Today is Sunday, Oct. 8, the 281st day of 2017. There are 84 days left in the year.
Today’s Highlight in History:
On Oct. 8, 1871, the Great Chicago Fire erupted; fires also broke out in Peshtigo, Wisconsin, and in several communities in Michigan.
On this date:
In 1200, Isabella of Angoulême is crowned Queen consort of England.
In 1480, the Great stand on the Ugra river takes place, a standoff between the forces of Akhmat Khan, Khan of the Great Horde, and the Grand Duke Ivan III of Russia, which results in the retreat of the Tataro-Mongols and the eventual disintegration of the Horde.
In 1829, Stephenson’s The Rocket wins the Rainhill steam engine trials in northern England.
In 1856, the Second Opium War between several western powers and China begins with the Arrow Incident on the Pearl River.
In 1912, the first Balkan War begins: Montenegro declares war against the Ottoman Empire.
In 1945, President Harry S. Truman told a press conference in Tiptonville, Tennessee, that the secret scientific knowledge behind the atomic bomb would be shared only with Britain and Canada.
In 1967, Guerrilla leader Che Guevara and his men are captured in Bolivia.
In 1970, Soviet author Alexander Solzhenitsyn was named winner of the Nobel Prize for literature.
In 1982, all labor organizations in Poland, including Solidarity, were banned.
In 1998, the U.S. House triggered an open-ended impeachment inquiry against President Bill Clinton in a momentous 258-176 vote.
In 2001, an SAS airliner taking off from Milan, Italy, hit a private jet, careened into an airport building and exploded; all 110 people on the MD-87, four people in the private jet and four people on the ground were killed.
In 2005, a magnitude 7.6 earthquake flattened villages on the Pakistan-India border, killing an estimated 86,000 people.
Today’s Birthdays: Actor Paul Hogan is 78. Rhythm-and-blues singer Fred Cash (The Impressions) is 77. Civil rights activist Rev. Jesse Jackson is 76. Comedian Chevy Chase is 74. Actress Sigourney Weaver is 68. Rhythm-and-blues singer Robert “Kool” Bell (Kool & the Gang) is 67. Producer-director Edward Zwick is 65. Rock musician C.J. Ramone (The Ramones) is 52. Actor-screenwriter Matt Damon is 47. The mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, is 47. Singer-songwriter-producer Bruno Mars is 32.
Thought for Today: “History is the propaganda of the victors.” — Ernst Toller, German poet and dramatist (1893-1939).
