Today is Friday, Oct. 9, the 283rd day of 2020. There are 83 days left in the year.
Today’s Highlight in History:
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- On Oct. 9, 1936, the first generator at Boulder (later Hoover) Dam began transmitting electricity to Los Angeles.
On this date:
- In 1888, the public was first admitted to the Washington Monument.
- In 1910, a coal dust explosion at the Starkville Mine in Colorado left 56 miners dead.
- In 1914, the Belgian city of Antwerp fell to German forces during World War I.
- In 1967, Marxist revolutionary guerrilla leader Che Guevara, 39, was summarily executed by the Bolivian army a day after his capture.
- In 1974, businessman Oskar Schindler, credited with saving about 1,200 Jews during the Holocaust, died in Frankfurt, West Germany (at his request, he was buried in Jerusalem).
- In 1985, the hijackers of the Achille Lauro cruise liner surrendered two days after seizing the vessel in the Mediterranean. (Passenger Leon Klinghoffer was killed by the hijackers during the standoff.)
- In 2001, in the first daylight raids since the start of U.S.-led attacks on Afghanistan, jets bombed the Taliban stronghold of Kandahar. Letters postmarked in Trenton, N.J., were sent to Sens. Tom Daschle and Patrick Leahy; the letters later tested positive for anthrax.
- In 2009, President Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize for what the Norwegian Nobel Committee called “his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples.”
Today’s Birthdays:
Retired MLB All-Star Joe Pepitone is 80. C-SPAN founder Brian Lamb is 79. Rhythm-and-blues singer Nona Hendryx is 76. Singer Jackson Browne is 72. Nobel Peace laureate Jody Williams is 70. Actor Gary Frank is 70. Actor-TV personality Sharon Osbourne is 68. Actor Tony Shalhoub is 67. Actor Scott Bakula is 66. Pro and College Football Hall of Famer Mike Singletary is 62. Movie director Guillermo del Toro is 56. Former British Prime Minister David Cameron is 54. Singer P.J. Harvey is 51. Movie director Steve McQueen (Film: “12 Years a Slave”) is 51. World Golf Hall of Famer Annika Sorenstam is 50. Actor Cocoa Brown is 48. Country singer Tommy Shane Steiner is 47. Actor Steve Burns is 47. Rock singer Sean Lennon is 45. Actor Randy Spelling is 42. Christian hip-hop artist Lecrae is 41. Actor Brandon Routh is 41. Actor Zachery Ty Bryan is 39. Actor Spencer Grammer is 37. Comedian Melissa Villasenor (TV: “Saturday Night Live”) is 33. Actor Tyler James Williams is 28. Country singer Scotty McCreery (TV: “American Idol”) is 27. Actor Jharrel Jerome is 23.