Today in history

On Oct. 4, 1777, George Washington’s troops launched an assault on the British at Germantown, Pa., resulting in heavy American casualties.

In 1822 the nation’s 19th president, Rutherford Hayes, was born in Delaware, Ohio.

In 1861 Frederic Remington, a sculptor and illustrator who specialized in Western themes, was born in Canton, N.Y.

In 1895 the first U.S. Open golf tournament was held at Newport Country Club in Rhode Island.

In 1931 the comic strip “Dick Tracy,” created by Chester Gould, made its debut.

In 1940 Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini conferred at Brenner Pass in the Alps, where the Nazi leader sought Italy’s help in fighting the British.

In 1957 the Space Age began as the Soviet Union launched Sputnik, the first man-made satellite, into orbit.

In 1958 the first transAtlantic passenger jetliner service was begun by British Overseas Airways Corp. with flights between London and New York.

In 1965 Pope Paul VI became the first reigning pontiff to visit the Western Hemisphere as he addressed the U.N. General Assembly.

In 1970 rock singer Janis Joplin was found dead in Hollywood; she was 27.

In 1976 agriculture secretary Earl Butz resigned in the wake of a controversy over a joke he had made about blacks.

In 1978 funeral services were held at the Vatican for Pope John Paul I.

In 1985 Islamic Jihad issued a statement saying it had killed American hostage William Buckley. (Fellow hostage David Jacobsen, however, later said he believed Buckley had died of torture injuries four months earlier.)

In 1990 for the first time in nearly six decades, German lawmakers met in the Reichstag for the first meeting of reunified Germany’s parliament.

In 1993 dozens of cheering Somalis dragged the body of an American soldier through the streets of Mogadishu.

In 1996 a judge in Philadelphia issued an injunction preventing Major League Baseball umpires from striking for the remainder of the postseason over an incident in which Roberto Alomar of the Baltimore Orioles spat on umpire John Hirschbeck.

In 2001 authorities confirmed that a photo editor at the supermarket tabloid The Sun in Boca Raton, Fla., had contracted the inhaled form of anthrax; he died the following day.

In 2004 the SpaceShipOne rocket plane broke through Earth’s atmosphere to the edge of space for the second time in five days, capturing the $10 million Ansari X prize aimed at opening the final frontier to tourists. Also in 2004 pioneering astronaut Gordon Cooper died in Ventura, Calif.; he was 77.

In 2016 at least 1,000 people were killed when Hurricane Matthew slammed into Haiti’s rural southwestern tip with howling 145 mph winds.