Today in History
Today is Sunday, Oct. 2, the 275th day of 2022. 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 1869, political and spiritual leader Mohandas K. Gandhi was born in Porbandar, India.
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 1959, Rod Serling’s “The Twilight Zone” made its debut on CBS-TV with the episode “Where Is Everybody?” starring Earl Holliman.
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 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 1986, the Senate joined the House in voting to override President Reagan’s veto of stiff economic sanctions against South Africa.
In 2006, an armed milk truck driver took a group of girls hostage in an Amish schoolhouse in Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania, killing five of them and wounding five others before taking his own life.
In 2016, Colombians rejected a peace deal with leftist rebels by a razor-thin margin in a national referendum, scuttling years of painstaking negotiations and delivering a stunning setback to President Juan Manuel Santos. Hall of Fame broadcaster Vin Scully signed off for the last time, ending 67 years behind the mic for the Dodgers, as he called the team’s 7-1 loss to the Giants in San Francisco.
In 2019, House Democrats threatened to make White House defiance of a congressional request for testimony and documents potential grounds for an article of impeachment against President Donald Trump. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo acknowledged for the first time that he had been on the phone call in which Trump pressed Ukraine’s president to investigate Democrat Joe Biden.
In 2020, stricken by COVID-19, President Donald Trump was injected with an experimental drug combination at the White House before being flown to a military hospital, where he was given Remdesivir, an antiviral drug.
Ten years ago: On the eve of the first presidential debate of the 2012 campaign, Vice President Joe Biden said the middle class had been “buried” during the last four years, a statement Republicans immediately seized upon as an unwitting indictment of the Obama administration.
Five years 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. 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, began 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.
One year ago: Alaska activated emergency crisis protocols that allowed 20 health care facilities to ration care if needed as the state recorded the nation’s worst COVID-19 diagnosis rates. Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte announced he was retiring from politics and dropping plans to run for vice president in elections in 2022, when his term would end.
Today’s Birthdays: Movie critic Rex Reed is 84. Singer-songwriter Don McLean is 77. Cajun/country singer Jo-el Sonnier (sahn-YAY’) is 76. Actor Avery Brooks is 74. Fashion designer Donna Karan (KA’-ruhn) is 74. Photographer Annie Leibovitz is 73. Rock musician Mike Rutherford (Genesis, Mike & the Mechanics) is 72. Singer-actor Sting is 71. Actor Robin Riker is 70. Actor Lorraine Bracco is 68. Country musician Greg Jennings (Restless Heart) is 68. Rock singer Phil Oakey (The Human League) is 67. R&B singer Freddie Jackson is 66. Singer-producer Robbie Nevil is 64. Retro-soul singer James Hunter is 60. Rock musician Bud Gaugh (Sublime, Eyes Adrift) is 55. Folk-country singer Gillian Welch is 55. Country singer Kelly Willis is 54. Actor Joey Slotnick is 54. R&B singer Dion Allen (Az Yet) is 52. Actor-talk show host Kelly Ripa (TV: “Live with Kelly and Ryan”) is 52. Rock musician Jim Root (AKA #4 Slipknot) is 51. Singer Tiffany is 51. Rock singer Lene Nystrom is 49. Actor Efren Ramirez is 49. R&B singer LaTocha Scott (Xscape) is 50. Gospel singer Mandisa (TV: “American Idol”) is 46. Actor Brianna Brown is 43. Rock musician Mike Rodden (Hinder) is 40. Former tennis player Marion Bartoli is 38. Actor Christopher Larkin is 35. Rock singer Brittany Howard (Alabama Shakes) is 34. Actor Samantha Barks is 32. Actor Elizabeth McLaughlin is 29.
