Today is Wednesday, Oct. 2, the 275th day of 2019.
Today’s Highlight in History:
On Oct. 2, 1967, Thurgood Marshall was sworn as an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court as the court opened its new term.
On this date:
In 1919, President Woodrow Wilson suffered a serious stroke at the White House that left him paralyzed on his left side.
In 1941, during World War II, German armies launched an all-out drive against Moscow; Soviet forces succeeded in holding onto their capital.
In 1944, German troops crushed the two-month-old Warsaw Uprising, during which a quarter of a million people had been killed.
In 1950, the comic strip “Peanuts,” created by Charles M. Schulz, was syndicated to seven newspapers.
In 1970, one of two chartered twin-engine planes flying the Wichita State University football team to Utah crashed into a mountain near Silver Plume, Colorado, killing 31 of the 40 people on board.
In 1971, the music program “Soul Train” made its debut in national syndication.
In 1984, Richard W. Miller became the first FBI agent to be arrested and charged with espionage. (Miller was tried three times; he was sentenced to 20 years in prison, but was released after nine years.)
In 1985, actor Rock Hudson, 59, died at his home in Beverly Hills, California, after battling AIDS.
In 2002, the Washington, D.C.-area sniper attacks began, setting off a frantic manhunt lasting three weeks. (John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo were finally arrested for killing 10 people and wounding three others; Muhammad was executed in 2009; Malvo was sentenced to life in prison.)
In 2005, a tour boat, the Ethan Allen, capsized on New York’s Lake George, killing 20 elderly passengers. Playwright August Wilson died in Seattle at age 60. Actor-comedian Nipsey Russell died in New York at age 87.
In 2013, a jury in Los Angeles cleared a concert promoter of negligence, rejecting a lawsuit brought by Michael Jackson’s mother claiming AEG Live had been negligent in hiring Conrad Murray, the doctor who killed the pop star with an overdose of a hospital anesthetic.
In 2017, rock superstar Tom Petty died at a Los Angeles hospital at the age of 66, a day after suffering cardiac arrest at his home in Malibu, California.
Ten years ago: The International Olympic Committee, meeting in Copenhagen, chose Rio de Janeiro to be the site of the 2016 Summer Olympics; Chicago was eliminated in the first round, despite a last-minute in-person appeal by President Barack Obama. A man accused of stalking ESPN reporter Erin Andrews and secretly videotaping her inside her hotel room was arrested at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport. (Michael David Barrett later pleaded guilty to interstate stalking and was sentenced to 2 1/2 years in federal prison.)
Five years ago: President Barack Obama acknowledged his pivotal role in the midterm political campaign, arguing in a speech at Northwestern University that the November congressional elections were a referendum on his economic policies and blaming Republicans for blocking his efforts to boost wages and create more jobs. Hong Kong’s embattled leader, Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying, refused demands by pro-democracy protesters to step down.
One year ago: President Donald Trump ignited a crowd at a campaign rally in Mississippi by mocking Christine Blasey Ford over her claim that she had been sexually assaulted by Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh decades ago; Trump also said it’s a “very scary time for young men in America” who could be considered guilty based on an accusation. The New York Times reported that Trump had received at least $413 million from his father over the decades, much of it through dubious tax dodges including outright fraud; a lawyer for Trump told the Times that there was no “fraud or tax evasion.” Amazon announced a minimum wage of $15 an hour for its U.S. employees. (Some longtime workers said the higher pay wouldn’t make up for benefits they were losing.)
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