TODAY IN HISTORY
TODAY IS SATURDAY, OCT. 24, the 298th day of 2020. There are 68 days left in the year.
TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT IN HISTORY: On this date in 1972, Hall-of-Famer Jackie Robinson, who’d broken Major League Baseball’s modern-era color barrier in 1947, died in Stamford, Connecticut, at age 53.
In 1537, Jane Seymour, the third wife of England’s King Henry VIII, died 12 days after giving birth to Prince Edward, later King Edward VI.
In 1861, the first transcontinental telegraph message was sent by Chief Justice Stephen J. Field of California from San Francisco to President Abraham Lincoln in Washington, D.C., over a line built by the Western Union Telegraph Co.
In 1931, the George Washington Bridge, connecting New York and New Jersey, was officially dedicated (it opened to traffic the next day).
In 1940, the 40-hour work week went into effect under the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938. In 1945, the United Nations officially came into existence as its charter took effect.
In 1952, Republican presidential candidate Dwight D. Eisenhower declared in Detroit, “I shall go to Korea” as he promised to end the conflict. (He made the visit over a month later.)
In 1962, a naval quarantine of Cuba ordered by President John F. Kennedy went into effect during the missile crisis.
In 1996, TyRon Lewis, 18, a Black motorist, was shot to death by police during a traffic stop in St. Petersburg, Florida; the incident sparked rioting. (Officer James Knight, who said that Lewis had lurched his car at him several times, knocking him onto the hood, was cleared by a grand jury and the Justice Department.)
In 2002, authorities apprehended John Allen Muhammad and teenager Lee Boyd Malvo near Myersville, Maryland, in the Washington-area sniper attacks. (Malvo was later sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole; Muhammad was sentenced to death and executed in 2009.) In 2005, civil rights icon Rosa Parks died in Detroit at age 92.
TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS: Rock musician Bill Wyman is 84. Actor F. Murray Abraham is 81. Movie directorscreenwriter David S. Ward is 75. Actor Kevin Kline is 73. Congressman and former NAACP President Kweisi Mfume is 72. Country musician Billy Thomas (Terry McBride and the Ride) is 67. Actor Doug Davidson is 66. Actor B.D. Wong is 60. Actor Zahn McClarnon is 54. Singer Michael Trent (Americana duo Shovels & Rope) is 43. Rock musician Ben Gillies (Silverchair) is 41. Singer-actor Monica Arnold and actorcomedian Casey Wilson are 40. R&B singer, actor and “The Real” co-host Adrienne Bailon Houghton is 37. Actor Tim Pocock is 35. R&B singer-rapperactor Drake is 34. Actor Ashton Sanders (Film: “Moonlight”) is 25. Olympic gold medal gymnast Kyla Ross is 24.