Today in History

Slobodan Milosevic, president of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, resigns in the wake of mass protest demonstrations.

Brazil’s Constituent Assembly authorizes the nation’s new constitution.

Britain’s The Sunday Times newspaper publishes details of Israel’s secret nuclear weapons development program.

Members of the Quebec Liberation Front (QLF) kidnap British Trade Commissioner James Cross in Montreal, resulting in the October Crisis and Canada’s first peacetime use of the War Measures Act.

Monty Python’s Flying Circus debuts on BBC One.

Police attack civil rights demonstrators in Derry, Northern Ireland; the event is considered to be the beginning of "The Troubles."

A sodium cooling system malfunction causes a partial core meltdown at the Enrico Fermi demonstration breeder reactor near Detroit. Radiation is contained.

Mario Lemieux, hockey player, led Pittsburgh Penguins to consecutive Stanley Cups (1991-92).

Laura Davies, England’s top professional female golfer.

The first James Bond film, Dr. No starring Sean Connery, debuts.

Maya Lin, American architect who designed the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, D.C.

Bernie Mac, comedian, actor; member of the Original Kings of Comedy.

Clive Barker, author, director (Hellraiser, Candyman).

A magnitude 7.3 earthquake near Ashgabat in the USSR kills tens of thousands; estimates range from 110,000 to 176,000.

US President Harry S Truman delivers the first televised White House address.

Steve Miller, singer, songwriter, guitarist; lead singer of Steve Miller Band.

Germany invalidates Jews’ passports.

Barry Switzer, longtime coach of the University of Oklahoma, later coach of the Dallas Cowboys; one of only two head coaches to win both an NCAA college football championship and a Super Bowl.

Václav Havel, Czech dissident dramatist who became the first freely elected president of Czechoslovakia in 55 years.

Clyde Pangborn and Hugh Herndon complete the first heavier than air nonstop flight over the Pacific. Their flight, begun October 3, lasted 41 hours, 31 minutes and covered 5,000 miles. They piloted their Bellanca CH-200 monoplane from Samushiro, 300 miles north of Tokyo, Japan, to Wenatchee, Washington.

The World Series is broadcast on radio for the first time.

Bulgaria enters World War I on the side of the Central Powers.

Flann O’Brien, Irish novelist and playwright (The Hard Life, The Third Policeman).

Ray Croc, founder of the McDonald’s hamburger franchise in 1955.

Robert Goddard, American rocket scientist, held more than 200 rocketry patents.

The first ball-point pen is patented on this day by Alonzo T. Cross.

Nez Perce Chief Joseph surrenders to Colonel Nelson Miles in Montana Territory, after a 1,700-mile trek to reach Canada falls 40 miles short.

At the Battle of Allatoona, a small Union post is saved from Lt. Gen. John Bell Hood’s army.

Chester A. Arthur, 21st president of the United States (1881-1885).

Greek rebels capture Tripolitza, the main Turkish fort in the Peloponnese area of Greece.

U.S. victory at the Battle of the Thames, in Ontario, broke Britain’s Indian allies with the death of Shawnee Chief Tecumseh, and made the Detroit frontier safe.

The day after he routed counterrevolutionaries in Paris, Napoleon Bonaparte accepts their formal surrender.

The British fleet bombards and captures Spanish-held Manila in the Philippines.