Today in History
Today is Saturday, Oct. 8, the 281st day of 2022. There are 84 days left in the year.
Today’s Highlight in History:
On Oct. 8, 1871, the Great Chicago Fire erupted; fires also broke out in Peshtigo, Wisconsin, and in several communities in Michigan.
On this date:
In 1914, the World War I song “Keep the Home Fires Burning,” by Ivor Novello and Lena Guilbert Ford, was first published in London under the title ”‘Till the Boys Come Home.”
In 1945, President Harry S. Truman told a press conference in Tiptonville, Tennessee, that the secret scientific knowledge behind the atomic bomb would be shared only with Britain and Canada.
In 1956, Don Larsen pitched the only perfect game in a World Series to date as the New York Yankees beat the Brooklyn Dodgers in Game 5, 2-0.
In 1982, all labor organizations in Poland, including Solidarity, were banned.
In 1985, the hijackers of the Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro (ah-kee’-leh Low’-roh) killed American passenger Leon Klinghoffer, who was in a wheelchair, and threw his body overboard.
In 1997, scientists reported the Mars Pathfinder had yielded what could be the strongest evidence yet that Mars might once have been hospitable to life.
In 1998, the House triggered an open-ended impeachment inquiry against President Bill Clinton in a momentous 258-176 vote; 31 Democrats joined majority Republicans in opening the way for nationally televised impeachment hearings.
In 2002, a federal judge approved President George W. Bush’s request to reopen West Coast ports, ending a 10-day labor lockout that was costing the U.S. economy an estimated $1 to $2 billion a day.
In 2005, a magnitude 7.6 earthquake flattened villages on the Pakistan-india border, killing an estimated 86,000 people.
In 2010, British aid worker Linda Norgrove, who’d been taken captive in Afghanistan, was killed during a U.S. special forces rescue attempt, apparently by a U.S. grenade.
In 2016, Donald Trump vowed on Twitter to continue his campaign; many Republicans were calling on Trump to abandon his presidential bid in the wake of the release of a 2005 video in which he made lewd remarks about women and appeared to condone sexual assault.
In 2020, authorities in Michigan said six men had been charged with conspiring to kidnap Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in reaction to what they viewed as her “uncontrolled power.” (Two of the six pleaded guilty, two others were acquitted and the remaining two were convicted at a retrial in August 2022.) Democrat Joe Biden said President Donald Trump’s tweet earlier in the year to “LIBERATE MICHIGAN” may have encouraged the alleged kidnapping plot.
Ten years ago: President Barack Obama designated the Keene, California, home of Cesar Chavez, the late founder of the United Farmworkers Union, as a national monument.
Five years ago: Harvey Weinstein was fired from The Weinstein Company amid allegations that he was responsible for decades of sexual harassment against female actors and employees. Vice President Mike Pence left the 49ers-colts game in Indianapolis after about a dozen San Francisco players took a knee during the national anthem; Pence tweeted that he wouldn’t “dignify any event that disrespects our soldiers, our Flag or our National Anthem.”
One year ago: The White House said President Joe Biden would not block the handover of documents sought by a House panel investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. Federal prosecutors announced that they would not file charges against a white police officer who shot a Black man, Jacob Blake, in Wisconsin in August 2020. A federal appeals court allowed the nation’s toughest abortion law to go back into effect in Texas; the order came just one day after a lower court sided with the Biden administration and suspended the law. Journalists Maria Ressa of the Philippines and Dmitry Muratov of Russia won the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize for their fight for freedom of expression in countries where reporters faced persistent attacks, harassment and even murder.
Today’s Birthdays: Entertainment reporter Rona Barrett is 86. Actor Paul Hogan is 83. R&B singer Fred Cash (The Impressions) is 82. Civil rights activist Rev. Jesse Jackson is 81. Comedian Chevy Chase is 79. Author R.L. Stine is 79. Actor Dale Dye is 78. Country singer Susan Raye is 78. TV personality Sarah Purcell is 74. R&B singer Airrion Love (The Stylistics) is 73. Actor Sigourney Weaver is 73. R&B singer Robert “Kool” Bell (Kool & the Gang) is 72. Producer-director Edward Zwick is 70. Actor Michael Dudikoff is 68. Comedian Darrell Hammond is 67. Actor Stephanie Zimbalist is 66. Actor Kim Wayans is 61. Rock singer Steve Perry (Cherry Poppin’ Daddies) is 59. Actor Ian Hart is 58. Gospel/r&b singer Cece Winans is 58. Rock musician C.J. Ramone (The Ramones) is 57. Actor-producer Karyn Parsons is 56. Singer-producer Teddy Riley is 56. Actor Emily Procter is 54. Actor Dylan Neal is 53. Actor-screenwriter Matt Damon is 52. Actor-comedian Robert Kelly is 52. The mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, is 52. Actor Martin Henderson is 48. Actor Kristanna Loken is 43. Rock-soul singer-musician Noelle Scaggs (Fitz and the Tantrums) is 43. Actor Nick Cannon is 42. Actor J.R. Ramirez is 42. Actor Max Crumm is 37. Singer-songwriter-producer Bruno Mars is 37. Actor Angus T. Jones is 29. Actor Molly Quinn is 29. Actor/ singer Bella Thorne is 25.
