Today in History: October 12
Today in History: October 12: In 1870, General Robert E. Lee died in Lexington, Virginia; In 1492, Christopher Columbus’s first expedition made landfall on San Salvador Island; In 1968, Mexican track and field athlete Enriqueta Basilio became the first woman to light the Olympic flame; In 1984, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher escaped an attempt on her life when a bomb exploded at a hotel in Brighton; In 2000, 17 sailors were killed in a suicide bomb attack on the destroyer USS Cole; In 2002, bombs blamed on al-Qaida-linked militants destroyed two nightclubs on the Indonesian island of Bali; In 2019, Eliud Kipchoge became the first person to run a marathon in less than two hours
Today in History: October 11
Today in History: October 11: In 1986, President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev opened two days of talks about arms control and human rights; In 1906, the San Francisco Board of Education ordered all the city’s Asian students segregated into their own school; In 1968, Apollo 7, the first manned Apollo mission, was launched; In 1984, Challenger astronaut Kathryn D. Sullivan became the first American woman to walk in space; In 1987, the AIDS Memorial Quilt was first displayed; In 1991, Anita Hill accused Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas of sexual harassment; In 2017, the Boy Scouts of America announced that it would admit girls into the Cub Scouts
Today in History: October 10
Today in History: October 10: In 1845, the U.S. Naval Academy was established; In 1935, the George Gershwin opera “Porgy and Bess,” featuring an all-Black cast, opened on Broadway; In 1966, the Beach Boys’ single “Good Vibrations” was released; In 1973, Vice President Spiro T. Agnew resigned his office; In 2001, a month after the Sept. 11 attacks, U.S. jets pounded the Afghan capital of Kabul; In 1911, Chinese revolutionaries launched an uprising that led to the collapse of the Qing Dynasty. In 2024 Ethel Kennedy, civil rights activist and wife of the late Senator Robert F Kennedy, passed away a day after suffering a stroke.