This day in history
Today is Saturday, Oct. 14, the 287th day of 2023. There are 78 days left in the year.
▶ Birthdays: Classical pianist Gary Graffman is 95. Movie director Carroll Ballard is 86. Country singer Melba Montgomery is 86. Former White House counsel John W. Dean III is 85. Fashion designer Ralph Lauren is 84. Singer Sir Cliff Richard is
83. Singer-musician Justin Hayward (The Moody Blues) is 77. Actor Greg Evigan is 70. World Golf Hall of Famer Beth Daniel is
67. Singer-musician Thomas Dolby is 65. Actor Lori Petty is
60. Former MLB player and manager Joe Girardi is 59. Actor Steve Coogan is 58. Singer Karyn White is 58. Actor Edward Kerr is 57. Actor Jon Seda is 53. Country singer Natalie Maines (The Chicks) is 49. Singer Usher is 45. TV personality Stacy Keibler is 44.
Actor Ben Whishaw is 43. Actor-comedian Jay Pharoah is
36. Actor Max Thieriot is 35.
▶ In 1066, Normans under William the Conqueror defeated the English at the Battle of Hastings.
▶ In 1933, Nazi Germany announced it was withdrawing from the League of Nations.
▶ In 1939, a German U-boat torpedoed and sank the HMS Royal Oak, a British battleship anchored at Scapa Flow in Scotland’s Orkney Islands; 833 of the more than 1,200 men aboard were killed.
▶ In 1944, German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel took his own life rather than face trial and certain execution for allegedly conspiring against Hitler.
▶ In 1947, US Air Force Captain Chuck Yeager became the first test pilot to break the sound barrier as he flew the experimental Bell XS-1 rocket plane over Muroc Dry Lake in California.
▶ In 1964, Soviet leader Nikita S. Khrushchev was toppled from power; he was succeeded by Leonid Brezhnev as First Secretary and by Alexei Kosygin as Premier; civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. was named winner of the Nobel Peace Prize.
▶ In 1981, Egypt’s new president, Hosni Mubarak, was sworn in to succeed the assassinated Anwar Sadat. Mubarak pledged loyalty to Sadat’s policies.
▶ In 1986, Holocaust survivor and human rights advocate Elie Wiesel was named winner of the Nobel Peace Prize.
▶ In 1990, composer-conductor Leonard Bernstein died in New York at 72.
▶ In 2012, retired Air Force Brigadier General Chuck Yeager, at the age of 89, marked the 65th anniversary of his supersonic flight by smashing through the sound barrier again, this time in the backseat of an F-15.
▶ In 2016, a judge in Connecticut dismissed a wrongfuldeath lawsuit by Newtown families against the maker of the rifle used in the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting massacre, citing a federal law that shielded gun manufacturers from most lawsuits over criminal use of their products.
▶ In 2017, a truck bombing in Somalia’s capital killed more than 500 people in one of the world’s deadliest attacks in years.
▶ In 2018, Saudi Arabia threatened to retaliate for any sanctions imposed on it over the disappearance and suspected murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.