Today in History, Friday, Oct. 6, 2017Today is Tuesday, Oct. 10, the 283rd day of 2017. There are 82 days left in the year.
Today’s Highlight in History:
On Oct. 10, 1967, the Outer Space Treaty, prohibiting the placing of weapons of mass destruction on the moon or elsewhere in space, entered into force.
On this date:
In A.D. 19, Roman general Germanicus Julius Caesar, 33, died in Antioch under mysterious circumstances, possibly from poisoning.
In 732 at the Battle of Tours, a force commanded by Charles Martel defeats an army of the Umayyad Caliphate between Poitiers and Tours in western France.
In 1780, the Great Hurricane kills 20,000–30,000 in the Caribbean.
In 1913, the Panama Canal was effectively completed as U.S. President Woodrow Wilson sent a signal from the White House by telegraph, setting off explosives that destroyed a section of the Gamboa dike.
In 1935, the George Gershwin opera “Porgy and Bess,” featuring an all-black cast, opened on Broadway, beginning a run of 124 performances.
In 1938, Nazi Germany completed its annexation of Czechoslovakia’s Sudetenland.
In 1943, Chiang Kai-shek took the oath of office as president of China.
In 1957, the Windscale fire in Cumbria, U.K. is the world’s first major nuclear accident.
In 1966, the Beach Boys’ single “Good Vibrations” by Brian Wilson and Mike Love was released by Capitol Records.
In 1985, U.S. fighter jets forced an Egyptian plane carrying the hijackers of the Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro to land in Italy, where the gunmen were taken into custody. Actor-director Orson Welles died in Los Angeles at age 70; actor Yul Brynner died in New York at age 65.
In 1997, the International Campaign to Ban Landmines and its coordinator, Jody Williams, were named winners of the Nobel Peace Prize.
Today’s Birthdays:
Actor, director, and screenwriter Charles Dance is 73. Singer-musician Midge Ure is 64. Rock singer David Lee Roth is 63. Country singer Tanya Tucker is 59. Musician Martin Kemp is 56. English footballer and manager Tony Adams is 51. Russian pianist Evgeny Kissin is 46. Race driver Dale Earnhardt Jr. is 43.
Thought for Today:
“The imperceptible process of age has a point which, once passed, cannot be retraced. I knew I had passed that point and was getting old the day I noticed that all the cops looked so young.” — Harry Lewis Golden, American author, editor and publisher (1903-1981).
