sentence.)
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.
In 2006, former Enron CEO Jeffrey Skilling was sentenced by a federal judge in Houston to 24 years, four months for his role in the company’s collapse. (Eventually, 10 years was cut off Skilling’s prison sentence and he was released to a halfway house in August 2018.)
TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS: Movie director Philip Kaufman is 83. Soccer great Pele is 79. Rhythm-and-blues singer Barbara Ann Hawkins (The Dixie Cups) is 76. Former ABC News investigative reporter Brian Ross is 71. Actor Michael Rupert is 68. Movie director Ang Lee is 65. Jazz singer Dianne Reeves and country singer Dwight Yoakam are 63. Community activist Martin Luther King III is 62. Movie director Sam Raimi and parodist “Weird Al” Yankovic are 60. Rock musician Robert Trujillo (Metallica) is 55. Christian/ jazz singer David Thomas (Take 6) and rock musician Brian Nevin (Big Head Todd and the Monsters) are 53. Country singer-musician Junior Bryant is 51. Actor Jon Huertas, movie director Chris Weitz and CNN medical reporter Dr. Sanjay Gupta are 50. Bluegrass musician Eric Gibson (The Gibson Brothers) is 49. Country singer Jimmy Wayne is 47. Actress Vivian Bang is 46. Rock musician Eric Bass (Shinedown) is 45. TV personality and host Cat Deeley, and actor Ryan Reynolds are 43. Actress Saycon Sengbloh is 42. Rock singer Matthew Shultz (Cage the Elephant) is 36. TV personality Meghan McCain (“The View”) is 35. Rhythm-and-blues singer Miguel and actress Masiela Lusha are 34. Actresses Emilia Clarke, Briana Evigan, Inbar Lavi and Jessica Stroup are 33. Neosoul musician Allen Branstetter (St. Paul & the Broken Bones) is 29. Actress Taylor Spreitler is 26. Actress Margaret Qualley is 25. Actress Amandla Stenberg is 21.