TODAY IN HISTORY
Today is Wednesday, Oct. 29, the 302nd day of 2014. There are 63 days left in the year.
Today’s Highlight in History:
On Oct. 29, 1964, thieves made off with the Star of India and other gems from the American Museum of Natural History in New York. (The Star and most of the other gems were recovered; three men were convicted of stealing them.)
On this date:
In 1787, the opera “Don Giovanni” by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart had its world premiere in Prague.
In 1929, Wall Street crashed on “Black Tuesday,” heralding the start of America’s Great Depression.
In 1956, during the Suez Canal crisis, Israel invaded Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula. “The Huntley-Brinkley Report” premiered as NBC’s nightly television newscast.
In 1966, the National Organization for Women was formally organized during a conference in Washington, D.C.
In 1987, jazz great Woody Herman died in Los Angeles at age 74.
In 1994, Francisco Martin Duran fired more than two dozen shots from a semiautomatic rifle at the White House. (Duran was later convicted of trying to assassinate President Bill Clinton and was sentenced to 40 years in prison.)
In 1998, Sen. John Glenn, at age 77, roared back into space aboard the shuttle Discovery, retracing the trail he’d blazed for
America’s astronauts 36 years earlier.
In 2012, Superstorm Sandy came ashore in New Jersey and slowly marched inland, devastating coastal communities and causing widespread power outages; the storm and its aftermath are blamed for at least 182 deaths in the U.S.
Ten years ago: Four days before Election Day in the U.S., Osama bin Laden, in a videotaped statement, directly admitted for the first time that he’d ordered the September 11 attacks and told Americans “the best way to avoid another Manhattan” was to stop threatening Muslims’ security. A seriously ill Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat was flown from the West Bank to Paris for medical treatment (he died less than two weeks later). European Union leaders signed the EU’s first constitution. Comedian Vaughn Meader, who’d gained fame doing satirical impressions of President John F. Kennedy, died in Auburn, Maine, at age 68.
Five years ago: President Barack Obama paid a post-midnight visit to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware to honor the return of 18 soldiers killed in Afghanistan. A Coast Guard C-130 plane and a Marine Cobra helicopter collided off the Southern California coast, killing seven Coast Guard members and two Marines. Deposed President Manuel Zelaya and his opponents agreed to a U.S.-brokered deal to end the power crisis that had paralyzed Honduras following a coup.
One year ago: Medicare chief Marilyn Tavenner, whose agency oversaw the “Obamacare” enrollment website, apologized to Congress for the severe technical problems that marred the online rollout of President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul. The U.N. confirmed an outbreak of polio in Syria for the first time in over a decade, warning the disease threatened to spread among an estimated half a million children who had never been immunized because of the civil war.
Today’s Birthdays: Actor Richard Dreyfuss is 67. Actress Kate Jackson is 66. Actor Dan Castellaneta (TV: “The Simpsons”) is 57. Singer Randy Jackson is 53. Rock musician Peter Timmins (Cowboy Junkies) is 49. Actress Joely Fisher is 47. Actress Winona Ryder is 43. Olympic gold medal bobsledder Vonetta Flowers is 41. Actress Milena Govich is 38. Actress India Eisley is 21.
Thought for Today: “Numerous politicians have seized absolute power and muzzled the press. Never in history has the press seized absolute power and muzzled the politicians.”—David Brinkley, American broadcast journalist (1920-2003).