Today in History - October 2
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1187 Oct 2,
Sultan Saladin captured Jerusalem from Crusaders.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saladin)
1263 Oct 2, At Largs, King
Alexander III of Scotland repelled an amphibious invasion by King
Haakon IV of Norway.
(HN, 10/2/98)
1452 Oct 2, King Richard III, of
England (1483-85), was born.
(MC, 10/2/01)
1535 Oct 2, Jacques Cartier first
saw the site of what is now Montreal and proclaimed "What a royal
mountain," hence the name of the city. [see 1536] Having landed in
Quebec a month ago, Jacques Cartier reached a town, which he named
Montreal.
(SFEC, 3/2/97, p.T7)(HN, 10/2/98)
1564 Oct 2, Andreas Vesalius,
Flemish anatomist, died at 49. Andreas Vesalius, the father of modern
anatomy, was forced by the Inquisition to make a pilgrimage to the Holy
Land. He dis-appeared during the voyage.
(TL-MB, 1988, p.20)(MC, 10/2/01)
1608 Oct 2, Jan Lippershey,
spectacle maker, formally offered to the Estates of Holland his new
spyglass for warfare. He was the 1st to file a patent claim for a
spyglass.
(www.britannica.com/eb/article?tocId=9048449)(CW,
Spring ‘99, p.33)
1656 Oct 2, US colony Connecticut
passed a law against Quakers.
(MC, 10/2/01)
1715 Oct 2, Peter II, czar of
Russia (1727-30), was born.
(MC, 10/2/01)
1737 Oct 2, Francis Hopkinson, US
writer and lawyer, was born. He designed the Stars & Stripes.
(MC, 10/2/01)
1780 Oct 2, British spy John Andre
was hanged in Tappan, N.Y., for conspiring with Benedict Arnold.
(AP, 10/2/97)
1800 Oct 2, Nat Turner, slave and
the property of Benjamin Turner, was born in Southampton county, Va. He
was sold in 1831 to Joseph Travis from Jerusalem, Southampton county,
Va.
(www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part3/3p1518.html)
1803 Oct 2, Samuel Adams (b.1722),
former Gov. of Mass. (1793-1797), died. He was a propagandist,
political figure, revolutionary patriot and statesman who helped to
organize the Boston Tea Party. In 2008 Ira Stoll authored “Samuel
Adams: A Life.”
(AHD, 1971, p.14)(WSJ, 11/3/08,
p.A17)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Adams)
1804 Oct 2, England mobilized to
protect against an expected French invasion by Napoleon.
(MC, 10/2/01)
1833 Oct 2, The NY Anti-Slavery
Society was organized.
(MC, 10/2/01)
1835 Oct 2, The first battle of
the Texas Revolution took place as American settlers fought Mexican
soldiers near the Guadalupe River; the Mexicans ended up withdrawing.
(AP, 10/2/08)
1836 Oct 2, Darwin returned to
England aboard HMS Beagle after 5 years abroad. He visited Brazil, the
Galapagos Islands, and New Zealand. His studies were important to his
theory of evolution, which he put forth in his groundbreaking
scientific work of 1859, "The Origin of Spe-cies by Means of Natural
Selection."
(MC, 10/2/01)
1847 Oct 2, Paul von Hindenburg
(Paul Ludwig Hans von Beneckendorf und Hindenburg), German Field
Marshall during World War I whose brilliant victories on the Eastern
Front pro-moted him to become the second president of the Weimar
Republic, was born.
(HN, 10/2/98)
1851 Oct 2, Ferdinand Foch, French
Allied commander in WW I, was born.
(MC, 10/2/01)
1853 Oct 2, Austrian law forbade
Jews from owning land.
(MC, 10/2/01)
1862 Oct 2, An Army under Union
General Joseph Hooker arrived in Bridgeport, Alabama to support the
Union forces at Chattanooga.
(HN, 10/2/98)
1865 Oct 2, Former Confederate
General Robert E. Lee became president of Washington and Lee University
in Virginia.
(MC, 10/2/01)
1866 Oct 2, J. Osterhoudt patented
a tin can with key opener.
(MC, 10/2/01)
1869 Oct 2, Mohandas Karamchad
Gandhi (d.1948), called Mahatma, Hindu nationalist, po-litical and
spiritual leader was born in Porbandar, India. His nonviolent actions
helped to eradi-cate British rule in India. He was assassinated in
1948. "Love is the strongest force the world possesses, and yet it is
the humblest imaginable." [see Oct 3]
(AHD, 1971, p.542)(HFA, '96, p.40)(SFC, 1/31/97,
p.A13)(AP, 10/2/97)(AP, 1/12/98)(HN, 10/2/98)
1870 Oct 2, The papal states voted
in favor of union with Italy. The capital was moved from Florence to
Rome.
(HN, 10/2/98)
1871 Oct 2, Cordell Hull,
Secretary of State for President Franklin Roosevelt who promoted
cooperation with the Soviet Union against Adolf Hitler, was born.
(HN, 10/2/98)
1871 Oct 2, Mormon leader Brigham
Young, 70, was arrested for polygamy. He was later convicted, but the
U.S. Supreme Court overturned the conviction.
(HN, 10/2/98)
1879 Oct 2, Wallace Stevens, poet,
was born.
(HN, 10/2/00)
1879 Oct 2, A dual alliance was
formed between Austria and Germany, in which the two coun-tries agreed
to come to the other's aid in the event of aggression.
(HN, 10/2/98)
1890 Oct 2, Julius Henry "Groucho"
Marx (d.1977), American comedian, was born. Although there is some
discrepancy about the exact date, Groucho was most likely born on this
date in New York. He later went on to host the television quiz show
"You Bet Your Life." He began singing as a boy and then performed
wisecracking comedy on stage and screen with his broth-ers (Chico,
Harpo, Zeppo and Gummo). Groucho also had radio shows, wrote books and
screenplays, and became the most famous Marx Brother for his mustached,
cigar-smoking per-sona and lines like, "I sent the club a wire stating,
‘please accept my resignation. I don’t want to belong to any club that
will accept me as a member.’" "There’s one way to find out if a man is
honest—ask him. If he says ‘yes,’ you know he is crooked." Groucho Marx
died in 1977.
(SFEC, 5/25/97, p.C15)(HNPD, 10/2/98)(AP, 10/2/97)
1895 Oct 2, The 1st cartoon comic
strip was printed in a newspaper. [see May, 1895]
(MC, 10/2/01)
1900 Oct 2, William A. ‘Bud’
Abbot, comedian, was born. He was the straight man to Lou Costello.
(HN, 10/2/00)
1901 Oct 2, Roy Campbell, poet,
was born. His work included "The Flaming Terrapin."
(HN, 10/2/00)
1901 Oct 2, The 1st Royal Naval
submarine launched at Barrow.
(MC, 10/2/01)
1904 Oct 2, Graham Greene
(d.1991), British author, was born. His work included "The Power and
the Glory," "The Heart of the Matter" and "Ministry of Fear," which was
made into a 1940s movie by Fritz Lang. "I didn't invent the world I
write about- it's all true." In 2004 Norman sherry concluded his
3-volume biography: “The Life of Graham Greene.”
