TODAY IN HISTORY

MONDAY OCT 18, 2021 1962

James D. Watson, Francis Crick and Maurice Wilkins were honored with the Nobel Prize for Medicine and Physiology for determining the double-helix molecular structure of DNA.

1767

The Mason-dixon line, the boundary between colonial Pennsylvania, Maryland and Delaware, was set as astronomers Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon completed their survey.

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.

1961

The movie musical “West Side Story,” starring Natalie Wood and Richard Beymer, premiered in New York, the film’s setting.

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.

1969

The federal government banned artificial sweeteners known as cyclamates because of evidence they caused cancer in laboratory rats.

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 86hostages and killing three of the four hijackers.

1997

A monument honoring American servicewomen, past and present, was dedicated at Arlington National Cemetery.