TODAY IN HISTORY

Today is Tuesday, Oct. 18, the 291st day of 2022. There are 74 days left in the year. On this date in:

1648: Boston shoemakers were authorized to form a guild to protect their interests; it’s the first American labor organization on record.

1867: The United States took formal possession of Alaska from Russia.

1892: The first long-distance telephone line between New York and Chicago was officially opened.

1898: The American flag was raised in Puerto Rico shortly before Spain formally relinquished control of the island to the U.S.

1954: Texas Instruments unveiled the Regency TR-1, the first commercially produced transistor radio.

1968: The U.S. Olympic Committee suspended Tommie Smith and John Carlos for giving a “Black power” salute as a protest during a victory ceremony in Mexico City.

1972: Congress passed the Clean Water Act, overriding President Richard Nixon’s veto.

1977: West German commandos stormed a hijacked Lufthansa jetliner on the ground in Mogadishu, Somalia, freeing all 86 hostages and killing three of the four hijackers.

2001: CBS News announced that an employee in anchorman Dan Rather’s office had tested positive for skin anthrax.

2010: Four men snared in an FBI sting were convicted of plotting to blow up New York City synagogues and shoot down military planes with the help of a paid informant who’d convinced them he was a terror operative. (James Cromitie, David Williams, Onta Williams and Laguerre Payen were each sentenced to 25 years in prison.)

2012: The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York ruled that a federal law defining marriage as a union between a man and a woman was unconstitutional. (The following June, the Supreme Court would use that case to strike down provisions keeping legally-married same-sex couples from receiving federal benefits that were otherwise available to married couples.)