(SFEC,10/26/97, DB p.44)(AP, 4/3/00)(HN,
10/2/00)(SFC, 10/2/04, p.E1)
1909 Oct 2, Orville Wright set an
altitude record, flying at 1,600 feet. This exceeded Hubert Latham's
previous record of 508 feet.
(HN, 10/2/98)
1919 Oct 2, President Wilson
suffered a stroke that left him partially paralyzed and Vice-President
Thomas R. Marshall was urged to assume the presidency but he refused.
It was Mar-shall who had earlier said: "What this country needs is a
really good five-cent cigar." The quote was attributed to Marshall in
1920 by the SFEM.
(DFP, 7/28/96, p.J1)(SFEM, 12/15/96, p.15)(AP,
10/2/97)
1920 Oct 2, Max Bruch, composer
(Scottish Fantasy), died at 82.
(MC, 10/2/01)
1927 Oct 2, Svante Arrhenius
(b.1859), Swedish scientist and Nobel Prize winner in chemistry (1903),
died in Uppsala. At the turn of the century, Svante Arrhenius had
calculated that emis-sions from human industry might someday bring a
global warming.
(http://tinyurl.com/lxu4w)(www.aip.org/history/climate/co2.htm)
1928 Oct 2, Clarence Barron
(b.1855), author and president of Dow Jones & Co., died. Hugh
Bancroft (1879-1933) succeeded him as president of Dow Jones.
(www.newsbios.com/newslum/barron.htm)
1932 Oct 2, The NY Yankees won the
World Series against the Chicago Cubs in 4 games.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1932_World_Series)
1933 Oct 2, Eugene O'Neill's
comedy "Ah, Wilderness," premiered in NYC.
(MC, 10/2/01)
1936 Oct 2, Johnnie Cochran,
attorney (OJ Simpson defense attorney), was born.
(MC, 10/2/01)
1939 Oct 2, The Benny Goodman
Sextet recorded "Flying Home."
(AP, 10/2/99)
1940 Oct 2, 17 German aircrafts
were shot down above England.
(MC, 10/2/01)
1940 Oct 2, The British liner
Empress, loaded with refugees for Canada, sank.
(MC, 10/2/01)
1941 Oct 2, Gilbert Gable, mayor
of Port Orford, Ore., announced with some pals that they were fed up of
being neglected by legislators in Salem and Sacramento and began
promoting a 51st state named Jefferson with Yreka as the capital.
(SSFC, 6/3/01, p.A26)(AH, 2/05, p.20)
1941 Oct 2, Operation Typhoon, a
German all-out drive against Moscow, began in earnest. In 2006 Rodric
Braithwaite authored “Moscow 1941: A City and Its People at War.”
(AP,
10/2/97)(http://www.bartcop.com/arc4110.htm)(Econ, 9/23/06, p.95)
1941 Oct 2, 6 Paris synagogues
were bombed by Gestapo. [see Oct 3]
(MC, 10/2/01)
1942 Oct 2, The "Queen Mary"
sliced the cruiser "Curacao" in half, killing 338.
(MC, 10/2/01)
1944 Oct 2, Nazi troops crushed
the 2-month-old (63 days) Warsaw Uprising, during which a
quarter-million people were killed.
(AP, 10/2/97)
1948 Oct 2, Donna Karan, fashion
designer (Coty Award-1977), was born in Forest Hills, NY.
(MC, 10/2/01)
1948 Oct 2, "Finian's Rainbow"
closed at 46th St Theater NYC after 725 performances.
(MC, 10/2/01)
1948 Oct 2, In New York the 1st
Grand Prix at Watkins Glen was held. Cameron Argetsinger (1921-2008)
was the main driving force behind the race which was won by Frank
Griswold. For-mula racing continued there until bankruptcy in 1981. Two
year later Corning Glass Works re-vived the Watkins Glen race course in
partnership with Int’l. Speedway Corp.
(WSJ, 4/26/08,
p.A6)(www.nascar.com/races/tracks/wgi/index.html)
1949 Oct 2, USSR recognized the
People's Republic of China.
(MC, 10/2/01)
1950 Oct 2, The comic strip
"Peanuts," created by Charles M. Schulz (28), was syndicated to seven
newspapers as "Li'l Folks." It started with only four characters:
Charlie Brown, Pepper-mint Patty (Reichardt), Shermy and the world's
most famous beagle, Snoopy. Schulz an-nounced his retirement in 1999
with the last Peanuts to appear Feb 13, 2000.
(SFC, 11/29/97, p.C1)(SFC, 12/15/99, p.E1)(AP,
10/2/08)
1950 Oct 2, Mao Tse Tung sent a
telegram to Stalin. China intervened in Korea.
(MC, 10/2/01)
1952 Oct 2, Clive Barker, writer
(Hellraiser, Lord of Illusions), was born.
(MC, 10/2/01)
1957 Oct 2, The World War II drama
"The Bridge on the River Kwai," directed by David Lean, premiered in
Britain. The film opened in the United States the following December.
(AP, 10/2/07)
1958 Oct 2, Marie Stopes, birth
control pioneer, died.
(MC, 10/2/01)
1958 Oct 2, The former French
colony of Guinea in West Africa proclaimed its independence from France
under the leadership of Sekou Toure.
(WP, 6/29/96, p.A15)(AP, 10/2/97)
1959 Oct 2, Rod Serling's "The
Twilight Zone" made its debut on CBS-TV.
(AP, 10/2/99)
1961 Oct 2, The medical drama
``Ben Casey,'' starring Vince Edwards and Sam Jaffe, pre-miered on ABC.
(AP, 10/2/01)
1963 Oct 2, Defense Sec. Robert
McNamara told Pres. Kennedy in a cabinet meeting that: "We need a way
to get out of Vietnam." McNamara proposed to replace the 16,000 US
advi-sors with Canadian personnel.
(SFC, 7/25/97, p.A2)
1963 Oct 2, W. German Chancellor
Adenauer condemned western grain shipments to USSR.
(MC, 10/2/01)
1964 Oct 2, Scientists announced
findings that smoking can cause cancer.
(HN, 10/2/98)
1967 Oct 2, Thurgood Marshall, the
first African-American Supreme Court justice, was sworn in as an
associate justice of he U.S. Supreme Court. Marshall had previously
been the solicitor general, the head of the legal staff of the National
Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), and a
leading American civil rights lawyer.
(TMC, 1994, p.1967)(AP, 10/2/97)(HN, 10/2/98)
1968 Oct 2, Pres. Johnson
established Redwood National Park in northern California under Public
Law 90-545. Congress created the Redwood National Park in California at
a cost of $306 million. Large portions of the Arcata Redwood Corp.
lands were detached to form sections of Redwood National Park. The land
was initially assembled by Michigan timber baron Arthur Hill. His son,
Harry Hill, built the French Renaissance townhouse that is now the
Italian consulate.
(www.eoearth.org/article/Redwood_National_Park,_United_States)(SFC,
9/9/97, p.A19)(SFEC, 12/5/99, p.T1)
1968 Oct 2, Pres. Johnson signed a
bill establishing Washington state’s North Cascades Na-tional Park.
