Today is Tuesday, Oct. 2, the 275th day of 2018. There are 90 days left in the year.
Today’s Highlight in History:
On Oct. 2, 1944, German troops crushed the two-month-old Warsaw Uprising, during which a quarter of a million people had been killed.
On this date:
In 1780, British spy John Andre was hanged in Tappan, New York, during the Revolutionary War.
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 1950, the comic strip “Peanuts,” created by Charles M. Schulz, was syndicated to seven newspapers.
In 1967, Thurgood Marshall was sworn as an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court as the court opened its new term.
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 1986, the Senate joined the House in voting to override President Reagan’s veto of stiff economic sanctions against South Africa.
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 2006, an armed milk truck driver took a group of girls hostage in an Amish schoolhouse in Nickel Mines, Pa., killing five of them and wounding five others before committing suicide.
Ten years ago: Republican Sarah Palin and Democrat Joe Biden sparred over taxes, energy policy and the Iraq war in a high-profile vice-presidential debate at Washington University in St. Louis, in which Palin sought to reclaim her identity as a spirited reformer and Biden tried to undercut the maverick image of GOP presidential hopeful John McCain. More than a year after millionaire adventure Steve Fossett vanished on a solo flight over California’s rugged Sierra Nevada, searchers found the wreckage of his plane but no body inside. (Fossett’s remains were discovered in late Oct. 2008.)
Five years ago: President Barack Obama met privately with congressional leaders at the White House for the first time since a partial government shutdown began, but there was no sign of progress toward ending the impasse. Overloaded websites and jammed phone lines frustrated consumers for a second day as they tried to sign up for coverage using new health insurance exchanges. 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.
One year ago: Hours after the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history, President Donald Trump condemned the Las Vegas shooting that left 58 dead as an “act of pure evil.” 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. The trial of Ahmed Abu Khattala, described as the mastermind of the 2012 attacks on a U.S. outpost in Benghazi, Libya, that left four Americans dead, got under way in Washington. (Khattala would be convicted of terrorism-related charges and sentenced to 22 years in prison.) Three Americans were awarded the Nobel Prize in medicine for discovering key genetic “gears” of the body’s 24-hour biological clock.
Today’s Birthdays: Country singer-musician Leon Rausch (Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys) is 91. Retired MLB All-Star Maury Wills is 86. Movie critic Rex Reed is 80. Singer-songwriter Don McLean is 73. Cajun/country singer Jo-el Sonnier (sahn-YAY’) is 72. Actor Avery Brooks is 70. Fashion designer Donna Karan is 70. Photographer Annie Leibovitz is 69. Rock musician Mike Rutherford (Genesis, Mike & the Mechanics) is 68. Singer-actor Sting is 67. Actress Robin Riker is 66. Actress Lorraine Bracco is 64. Country musician Greg Jennings (Restless Heart) is 64. Rock singer Phil Oakey (The Human League) is 63. Rhythm-and-blues singer Freddie Jackson is 62. Singer-producer Robbie Nevil is 60. Retro-soul singer James Hunter is 56. Former NFL quarterback Mark Rypien is 56. Rock musician Bud Gaugh (Sublime, Eyes Adrift) is 51. Folk-country singer Gillian Welch is 51. Country singer Kelly Willis is 50. Actor Joey Slotnick is 50. Rhythm-and-blues singer Dion Allen (Az Yet) is 48. Actress-talk show host Kelly Ripa (TV: “Live with Kelly and Ryan”) is 48. Singer Tiffany is 47. Rock singer Lene Nystrom is 45. Actor Efren Ramirez is 45. Rhythm-and-blues singer LaTocha Scott (Xscape) is 45. Gospel singer Mandisa (TV: “American Idol”) is 42. Actress Brianna Brown is 39. Rock musician Mike Rodden (Hinder) is 36. Tennis player Marion Bartoli is 34. Actor Christopher Larkin is 31. Rock singer Brittany Howard (Alabama Shakes) is 30. Actress Samantha Barks is 28. Actress Elizabeth McLaughlin is 25.
Thought for Today: “The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.” — Mohandas K. Gandhi, Indian political and spiritual leader (born this date in 1869, died 1948).
