TODAY IN HISTORY
TODAY IS THURSDAY, OCT. 14, the 287th day of 2021. There are 78 days left in the year. TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT IN HISTORY: On this date in 1947, U.S. Air Force Capt. Charles E. (“Chuck”) Yeager became the first test pilot to break the sound barrier as he flew the experimental Bell XS-1 (later X-1) rocket plane over Muroc Dry Lake in California. In 1066, Normans under William the Conqueror defeated the English at the Battle of Hastings. In 1586, Mary, Queen of Scots, went on trial in England, accused of committing treason against Queen Elizabeth I. (Mary was beheaded in February 1587.) In 1933, Nazi Germany announced it was withdrawing from the League of Nations. In 1939, a German U-boat torpedoed and sank the HMS Royal Oak, a British battleship anchored at Scapa Flow in Scotland’s Orkney Islands; 833 of the more than 1,200 men aboard were killed. In 1944, German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel took his own life rather than face trial and certain execution for allegedly conspiring against Adolf Hitler. In 1964, civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. was named winner of the Nobel Peace Prize. In 1968, the first successful live telecast from a manned U.S. spacecraft was transmitted from Apollo 7. In 1981, the new president of Egypt, Hosni Mubarak, was sworn in to succeed the assassinated Anwar Sadat. Mubarak pledged loyalty to Sadat’s policies. In 2001, as U.S. jets opened a second week of raids in Afghanistan, President George W. Bush sternly rejected a Taliban offer to discuss handing over Osama bin Laden to a third country. In 2008, a grand jury in Orlando, Florida, returned charges of first-degree murder, aggravated child abuse and aggravated manslaughter against Casey Anthony in the death of her 2-year-old daughter, Caylee. (She was acquitted in July 2011.) In 2014, a second nurse at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas came down with Ebola after contracting it from a dying patient. (The nurse, Amber Joy Vinson, was later declared free of the disease.) In 2017, a truck bombing in Somalia’s capital killed more than 500 people in one of the world’s deadliest attacks in years; officials blamed the attack on the extremist group al-Shabab and said it was meant to target Mogadishu’s international airport, but the bomb detonated in a crowded street after soldiers opened fire. TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS: Classical pianist Gary Graffman is 93. Movie director Carroll Ballard and country singer Melba Montgomery are 84. Fashion designer Ralph Lauren is 82. Singer Sir Cliff Richard is 81. Singer-musician Justin Hayward (The Moody Blues) is 75. Actor Greg Evigan is 68. TV personality Arleen Sorkin is 66. World Golf Hall-of-Famer Beth Daniel is 65. Singer-musician Thomas Dolby is 63. Actor Lori Petty is 58. Philadelphia Phillies manager Joe Girardi is 57. Actor Edward Kerr is 55. Actor Jon Seda is 51. Country singer Natalie Maines (The Chicks) is 47. Actor Stephen Hill is 45. Singer Usher is 43. TV personality Stacy Keibler is 42. Actor Ben Whishaw is 41. Director Benh Zeitlin is 39. Actor Skyler Shaye is 35. Actor-comedian Jay Pharoah is 34. Actor Max Thieriot is 33.