(SSFC, 7/18/04,
p.D7)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Cascades_National_Park)
1968 Oct 2, The 2,650-mile Pacific
Crest Trail, spanning Mexico to Canada, was designated a National
Scenic Trail as part of the US National Trails System Act.
(SFC, 7/16/08,
p.E2)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Crest_Trail)
1968 Oct 2, US Supreme Court
Justice Abe Fortas withdrew his nomination as chief justice. Six months
later, he resigned from the court, admitting he'd made a financial deal
with the Louis Wolfson Foundation.
(http://hnn.us/articles/11753.html)
1968 Oct 2, In Mexico soldiers
under Pres. Gustavo Diaz Ordaz used automatic weapons and killed some
300 students in the Mexico City Tlatelolco massacre prior to the start
of the summer Olympics. The government said only 50 students were
killed during gunfire that lasted 5 hours. Luis Echeverria, later
president, was the interior minister and the man in charge of public
secu-rity. He was called before a congressional committee in 1998.
Evidence in 1999 confirmed that pre-positioned soldiers fired on the
students. In 2002 a special prosecutor said he has found no evidence to
support historians' claims that some 300 people died when army troops
opened fire on demonstrators in 1968. He put the number killed at 38. A
judge dismissed other genocide charges against Echeverria in July 2005,
ruling that while he may have been responsible for a separate 1971
student massacre, he could not be tried because the statute of
limitations had expired in 1985.
(WUD, 1994, p.1687)(SFC, 9/1/96, p.A16)(SFEC,
4/6/97, p.C12)(WSJ, 8/13/97, p.A12)(SFC, 2/4/98, p.C2,14)(WSJ, 9/10/98,
p.A1)(SFC, 6/28/99, p.A10)(AP, 8/5/02)(AP, 3/27/09)
1968 Oct 2, Marcel Duchamp
(b.1887), French painter, died. He was known best for his 1915 "Nude
Descending a Staircase."
(V.D.-H.K.p.361)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcel_Duchamp)
1970 Oct 2, A plane carrying the
Wichita State Univ. football team crashed near Silver Plume,
Colorado, killing 29 passengers as well as the Captain and Flight
Attendant.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wichita_State_University_Crash)
1973 Oct 2, Paavo "Flying Finn"
Nurmi (b.1897), Finnish runner, died. He won a total of 9 Olympic gold
medals and 3 silver medals between 1920 and 1928.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paavo_Nurmi)
1974 Oct 2, Nancy Wilcox, believed
to have been a victim of the serial killer Ted Bundy (d.1989),
disappeared in Salt Lake City, Utah.
(www.charleyproject.org/cases/w/wilcox_nancy.html)
1974 Oct 2, Pele (b.1940),
Brazilian soccer player born as Edson Arantes do Nascimento, came out
of retirement to join the NY Cosmos of the North American Soccer
League. Steve Ross (1927-1992), chairman of Warner Brothers and founder
of the Cosmos, offered him a re-ported $7 million for a 3-year
contract. In 2006 Gavin Newsham authored “Once in a Lifetime: The
Incredible Story of the New York Cosmos.”
(SFC, 6/26/06,
p.E3)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pel%C3%A9)
1975 Oct 2, President Ford
welcomed Japan’s Emperor Hirohito to the United States.
(AP, 10/2/00)
1975 Oct 2, Armand Hammer
(1898-1992) pleaded guilty to three misdemeanor charges of making
illegal contributions in the names of other persons to the 1972 Nixon
re-election cam-paign.
(WSJ, 6/29/00, p.A26)(http://tinyurl.com/4nv5yw)
1978 Oct 2, Syrian troops pounded
Christian districts of Beirut with heavy artillery and rocket fire
early today, and right-wing officials said Lebanese militias were
fighting back with every weapon they had.
(http://archive.gulfnews.com/indepth/30thyear/onthisday/10157571.html)
1980 Oct 2, US Rep. Michael
"Ozzie" Myers, D-Pa., convicted of accepting a bribe in the FBI's
ABSCAM sting operation, was expelled from the House, becoming the first
congressman ousted by his colleagues since the outbreak of the Civil
War.
(AP, 10/2/05)
1981 Oct 2, In Iran Hojjatoleslam
Ali Khamenehi was elected president.
(www.country-data.com/cgi-bin/query/r-6395.html)
1982 Oct 2, A truck bomb in Tehran
killed 60 and injured 700. Authorities blamed ''American mercenaries.''
(http://tinyurl.com/2j23lb)
1982 Oct 2, The Indian guru Swami
Muktananda (b.1908) died. He had opened meditation centers in the US
during the 1970s and attracted some 20,000 devotees. In 1983 he was
charged posthumously with seducing young girls and stashing funds in a
Swiss bank account.
(SFC, 6/15/05,
p.A1)(www.leavingsiddhayoga.net/secret.htm)
1984 Oct 2, Richard W. Miller
became the first FBI agent to be arrested and charged with es-pionage.
Miller was tried three times; he was sentenced to 20 years in prison,
but was released after nine years.
(AP, 10/2/04)
1985 Oct 2, Actor Rock Hudson died
at his home in Beverly Hills, Calif., at age 59 after a bat-tle with
AIDS.
(AP, 10/2/97)
1986 Oct 2, In India Sikhs
attempted to assassinate Indian PM Rajiv Gandhi (1944-1991).
(http://tinyurl.com/yjyxzh)
1987 Oct 2, On Capitol Hill, more
Democratic senators lined up against Supreme Court nomi-nee Robert H.
Bork as President Reagan continued to lobby undecided lawmakers on
behalf of his candidate for the high court.
(AP, 10/2/97)
1987 Oct 2, Peter Brian Medawar,
Brazilian-born English medical scientist, died.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Medawar)
1988 Oct 2, The Summer Olympic
Games concluded in Seoul, South Korea. The USSR won 55 gold medals, E.
Germany won 37, and the US won 36.
(SFC, 7/14/96, Par p.4)(HN, 10/2/98)
1989 Oct 2, Nearly 10,000 people
marched through Leipzig, East Germany, demanding le-galization of
opposition groups and adoption of democratic reforms in the country's
largest pro-test since 1953.
(AP, 10/2/99)
1990 Oct 2, President Bush, trying
to muster acceptance for a $500 billion package of tax in-creases and
spending cuts, asked Americans in a televised address to support the
plan.
(AP, 10/2/00)
1990 Oct 2, The US Senate voted
90-to-9 to confirm the nomination of Judge David H. Souter to the
Supreme Court.
(AP, 10/2/97)
1991 Oct 2, Ousted Haitian
President Jean-Bertrand Aristide asked the Organization of American
States in Washington to send a delegation to his homeland to demand
that the newly installed military junta surrender power immediately.
(AP, 10/2/01)
1992 Oct 2, The campaigns of
President Bush and Democrat Bill Clinton agreed to hold three
presidential debates and one vice-presidential debate.