Today is Sunday, Oct. 9, the 282nd day of 2022. There are 83 days left in the year.
Today’s Highlight in History:
On Oct. 9, 2009, President Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize for what the Norwegian Nobel Committee called “his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples.”
On this date:
In 1888, the public was first admitted to the Washington Monument.
In 1910, a coal dust explosion at the Starkville Mine in Colorado left 56 miners dead.
In 1936, the first generator at Boulder (later Hoover) Dam began transmitting electricity to Los Angeles.
In 1946, the Eugene O’neill drama “The Iceman Cometh” opened at the Martin Beck Theater in New York.
In 1962, Uganda won autonomy from British rule.
In 1967, Marxist revolutionary guerrilla leader Che Guevara, 39, was summarily executed by the Bolivian army a day after his capture.
In 1975, Soviet scientist Andrei Sakharov (Ahn’-dray Sahk’-ah-rawf) was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
In 1985, the hijackers of the Achille Lauro (ah-kee’-leh Low’-roh) cruise liner surrendered two days after seizing the vessel in the Mediterranean. (Passenger Leon Klinghoffer was killed by the hijackers during the standoff.)
In 2001, in the first daylight raids since the start of U.s.-led attacks on Afghanistan, jets bombed the Taliban stronghold of Kandahar. Letters postmarked in Trenton, New Jersey, were sent to Sens. Tom Daschle and Patrick Leahy; the letters later tested positive for anthrax.
In 2004, a tour bus from the Chicago area flipped in Arkansas, killing 15 people headed to a Mississippi casino.
In 2006, Google Inc. announced it was snapping up Youtube Inc. for $1.65 billion in a stock deal.
In 2010, Chile’s 33 trapped miners cheered and embraced each other as a drill punched into their underground chamber where they had been stuck for an agonizing 66 days.
Ten years ago: Former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky was sentenced in Bellefonte, Pennsylvania, to 30 to 60 years in prison following his June 2012 conviction on 45 counts of sexual abuse of boys. Future Nobel peace laureate Malala Yousufzai (mah-lah’-lah yoo-soof’-zeye), a 15-year-old Pakistani girl who had dared to advocate education for girls and criticize the Taliban, was shot and seriously wounded by a militant gunman.
Five years ago: Declaring, “The war on coal is over,” EPA chief Scott Pruitt said he would sign a new rule overriding the Clean Power Plan, an effort from the Obama administration to limit carbon emissions from coal-fired power plants. ESPN suspended anchor Jemele Hill for two weeks for making political statements on social media; Hill had referred to President Donald Trump as a “white supremacist” in a series of tweets. The bodies of 100-year-old Charles Rippey and his 98-year-old wife Sara were found in the ruins of their Northern California home; they were among the victims of two deadly wildfires in the region.
One year ago: Jonathan Toebbe, a Navy nuclear engineer with access to military secrets, was arrested in West Virginia along with his wife Diana; the Justice Department said Toebbe was charged with trying to pass information about the design of American nuclear-powered submarines to someone he thought represented a foreign government but who turned out to be an undercover FBI agent. (The couple withdrew guilty pleas in August 2022 after a judge rejected plea agreements; they are awaiting trial.) Texas A&M stunned top-ranked Alabama 41-38 to end the Crimson Tide’s winning streak at 19 games. California became the first state to say large department stores must display products like toys and toothbrushes in gender-neutral ways.
Today’s Birthdays: Retired MLB All-star Joe Pepitone is 82. Former Sen. Trent Lott, R-miss., is 81. C-SPAN founder Brian Lamb is 81. R&B singer Nona Hendryx is 78. Singer Jackson Browne is 74. Nobel Peace laureate Jody Williams is 72. Actor Gary Frank is 72. Actor Richard Chaves is 71. Actor Robert Wuhl is 71. Actor-tv personality Sharon Osbourne is 70. Actor Tony Shalhoub is 69. Actor Scott Bakula is 68. Musician James Fearnley (The Pogues) is 68. Actor John O’hurley is 68. Writer-producer-director-actor Linwood Boomer is 67. Pro and College Football Hall of Famer Mike Singletary is 64. Actor Michael Paré is 64. Jazz musician Kenny Garrett is 62. Rock singer-musician Kurt Neumann (The Bodeans) is 61. Movie director Guillermo del Toro is 58. Former British Prime Minister David Cameron is 56. Singer P.J. Harvey is 53. Movie director Steve Mcqueen (Film: “12 Years a Slave”) is 53. World Golf Hall of Famer Annika Sorenstam is 52. Actor Cocoa Brown is 50. Country singer Tommy Shane Steiner is 49. Actor Steve Burns is 49. Rock singer Sean Lennon is 47. Actor Randy Spelling is 44.