TODAY IN HISTORY

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT Oct. 31, 1941

The Navy destroyer USS Reuben James was torpedoed by a German U-boat off Iceland with the loss of some 100 lives, even though the United States had not yet entered World War II.

ON THIS DATE 1941

Work was completed on the Mount Rushmore National Memorial in South Dakota, that begun in 1927.

1959

A U.S. Marine reservist showed up at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow to declare he was renouncing his American citizenship so he could live in the Soviet Union. His name: Lee Harvey Oswald.

1968

President Lyndon B. Johnson ordered a halt to all U.S. bombing of North Vietnam, saying he hoped for fruitful peace negotiations.