(AP, 10/2/97)
1992 Oct 2, In Brazil Col.
Ubiratan Guimaraes led the "Carandiru massacre," where 111 in-mates
where killed during a raid to quell a prison riot. At the Carandiru
prison in Sao Paulo 102 prisoners were killed by troops under Col.
Ubiratan Guimaraes. Guimaraes was convicted in 2001 and sentenced to
632 years in prison, but awaited a 2nd trial. In 2006 Guimaraes
(63) was murdered at his apartment in Sao Paulo.
(SFC, 9/21/98, p.A14)(SSFC, 7/1/01, p.A18)(AP,
9/11/06)(Econ, 9/16/06, p.48)
1993 Oct 2, Henry Ringling North
(83), circus owner (Ringling Bros Circus), died at a Swiss hospital.
(http://tinyurl.com/cgbza)
1993 Oct 2, Hundreds of opponents
of Russian President Boris Yeltsin battled police in Mos-cow and set up
burning barricades in the biggest clash of Russia's 12-day-old
political crisis.
(HN, 10/2/98)
1993 Oct 2, In Son La, Vietnam, 53
members of the Thai minority died in a mass suicide or-ganized by Ca
Van Lieng, leader of a doomsday cult.
(SFC, 3/27/97, p.A19)
1994 Oct 2, U.S. soldiers in Haiti
detained several leaders of the country's pro-army militias as part of
an effort to dismantle armed opposition to restoration of elected rule.
(AP, 10/2/99)
1994 Oct 2, Harriet Nelson (85),
actress (The Adventures of Ozzie & Harriet), died of heart failure
in Laguna Beach, Ca.
(AP, 10/2/04)
1995 Oct 2, O.J. Simpson’s jurors
stunned the courtroom and the nation by reaching verdicts in the
sensational eight-month murder trial in less than four hours. The
decision was kept secret until the following day, when it was announced
that Simpson had been acquitted. Simpson was acquitted in the
double-murder of his wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald
Gold-man.
(WSJ, 10/4/95, p.A-1)(SFEC, 9/8/96, BR p.1)(AP,
10/2/00)
1996 Oct 2, Mark Fuhrman was given
three years' probation and fined $200 after pleading no contest to
perjury for denying at O.J. Simpson's criminal trial that he had used a
certain racial slur in the past decade.
(AP, 10/2/97)
1996 Oct 2, The US Army prepared
to shift 5,000 troops to Bosnia from Germany for 6-months to protect
troops slated to leave.
(SFC, 10/2/96, p.A8)
1996 Oct 2, The EU said that it
will challenge the US Helms-Burton law in a new court of world trade.
(SFC, 10/2/96, p.A8)
1996 Oct 2, The US meeting between
Benjamin Netanyahu, Yasser Arafat and King Hussein ended with no
specific issues resolved in the recent Middle East flare-up between
Palestinians and Jews.
(SFC, 10/3/96, p.A8)
1996 Oct 2, In Bulgaria former PM
Andrei Lukanov was assassinated. It was said that he had new proofs of
corruption in the highest power circles. In 2003 5 men were convicted
and sen-tenced to life in prison without chance of parole.
(SFC, 10/5/96, p.A10)(AP, 11/28/03)
1996 Oct 2, Mexican and US
authorities captured 5 alleged hit men of the Arellan Felix broth-ers
drug cartel in a series of raids in Mexico and California.
(SFC, 10/3/96, p.A8)
1996 Oct 2, The AeroPeru flight
603, a Boeing 757, crashed shortly after takeoff into the Pa-cific and
all 61 passengers and nine crew members were killed. The pilot claimed
loss of navi-gational equipment just before the crash.
(SFC, 10/3/96, p.A8)(AP, 10/2/97)
1997 Oct 2, President Clinton
proposed sending inspectors to farms around the world to en-sure that
foreign-grown fruits and vegetables are safe for American consumers.
The president also said he would ask Congress to empower the Food and
Drug Administration to ban produce from countries whose safety
precautions do not meet American standards.
(HN, 10/2/98)
1997 Oct 2, A Navy F-14 Tomcat
fighter jet crashed off the coast of N. Carolina. One crew member was
rescued but the pilot was still missing.
(SFC, 10/3/97, p.A12)
1997 Oct 2, In California some 200
police, FBI, IRS and DEA agents swept over 18 homes and business in
Oakland, Hayward and San Leandro and seized 73 kilograms of cocaine
val-ued at $70 million. Some 22 people were arrested in the drug and
smuggling ring culminating a 3-month investigation.
(SFC, 10/3/97, p.A19)
1997 Oct 2, In Algeria attackers
killed 20 members of a wedding party in Blida.
(SFEC, 10/5/97, p.A22)
1997 Oct 2, In Azerbaijan a
helicopter with 20 passengers crashed near an offshore oil plat-form
and no survivors were found.
(SFC, 10/4/97, p.A10)
1997 Oct 2, In Brazil thousands
turned out to greet Pope John Paul II for the start of his 4-day visit.
(SFC, 10/3/97, p.B2)
1997 Oct 2, The EU formally set up
a common foreign and security policy in the Amsterdam Treaty. It set to
adopt key asylum and immigration measures within five years of the
treaty's en-try into force, expected in 1999.
(Econ, 8/26/06,
p.42)(http://hrw.org/worldreport/Helsinki-28.htm)
1998 Oct 2, The House released
4,600 pages of evidence that detailed President Clinton's efforts to
contain the Monica Lewinsky scandal as it erupted.
(AP, 10/2/99)
1998 Oct 2, Gene Autry (b.1907),
America’s first singing cowboy and former owner of the Anaheim Angels,
died at age 91 in Studio City, CA. He made 96 films and cut 635 records
in-cluding "Back in the Saddle Again." His comic sidekick was Smiley
Burnette and his horse was named Champion. His career spanned some 60
years. Autry is the only entertainer to have earned five stars on the
commemorative sidewalk for his work in radio, records, film,
television, and live theatrical performance.
(SFC, 10/3/98, p.A1)(SFC, 10/5/98, p.A18)(SFEC,
12/20/98, Z1 p.5)(HNQ, 7/26/01)
1998 Oct 2, In Europe the new
"Swatchmobile," a 2-seater plastic car by Daimler-Benz, made its debut.
The Smart car was to sell for $8,500 and was rated at 59 miles per
gallon.
(WSJ, 10/2/98, p.B1)
1998 Oct 2, In Japan the
parliament passed bills to provide $74 billion in taxpayer money to
help banks recover from bad loans.
(SFC, 10/3/98, p.A10)
1998 Oct 2, In Mongolia
Sanjaasurangiin Zorig (36), who helped oust the Communist regime in
1990, was assassinated. He was stabbed and hacked with a knife and an
ax. It was seen as a move to silence pro-democracy officials.
(WSJ, 10/5/98, p.A1)(SFC, 10/6/98, p.A14)(WSJ,
10/22/98, p.A17)
1999 Oct 2, The controversial art
show "Sensation: Young British Artists from the Saatchi Col-lection"
opened at the Brooklyn Museum of Art. Mayor Giuliani withheld the
museum's monthly city subsidy and started eviction proceedings. The
show included Chris Ofili's "The Holy Virgin Mary" fashioned with some
elephant dung.
