Today is Monday, Oct. 10, the 283rd day of 2005. There are 82 days left in the year. This is Columbus Day in the U.S., as well as Thanksgiving Day in Canada.
Today’s Highlight in History:
On Oct. 10, 1845, the U.S. Naval Academy opened in Annapolis, Md.
On this date:
In 1911, revolutionaries under Sun Yat-sen overthrew China’s Manchu dynasty.
In 1935, George Gershwin’s opera “Porgy and Bess” opened on Broadway.
In 1938, Germany completed its annexation of Czechoslovakia’s Sudetenland.
In 1943, Chiang Kai-shek took the oath of office as president of China.
In 1964, the 18th Summer Olympic Games opened in Tokyo.
In 1970, Quebec Labor Minister Pierre Laporte was kidnapped by the Quebec Liberation Front, a militant separatist group. (Laporte’s body was found about a week later.)
In 1973, Vice President Spiro T. Agnew, accused of accepting bribes, pleaded no contest to one count of federal income tax evasion, and resigned his office.
In 1978, President Carter signed a bill authorizing the Susan B. Anthony dollar.
In 1981, funeral services were held in Cairo for Egyptian leader Anwar Sadat, who had been assassinated by Muslim extremists.
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.
Ten years ago: University of Chicago professor Robert E. Lucas won the Nobel Prize in economics for demonstrating how people’s fears and expectations can frustrate policymakers’ efforts to shape the economy. World chess champion Garry Kasparov won a monthlong championship match against Viswanathan Anand.
Five years ago: Americans Alan J. Heeger, Alan G. MacDiarmid and Japan’s Hideki Shirakawa won the Nobel Prize in chemistry; Russian Zhores I. Alferov and U.S.-based researchers Herbert Kroemer and Jack Kilby won the Nobel Prize in physics. Jo Myong Rok, the highest-level North Korean official to visit Washington to date, met with President Clinton at the White House.
One year ago: Christopher Reeve, the “Superman” of celluloid who became a quadriplegic after a May 1995 horse riding accident, died in Mount Kisco, N.Y., at age 52. Ken Caminiti, the National League’s 1996 most valuable player who later admitted using steroids during his major league baseball career, died in New York at age 41.
Today’s Birthdays: Playwright Harold Pinter is 75. Former Illinois Sen. Adlai Stevenson III is 75. Actor Peter Coyote is 63. Entertainer Ben Vereen is 59. Singer John Prine is 59. Actor Charles Dance is 59. Rock singer-musician Cyril Neville (The Neville Brothers) is 57. Actress Jessica Harper is 56. Singer-musician Midge Ure is 52. Singer David Lee Roth is 50. Country singer Tanya Tucker is 47. Actress Julia Sweeney is 46. Actor Bradley Whitford (“The West Wing”) is 46. Musician Martin Kemp is 44. Rock musician Jim Glennie (James) is 42. Actress Rebecca Pidgeon is 40. Rock musician Mike Malinin (Goo Goo Dolls) is 38. Actor Mario Lopez is 32. Actress Jodi Lyn O’Keefe is 27. Singer Mya is 26. Singer Cherie is 21.
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).