Today is Thursday, Oct. 15, the 289th day of 2020. There are 77 days left in the year.
Today’s highlight in history
On Oct. 15, 1976, in the first debate of its kind between vice-presidential nominees, Democrat Walter F. Mondale and Republican Bob Dole faced off in Houston.
On this date
In 1815, Napoleon Bonaparte, the deposed Emperor of the French, arrived on the British-ruled South Atlantic island of St. Helena, where he spent the last 5 ½ years of his life in exile.
In 1917, Dutch exotic dancer Mata Hari (Margaretha ZelleGeertruida MacLeod), 41, convicted by a French military court of spying for the Germans, was executed by a firing squad outside Paris. (Maintaining her innocence to the end, Mata Hari refused a blindfold and blew a kiss to her executioners.)
In 1940, Charles Chaplin’s first all-talking comedy, “The Great Dictator,” a lampoon of Adolf Hitler, opened in New York.
In 1945, the former premier of Vichy France, Pierre Laval, was executed for treason.
In 1946, Nazi war criminal Hermann Goering (GEH’-reeng) fatally poisoned himself hours before he was to have been executed.
In 1954, Hurricane Hazel made landfall on the Carolina coast as a Category 4 storm; Hazel was blamed for some 1,000 deaths in the Caribbean, 95 in the U.S. and 81 in Canada.
In 1966, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed a bill creating the U.S. Department of Transportation. The revolutionary Black Panther Party was founded by Huey Newton and Bobby Seale in Oakland, California.
In 1969, peace demonstrators staged activities across the country as part of a “moratorium” against the Vietnam War.
In 1991, despite sexual harassment allegations by Anita Hill, the Senate narrowly confirmed the nomination of Clarence Thomas to the U.S. Supreme Court, 52-48.
In 2001, Bethlehem Steel Corp. filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
In 2003, eleven people were killed when a Staten Island ferry slammed into a maintenance pier. (The ferry’s pilot, who’d blacked out at the controls, later pleaded guilty to eleven counts of manslaughter.)
In 2017, actress and activist Alyssa Milano tweeted that women who had been sexually harassed or assaulted should write “Me too” as a status; within hours, tens of thousands had taken up the #MeToo hashtag (using a phrase that had been introduced 10 years earlier by social activist Tarana Burke.)
Ten years ago: The Obama administration reported that the federal deficit had hit a near-record $1.3 trillion for the just-completed budget year. Workers hugged, cheered and set off fireworks as a huge drill broke through a last stretch of rock deep in the Swiss Alps for construction of the 35.4-mile Gotthard Base Tunnel; the railway tunnel would go into operation in 2016.
Five years ago: President Barack Obama abandoned his pledge to end America’s longest war, announcing plans to keep at least 5,500 U.S. troops in Afghanistan at the end of his term in 2017 and hand the conflict off to his successor. Ken Taylor, Canada’s ambassador to Iran who’d sheltered Americans at his residence during the 1979 Iran hostage crisis, died in New York at age 81.
One year ago: Elizabeth Warren, carrying a new status as a front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination, came under attack from rivals at a debate in Ohio; they accused her of ducking questions about the cost of Medicare for All and her signature wealth tax plan. The Washington Nationals scored seven runs in the first inning on the way to a 7-4 win and a sweep of the St. Louis Cardinals in the National League Championship Series; the wild-card Nationals advanced to the World Series, where they would defeat the Houston Astros. Actor Felicity Huffman reported to a federal prison in California to start a two-week sentence for paying a college admissions consultant to have a proctor correct her daughter’s SAT answers. (She was released two days before the end of the sentence.) Newly-elected inductees to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame included, posthumously, Whitney Houston and The Notorious B.I.G.; they were joined by Depeche Mode, the Doobie Brothers, Nine Inch Hails and T-Rex.
Today’s birthdays: Singer Barry McGuire is 85. Actor Linda Lavin is 83. Rock musician Don Stevenson (Moby Grape) is 78. Baseball Hall of Famer Jim Palmer is 75. Singer-musician Richard Carpenter is 74. Actor Victor Banerjee is 74. Former tennis player Roscoe Tanner is 69. Singer Tito Jackson is 67. Actor-comedian Larry Miller is 67. Actor Jere Burns is 66. Movie director Mira Nair is 63. Britain’s Duchess of York, Sarah Ferguson, is 61. Chef Emeril Lagasse (EM’-ur-ul leh-GAH’-see) is 61. Actor Tanya Roberts is 61. Rock musician Mark Reznicek (REHZ’-nih-chehk) is 58. Singer Eric Benet (beh-NAY’) is 54. Actor Vanessa Marcil is 52. Singer-actor-TV host Paige Davis is 51. Country singer Kimberly Schlapman (Little Big Town) is 51. Actor Dominic West is 51. Rhythm-and-blues singer Ginuwine (JIHN’-yoo-wyn) is 50. Actor Devon Gummersall is 42. Actor Chris Olivero is 41. Christian singer-actor Jaci (JAK’-ee) Velasquez is 41. Actor Brandon Jay McLaren is 40. Rhythm-and-blues singer Keyshia Cole is 39. Actor Vincent Martella is 28. Actor Bailee Madison is 21.
— Associated Press
Regulators authorized AstraZeneca’s coronavirus vaccine for use in adults throughout the European Union on Friday, amid criticism the bloc is not moving fast enough to vaccinate its population.
WASHINGTON (AP) — A former FBI lawyer was sentenced to probation for altering an email that the Justice Department relied on during its surveillance of an aide to President Donald Trump during the Russia investigation.
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Democratic Gov. Tony Evers lashed out Friday at rival Republicans who tried to repeal his statewide mask mandate, saying killing the order would be a ridiculous move comparable to abolishing speed limits.
COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — As some conservatives in South Carolina celebrated getting a bill that would ban almost all abortions in the state past a legislative barrier and likely becoming law, they said they are not finished trying to end all abortions.
A Moscow court on Friday put the brother and several allies of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny under house arrest for two months as authorities sought to stymie more protests over the jailing of the top Kremlin foe.