(SFEC, 10/3/99, p.A3)
1999 Oct 2, The US and Russia
opened a new video-conferencing center in Moscow to allow real-time
links with the White House.
(SFEC, 10/3/99, p.A17)
1999 Oct 2, Bo Mya, leader of the
Karen National Union, said he would grant sanctuary to the Burmese
students who were flown to the Thai-Burma following a 26 hour takeover
of the Bur-mese Embassy in Thailand.
(SFEC, 10/3/99, p.A25)
1999 Oct 2, In India 6 people,
including 4 police personnel, were killed as national elections began
in Tripura state.
(SFEC, 10/3/99, p.A23)
1999 Oct 2, From Kenya it was
reported that the flamingos of Lake Nakuru had migrated away to other
locations. Environmental stress from industrial refuse and other wastes
was blamed. Fluctuating salinity was also suspect in that flamingoes
feed on the algae spirulina platensis, which blooms in saline waters.
It was later reported that tens of thousands of flamin-gos on Lake
Bogoria had died since July due to heavy metals.
(SFC, 10/2/99, p.A9)(SFC, 3/4/00, p.A8)
1999 Oct 2, Russian troops engaged
Chechen guerrilla defenders as armored columns rolled into the villages
of Alpatova and Chernokosova.
(SFEC, 10/3/99, p.A22)
1999 Oct 2, In the Ukraine Natalia
Vitrenko of the leftist Progressive Socialist Party was wounded in a
grenade attack at a campaign meeting in Inguletsk.
(WSJ, 10/4/99, p.A)
2000 Oct 2, Pres. Clinton signed
into law the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) as Title 1 of
the Trade and Development Act of 2000. It offered tangible incentives
for African countries to continue their efforts to open their economies
and build free markets.
(www.agoa.gov/)(http://tinyurl.com/3yj69b)
2000 Oct 2, Virginia Gov. James
Gilmore granted an absolute pardon to Earl Washington Jr., 17 years
after the mentally retarded man was convicted for the rape and homicide
of a mother of 3. An initial 1994 DNA test indicated another man in the
case. A new DNA test identified a convicted rapist. In 2006 a federal
jury awarded $2.25 million to Washington.
(SFC, 10/3/00, p.A4)(SFC, 5/6/06, p.A3)
2000 Oct 2, Britain’s 1st bill of
rights went into effect.
(SFC, 10/2/00, p.A13)
2000 Oct 2, Israeli troops fired
on protesting Arabs. 19 people were killed in the West Bank and Gaza
and another 7 in Arab towns of northern Galilee. The 4 day toll rose to
48 dead and over 1,300 wounded. In 2003 the Or Commission blamed the
government of PM Barak for not paying attention to rising discontent
among Israel’s Arabs. In 2005 Israeli authorities, citing lack of
evidence, said they would not file charges against any police officers
for the killings of 13 Ar-abs during the October, 2000, riots.
(SFC, 10/3/00, p.A1)(WSJ, 10/3/00, p.A1)(SFC,
9/18/05, p.A3)
2000 Oct 2, In the Philippines
soldiers freed 12 Christian evangelists from Abu Sayyaf rebels after
one escaped and alerted the military. The guerrillas escaped with 5
remaining hostages.
(SFC, 10/3/00, p.A8)
2000 Oct 2, In Serbia the
opposition staged a general strike as Pres. Milosevic went on na-tional
TV and called on his countrymen to re-elect him. In his first public
address since a dis-puted election, Milosevic branded his opponents
puppets of the West. A wave of unrest aimed at driving him from power
swept Yugoslavia, and the government responded by arresting doz-ens of
strike leaders.
(SFC, 10/3/00, p.A8)(AP, 10/2/01)
2000 Oct 2, In Sri Lanka a
suspected suicide bomber killed at least 19 people at a political rally.
(WSJ, 10/3/00, p.A1)
2001 Oct 2, NATO Secretary-General
Lord Robertson said the United States had provided "clear and
conclusive" evidence of Osama bin Laden's involvement in the attacks on
New York and Washington.
(SFC, 10/3/01, p.A4)(AP, 10/2/02)
2001 Oct 2, Acting Massachusetts
Gov. Jane Swift unveiled security measures that included a new security
chief at Logan International Airport, where hijackers boarded the two
planes that smashed into the World Trade Center.
(AP, 10/2/02)
2001 Oct 2, The US Federal Reserve
cut interest rates for a 9th time and reduced the federal funds rate to
2.5%, its lowest level since 1962. The DJIA rose 113 to 8,950. The
Nasdaq rose 11 to 1,492.
(SFC, 10/2/01, p.A1,D2)
2001 Oct 2, A US Treasury Dept
official reported that over $100 million of suspected terrorist assets
had been frozen in domestic and foreign banks since the Sep 11 attacks.
(SFC, 10/3/01, p.A4)
2001 Oct 2, India demanded that
Pakistan shut down the Jaish-e-Mohammed (Army of the Prophet Mohammad)
militant group responsible for the Oct 1 attack in Srinagar that killed
40 people. India also asked the US to outlaw the group and to freeze
its assets.
(SFC, 10/3/01, p.A11)
2001 Oct 2, Palestinian gunmen
attacked an Israeli settlement in Gaza and killed a teenage couple. At
least 15 others were wounded. 2 gunmen were killed by Israeli
sharpshooters.
(SFC, 10/3/01, p.A11)
2001 Oct 2, In Russia Defense
Minister Sergei Ivanov signed a weapons framework agree-ment with
Iranian Defense Minister Ali Shamkhani for as much as $300 million.
(SFC, 10/3/01, p.A11)
2001 Oct 2, Farouk al-Sharaa,
Syrian foreign minister, said Syria is determined to help the int’l.
effort to combat terrorism. He added that to achieve that goal,
terrorism’s roots and causes would have to be addressed.
(WSJ, 10/3/01, p.A17)
2001 Oct 2, Cash-strapped Swissair
shut down flight operations and stranded thousands of passengers around
the globe.
(SFC, 10/3/01, p.D3)
2002 Oct 2, Andrew Fastow (40),
the former chief financial officer of Enron Corp. was charged with
securities, wire and mail fraud, money laundering and conspiring to
inflate Enron's profits and enrich himself at the company’s expense. On
Sep 26, 2006, Fastow was sentenced to 6 years in prison.
(AP, 10/2/02)(SFC, 9/27/06, p.C1)
2002 Oct 2, The New Jersey Supreme
Court ruled unanimously that the Democratic Party could replace Sen.
Torricelli on the November ballot with former senator Frank Lautenberg.
(AP, 10/2/03)
2002 Oct 2, West Coast dockworkers
and shippers agreed to federal mediation as the 4-day lockout paralyzed
29 ports.
(SFC, 10/3/02, p.A1)
2002 Oct 2, James Martin (55) was
shot to death by a sniper in Wheaton, Md. He was the 1st to die at the
hands of a local serial killer. The next day, five people in the
Washington D.C. area were shot dead, setting off a frantic manhunt.
John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo were later arrested for 10
killings and three woundings; Muhammad has been sentenced to death,
Malvo to life in prison.
