Friday, October 14

This Day In History

• 1066   Normans under William the Conqueror defeated the English at the Battle of Hastings.
  
• 1890   Dwight D. Eisenhower, the 34th president of the United States, was born in Denison, Texas.
  
• 1912   Theodore Roosevelt, campaigning for the presidency, was shot in the chest in Milwaukee. He went ahead with a scheduled speech.
  
• 1933   Nazi Germany announced it was withdrawing from the League of Nations.
  
• 1944   German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel committed suicide rather than face execution for allegedly conspiring against Adolf Hitler.
  
• 1947   Air Force test pilot Charles E. Yeager became the first person to break the sound barrier as he flew the experimental Bell X One rocket plane over Edwards Air Force Base in California.
  
• 1960   Democratic presidential candidate John F. Kennedy suggested formation of a Peace Corps during a talk at the University of Michigan.
  
• 1968   The first live telecast from a manned U.S. spacecraft was transmitted from Apollo 7.
  
• 1977   Singer Bing Crosby died at age 73.
  
• 1986   Holocaust survivor and human rights advocate Elie Wiesel was named winner of the Nobel Peace Prize.
  
• 1990   Composer-conductor Leonard Bernstein died at age 72.
  
• 1991   Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi was named winner of the Nobel Peace Prize.
  
• 1994   Palestine Liberation Organization chairman Yasser Arafat, Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin shared the Nobel Peace Prize “for their efforts to diminish the part played by nuclear arms in international politics and in the longer run to eliminate such arms.”
  
• 1998   Federal authorities charged Eric Robert Rudolph, one of FBI's 10 most-wanted fugitives, with the bombing at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta.
  
• 2001   Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle's office was quarantined after an anthrax-tainted letter was opened.
  
• 2002   An FBI analyst was killed in a mall parking lot in Falls Church, Va., by a single bullet to the head in another shooting linked to the Washington-area sniper.
  

Happy Birthday To

• 1644   William Penn (colonist: founded the colony of Pennsylvania as a haven for Quakers; died July 30, 1718)
  
• 1890   Dwight David Eisenhower (5-star U.S. army general: Supreme Commander of Allied Forces in World War II; 34th U.S. President [1953-1961]; married to Mamie Doud [two sons]; nickname: Ike; died Mar 28, 1969)
  
• 1893   Lillian Gish (de Guiche) (actress: Birth of a Nation, Orphans of the Storm, Sweet Liberty, A Wedding, The Whales of August; died Feb 27, 1993)
  
• 1894   e e cummings (Edward Estlin Cummings) (poet, playwright: Him, Santa Claus; writer: The Enormous Room; died Sep 3, 1962)
  
• 1916   C. Everett Koop (U.S. Surgeon General [1981-1989]; Director of Office of International Health [1982]; Senior Scholar: C. Everett Koop Institute at Dartmouth College)
  
• 1927   Sir Roger (George) Moore (actor: The Saint, Maverick)
  
• 1939   Ralph Lauren (Lifshitz) (fashion designer: Polo clothes)
  
• 1940   J.C. (Jesse Carlyle) Snead (golf: 22-year PGA Tour pro; Senior PGA Tour [1990]; career winnings total $5,000,000+)