This Day in History – October 15
Today is the 288th day of 2013. There are 77 days left in the year.
TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT
1989: Thousands of blacks hold “victory marches” in South Africa to celebrate the imminent release of eight political prisoners, including Walter Sisulu.
OTHER EVENTS
1583: The Gregorian calendar goes into effect in the Papal States by decree of Pope Gregory XIII and is soon adopted in other countries.
1928: German dirigible Graf Zeppelin makes the first commercial flight across the Atlantic Ocean, landing at Lakehurst, New Jersey, in the US.
1946: Former head of the Nazi air force, Hermann Goering, sentenced to death as a war criminal, commits suicide by poison hours before his scheduled execution.
1951: The situation comedy I Love Lucy starring Lucille Ball premieres in the United States on CBS television.
1965: The first draft card is burned in the United States as an anti-Vietnam War protest.
1969: Somalia’s President Abdirashid Ali Shermarke is assassinated.
1987: Fiji’s governor general resigns, ending decade of allegiance by the South Pacific island to British crown.
1990: Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev is awarded Nobel Peace Prize.
1992: Andrei Chikatilo is sentenced to die in Russia after committing at least 52 sadistic murders.
1993: US scientists report that gene therapy is effective in correcting the underlying molecular defect believed to cause cystic fibrosis.
1994: Democratically elected President Jean-Bertrand Aristide returns to Haiti after US troops landed there in September.
1999: Pakistan’s army chief, Gen Pervez Musharraf, declares a state of emergency and names himself chief executive, two days after he and his troops ousted the democratically elected government in a bloodless coup.
2008:- Thousands of Christians from around the world march in a colourful holiday parade in Jerusalem to commemorate a Jewish holiday and show their support for Israel.
2010: Workers hug, cheer and set off fireworks as the huge drill breaks through the last stretch of rock deep in the Swiss Alps. There was delight at the end of the tunnel — the world’s longest — when it is completed.
2012: In interviews with CNN and Fox News, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton took responsibility for security at the US consulate in Libya, where the US ambassador and three other Americans were killed in a September 11, 2012 attack.
TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS
Virgil, Roman poet (70 BC-19 BC); Evangelista Torricelli, Italian inventor of barometer (1608-1647); Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, German philosopher (1844-1900); P(elham) G(renville) Wodehouse, British-American writer (1881-1975); Richard Carpenter, US singer/drummer (1946-); Penny Marshall, US actress/director (1943-).
— AP