(NW, 10/21/02, p.28)(AP, 10/2/07)
2002 Oct 2, Norman O. Brown (89),
author of "Life Against Death" (1959), died in Santa Cruz, Ca.
(SFC, 10/7/02, p.A19)
2002 Oct 2, Bosnian Serb wartime
leader Biljana Plavsic, one of the highest-ranking suspects at the U.N.
war crimes tribunal, pleaded guilty to one count of crimes against
humanity.
(AP, 10/2/02)
2002 Oct 2, Iraq said it would not
accept any new U.N. resolution to cover the operations of arms
inspectors on its soil and vowed it would hit back hard against any
U.S. attack on Bagh-dad.
(AP, 10/2/02)
2002 Oct 2, In the Philippines a
bomb killed an American soldier in Zamboanga and was detonated by a
Filipino on a motorcycle who died in the blast that killed one other
person.
(Reuters, 10/3/02)(WSJ, 10/4/02, p.A1)
2002 Oct 2, In northern Syria
mountain homes collapsed after caves beneath them gave way in the Sawad
Hill district. 31 people were killed and 22 injured.
(AP, 10/2/02)(SFC, 10/3/02, p.A9)
2003 Oct 2, The annual Ig Noble
prizes were awarded at Harvard Univ.
(SFC, 10/6/03, p.A1)
2003 Oct 2, South Africa's J.M.
Coetzee, whose stories tell of innocents and outcasts op-pressed by the
cruel weight of history, won the 2003 Nobel Prize for literature. His
books in-cluded "Dusklands" (1974), "In the heart of the Country"
(1977), "Waiting for the Barbarians" (1980), "Life and Times of Michael
K" (1983) and "Disgrace" (1999).
(AP, 10/2/03)(WSJ, 10/14/03, p.D10)
2003 Oct 2, The US House voted
281-142 to prohibit doctors from carrying out what abortion opponents
call partial birth abortion.
(AP, 10/2/04)
2003 Oct 2, The Los Angeles Times
published allegations that California gubernatorial candi-date Arnold
Schwarzenegger had sexually harassed six women in the past; the actor
acknowl-edged "bad behavior" on his part, and apologized.
2003 Oct 2, John Dunlop (89),
former Labor Secretary died.
(AP, 10/2/04)
2003 Oct 2, In Bahrain assailants
hurled gasoline bombs at a busload of police officers, wounding five of
them.
(AP, 10/3/03)
2003 Oct 2, Two Canadian
peacekeepers were killed and three were injured in a land-mine blast in
the Afghan capital Kabul.
(Reuters, 10/2/03)
2003 Oct 2, In Haiti police trying
to raid a shantytown touched off a gunfight that killed five men in the
city of Gonaives.
(AP, 10/3/03)
2003 Oct 2, North Korea said it is
using plutonium extracted from spent nuclear fuel rods to make atomic
weapons.
(AP, 10/2/03)
2003 Oct 2, Pakistan's army
launched its largest offensive against al-Qaida and other mili-tants in
a rugged tribal region bordering Afghanistan, killing at least 12
suspects.
(AP, 10/2/03)
2004 Oct 2, The Loveparade, which
originated in Berlin in 1989, came to San Francisco for its 1st annual
bash. Matthias Roeingh, founder, was on hand.
(SSFC, 10/3/04, p.B1)
2004 Oct 2, IMF and World Bank
officials in Washington DC failed to resolve their differences over
debt relief for the world's poorest countries and Iraq while expressing
concern about the impact high oil prices would have on a strengthening
global economy.
(AP, 10/3/04)
2004 Oct 2, Afghan intelligence
agents backed by international peacekeepers arrested 25 people
allegedly linked to the Taliban and al-Qaida in an early morning raid
in eastern Kabul.
(AP, 10/2/04)
2004 Oct 2, In Ontario, Canada, a
record 1,446 pound pumpkin was unveiled.
(SFC, 10/12/04, p.B1)
2004 Oct 2, Two US ships carrying
300 pounds of plutonium were scheduled to dock in Cher-bourg, France. A
French nuclear factory planned to transform it into fuel assemblies and
return it next year to Charleston, SC.
(SFC, 10/1/04, p.A15)
2004 Oct 2, In Haiti authorities
recovered the decapitated bodies of three policemen, among at least
seven people killed in a 2nd day of violence. Aristide supporters
demanded his return from exile in South Africa, launching what they
called "Operation Baghdad."
(AP, 10/2/04)(AP, 10/6/04)
2004 Oct 2, In northeast India a
spate of bombings and gun attacks in crowded public places killed 73
people in markets and a railroad station across Assam and Nagaland
states.
(SSFC, 10/3/04, p.A8)(AP, 10/2/05)
2004 Oct 2, A militant group in
Iraq claimed in an Internet statement that it abducted and be-headed an
Iraqi construction contractor who worked on a U.S. military base.
(AP, 10/3/04)
2004 Oct 2, About 100,000 Kurds
demonstrated outside provincial government offices, de-manding that the
turbulent, oil hub of Kirkuk be made part of the autonomous Kurdish
region in northern Iraq.
(AP, 10/2/04)
2004 Oct 2, Israeli troops killed
10 Palestinian militants, as the military expanded one of its largest
offensives against Palestinian militants in four years of fighting.
(AP, 10/2/04)(SSFC, 10/3/04, p.A11)
2004 Oct 2, In Lebanon a military
prosecutor has charged 35 Arab nationals and alleged members of an
al-Qaida-linked terror group with plotting to bomb foreign targets,
including the Italian and Ukrainian diplomatic missions.
(AP, 10/2/04)
2004 Oct 2, In eastern Pakistan
thousands of minority Shiite Muslims rampaged through the city of
Sialkot in a riot sparked by a suicide bombing at a Shiite mosque that
killed 31 people.
(AP, 10/2/04)
2004 Oct 2, Turkish troops and
Kurdish rebels clashed in southeastern Turkey in fighting that killed
two soldiers and a guerrilla.
(AP, 10/3/04)
2005 Oct 2, In New York the
40-foot boat the Ethan Allen capsized on Lake George over so quickly
that none of the 47 passengers from Michigan could put on a life
jacket. 20 people were killed.
(AP, 10/3/05)
2005 Oct 2, Nipsey Russell (80),
actor and comedian, died in NY. As the "poet laureate of television,"
he delivered his signature four-line verse during frequent guest
appearances on TV game shows and talk shows. Russell launched his TV
career in 1961 as Officer Anderson in the series "Car 54, Where are
You?" He also appeared in the 1994 film version.
(AP, 10/4/05)
2005 Oct 2, Playwright August
Wilson (60), whose epic 10-play cycle chronicling the black experience
in 20th-century America included such landmark dramas as "Fences" and
"Ma Rainey's Black Bottom," died of liver cancer.
(AP, 10/3/05)(Econ, 10/8/05, p.94)
2005 Oct 2, Afghan government
forces killed 31 suspected Taliban militants near the eastern border
with Pakistan. In a separate clash militants attacked a truck carrying
supplies for U.S.-led coalition forces in Surobi district of eastern
Paktia province, killing the truck driver. In fight-ing that followed,
three more militants were killed and two arrested. Two Afghan army
officers were wounded.
(AP, 10/3/05)
2005 Oct 2, Afghan election
officials said ballot boxes from about 4% of the country’s 26,000
polling stations were set aside for investigation on suspicion of fraud.
(SFC, 10/3/05, p.A8)
2005 Oct 2, The fragmented
political opposition in Belarus chose Alexander Milinkevich (58), a
former US-educated physicist, to challenge President Alexander
Lukashenko in next year's presidential election.
(AP, 10/2/05)
2005 Oct 2, In western Colombia
leftist FARC rebels attacked a police station in an isolated jungle
town, killing at least five police officers.
(AP, 10/3/05)
2005 Oct 2, The US ambassador
urged Colombia to spray weed killer inside the country's spectacular
nature parks to destroy cocaine-producing crops, insisting the
chemicals will not cause widespread damage to the reserves' ecosystems.
(AP, 10/2/05)
2005 Oct 2, A Dubai-based
newspaper said it stands by a story in which it quoted Iran's president
as saying he might curtail oil sales if his nation is referred to the
UN Security Council for possible sanctions over its nuclear program.
(AP, 10/2/05)
2005 Oct 2, Voters in the German
city of Dresden cast the last ballots in the inconclusive na-tional
election in what could offer a breakthrough in a bitter power struggle
over who will be the next chancellor. The election there was postponed
for two weeks due to the death of a neo-Nazi candidate. Conservative
challenger Angela Merkel's party gained a seat in Dresden, the last
remaining district in parliamentary balloting.
(AP, 10/2/05)
2005 Oct 2, Hundreds of U.S.
troops combed through a village near the Syrian border, break-ing into
houses and fighting sporadic gun battles with gunmen on the second day
of a new of-fensive against al-Qaida insurgents. At least eight
militants were killed.
(AP, 10/2/05)
2005 Oct 2, Al-Qaida in Iraq
claimed to have captured two US Marines participating in an of-fensive
in western Iraq, threatening in a Web statement to kill them within 24
hours. The US military said the claim appeared to be fake.
(AP, 10/2/05)
2005 Oct 2, Israel suspended its
offensive into the Gaza Strip following a lull in rocket fire by
Palestinian militants, but it is ready to restart the operation if
attacks resume.
(AP, 10/2/05)
2005 Oct 2, Libya awarded 44 oil
exploration permits to predominantly Asian and European companies after
a first batch was awarded earlier this year mainly to American firms.
(AFP, 10/3/05)
2005 Oct 2, Portuguese Prime
Minister Jose Socrates met Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi in Tripoli, as
Libya continues its bid to warm relations with the West.
(AP, 10/2/05)
2005 Oct 2, Felipe Calderon,
Mexico's former energy secretary, appeared headed toward an-other
victory in the 2nd round of the ruling National Action Party's 3-part
presidential primary.
(AP, 10/2/05)
2005 Oct 2, Moroccan police began
rounding up African refugees. Doctors Without Borders soon reported
that Morocco had dropped about 1,000 people in the desert and left them
there to walk for nearly a week. As a result, the government
established the two holding centers at Touizgue and Berden for those
people to find refuge.
(AP, 10/18/05)
2005 Oct 2, Assailants fired
rockets at a Pakistani army base, killing a soldier and three
gov-ernment employees in a spate of violence in the lawless tribal area
along the Afghan border.
(AP, 10/3/05)
2005 Oct 2, Hamas gunmen clashed
with Palestinian security forces in the Gaza Strip. A po-lice commander
and a civilian were killed and at least 50 others were wounded.
(SFC, 10/3/05, p.A8)
2005 Oct 2, Project leader Exxon
Mobil corporation said Russia's massive Sakhalin-1 oil and gas field
started pumping oil off the country's Pacific coast at the weekend.
(AP, 10/2/05)
2005 Oct 2-2005 Oct 3, In Colombia
suspected leftist rebels (FARC) killed at least 13 coca harvesters near
Vistahermosa as part of a struggle with far-right paramilitary gangs
for control of the lucrative cocaine trade.
(AP, 10/5/05)
2006 Oct 2, Bob Woodward’s new
book “State of Denial: Bush at War. Part III,” was pub-lished.
(SFC, 9/30/06, p.A1)
2006 Oct 2, In Nickel Mines,
Pennsylvania, Charles Carl Roberts IV (32), a local truck driver, lined
at least 11 girls against a blackboard and shot them in the head at a
one-room Amish schoolhouse in Lancaster County. He shot himself as
police stormed the schoolhouse. Two young students were killed, along
with a female teacher's aide who was slightly older than the students.
Seven others, most shot at point-blank range, were taken to hospitals,
and two of them died early the next day.
(AP, 10/3/06)(SFC, 10/3/06, p.A1)(Econ, 10/7/06,
p.38)
2006 Oct 2, Americans Andrew Z.
Fire and Craig C. Mello won the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine
for discovering a powerful way to turn off the effect of specific
genes, opening a new avenue for disease treatment.
(AP, 10/2/06)
2006 Oct 2, Morgan Stanley said it
has acquired China's Nan Tung Bank, a deal that would give the Wall
Street giant a coveted onshore commercial banking license in China
ahead of U.S. investment bank rivals.
(AP, 10/2/06)
2006 Oct 2, Actress Tamara Dobson
(59) died in Baltimore, Md.
(AP, 10/2/07)
2006 Oct 2, In Afghanistan 9
people were killed in various Taliban attacks and bomb blasts. They
included four Afghan soldiers killed when their vehicle struck a bomb
in Paktia province and five civilians killed in a bomb blast in Musa
Qala in Helmand province in the south. Two gunbattles in eastern
Afghanistan killed four Afghan and two US troops. NATO prepared to
as-sume military command of all of the country from the US-led
coalition.
(AP, 10/2/06)(AP, 10/3/06)
2006 Oct 2, Preliminary results
indicated that Bosnians elected new leaders, Milorad Dodik and Haris
Silajdzic, split along ethnic lines over whether to further unify the
country in a push toward European Union membership or allow Serbs to
maintain their political distinctness.
(AP, 10/2/06)(Econ, 6/30/07, p.60)
2006 Oct 2, Georgia released four
Russian officers whose arrest on spying charges prompted Moscow to
announce sweeping travel and communications sanctions in the worst
bilateral crisis in years.
(AP, 10/2/06)
2006 Oct 2, Indian PM Manmohan
Singh and South African President Thabo Mbeki signed a sweeping pact to
buttress ties between the regional powerhouses. The Pretoria agreement
was followed by the signing of a pact on cooperation in education and
another between Indian Rail-ways which runs one of the world's biggest
networks and South African railway company Spoornet.
(AP, 10/2/06)
2006 Oct 2, Smoke and ash from
land-clearing fires in Indonesia blanketed a large swath of the
country's west, sending air quality levels plummeting there and in
neighboring Singapore and Malaysia.
(AP, 10/2/06)
2006 Oct 2, Iraq’s Parliament
extended the state of emergency as gunmen seized 14 em-ployees from
computer stores in downtown Baghdad in the second mass kidnapping in as
many days. A police patrol was ambushed in southern Iraq by gunmen who
killed two officers and injured three. At least 50 corpses were
discovered scattered around Baghdad overnight. 4 US soldiers were
killed in Baghdad in separate small-arms fire attacks. Another four
were killed in a roadside bomb attack on their patrol northwest of
Baghdad.
(AP, 10/2/06)(AP, 10/3/06)
2006 Oct 2, Italian police said
they had smashed an Algerian Islamic fundamentalist cell that gave
logistical support to suspected militants in Algeria.
(Reuters, 10/2/06)
2006 Oct 2, Nicaragua lobbied for
support for an $18 billion canal linking the Pacific and At-lantic,
saying a second international waterway is needed to handle the world's
booming ship-ping business.
(AP, 10/3/06)
2006 Oct 2, Dozens of militants
abducted 25 Nigerian oil workers in an attack on their convoy in the
southern delta region. 5 soldiers were killed and 9 left missing when
militants sank two boats used to guard a Shell convoy.
(AP, 10/3/06)(WSJ, 10/3/06, p.A1)
2006 Oct 2, In the Gaza town of
Rafah gunbattles between Fatah and Hamas left 2 people dead and 14
wounded.
(SFC, 10/3/06, p.A3)
2006 Oct 2, Foreign Minster Ruben
Ramirez said that Paraguay and Washington would not renew a
defense-cooperation agreement for 2007 over the South American
country's refusal to grant US troops inside Paraguay immunity from
prosecution by the International Criminal Court.
(AP, 10/3/06)
2006 Oct 2, Vladimir Kramnik of
Russia and Veselin Topalov of Bulgaria played to a draw in Game 6 of
the world chess championship after Kramnik agreed to resume competition
after a dispute over bathroom breaks threatened to halt the tournament.
(AP, 10/3/06)
2006 Oct 2, Turkey’s PM Recep
Tayyip Erdogan began his latest push to keep EU member-ship hopes on
track with a visit to Washington, where he received a key endorsement
from the Bush administration. Turkey was the largest supplier of
non-combat equipment to American forces in Iraq.
(http://tinyurl.com/gvg4s)(Econ, 9/30/06, p.62)
2006 Oct 2, Thailand's respected
central bank chief said he has agreed to join the interim Cabinet, a
move that appeared likely to reassure the business community.
(AP, 10/2/06)
2006 Oct 2, An informal UN poll
showed that South Korea's foreign minister Ban Ki-Moon (67) has nearly
full support from the Security Council, including its five
veto-wielding members, and appears almost certain to succeed Kofi Annan
as secretary-general of the United Nations.
(AP, 10/3/06)
2006 Oct 2, Zambia's Electoral
Commission said that President Levy Mwanawasa was re-elected to a
second term, collecting 43% of the votes cast in last week's balloting.
(AP, 10/2/06)
2007 Oct 2, A draft report by the
Government Accountability Office said Federal employees wasted at least
$146 million over a one-year period on business- and first-class
airline tickets, in some cases simply because they felt entitled to the
perk.
(AP, 10/3/07)
2007 Oct 2, Blackwater chairman
Erik Prince, testifying before the House Oversight and Government
Reform Committee, vigorously rejected charges that guards from his
private security firm acted recklessly while protecting State
Department personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan.
(AP, 10/2/08)
2007 Oct 2, A federal jury in New
York ordered the owners of the New York Knicks to pay $11.6 million to
former team executive Anucha Browne Sanders, concluding she'd been
sexually harassed and fired out of spite.
(AP, 10/2/08)
2007 Oct 2, Nasdaq agreed to
acquire the Boston stock Exchange for about $61 million.
(WSJ, 10/3/07, p.C3)
2007 Oct 2, In Colorado 5 workers
trapped at least 1,500 feet underground survived an initial chemical
fire at a hydroelectric plant near Georgetown, but died before
emergency workers could rescue them.
(AP, 10/3/07)
2007 Oct 2, The new $800 million
MGM Grand Casino opened in downtown Detroit. Across the street the old
MGM Grand, which had opened in 1999, closed on Sep 30.
(WSJ, 9/26/07, p.B1)
2007 Oct 2, George Grizzard (79),
Tony Award-winning actor, died in New York.
(AP, 10/2/08)
2007 Oct 2, James Michaels (86),
innovative editor of Forbes magazine (1961-1999), died.
(www.nytimes.com/2007/10/04/business/04michaels.html)(WSJ, 10/6/07,
p.A17)
2007 Oct 2, In Afghan a mother and
her two children boarded a police bus in Kabul only sec-onds before a
suicide bomber detonated his payload inside, an attack that killed 13
police and civilians. Taliban militants killed two policemen and
destroyed a remote government office in central Afghanistan, as five
Dutch troops were wounded in a clash in the country's south.
(AP, 10/2/07)(AP, 10/3/07)
2007 Oct 2, Australia’s
Immigration Minister Kevin Andrews said that over the past two years
the intake of Africans has been cut from 70% of the total of 13,000
refugees to just 30%.
(AFP, 10/2/07)
2007 Oct 2, Magda Pniewska (26), a
Polish woman, was shot in the head and died after being caught in the
cross-fire between two gunmen in a residential street in London. On
April 22, 2008, Armel Gnango (17) was convicted of murder for being
involved in the gunfight.
(AFP, 10/3/07)(AFP, 5/22/08)
2007 Oct 2, Canada’s Justice
Minister Rob Nicholson said the government plans to criminal-ize
identity theft to give police the ability to stop such activity before
any fraud has actually been carried out.
(AP, 10/3/07)
2007 Oct 2, China’s Pres. Hu
Jintao kicked off the 2007 Special Olympics in Shanghai as 7,500
athletes from over 165 countries entered the stadium before a crowd of
80,000.
(WSJ, 10/3/07, p.B3A)
2007 Oct 2, Colombia's navy seized
2 tons of cocaine, most destined for the United States, in small
packages labeled with the British flag from a truck on the country's
Caribbean coast.
(AP, 10/4/07)
2007 Oct 2, The United Iraqi
Alliance, the Shiite bloc of PM al-Maliki, demanded that the US
military abandon its recruitment of Sunni tribesmen into the Iraqi
police force. Britain's PM Brown arrived in Iraq to meet troops and
lawmakers and announced plans to withdraw more than 1,000 troops from
Iraq by year's end, and Iraq said it will take over security from
British forces in the southern Basra province within two months. 11
people were killed, including two women, a child and four police
officers, in five separate attacks, including a suicide car bombing at
a police checkpoint near Khalis, 50 miles north of Baghdad.
(AP, 10/2/07)(SFC, 10/3/07, p.A3)
2007 Oct 2, Israel completed the
release of 86 Palestinian prisoners and soldiers briefly opened fire as
family members rushed toward the prisoners at the Erez crossing in the
Gaza Strip. 2 people were wounded. A blast in Gaza killed four people,
including three Fatah activists and a bystander. Hamas accused Fatah of
having tried to attack the security compound, saying explosives in the
car apparently blew up prematurely.
(SFC, 10/3/07, p.A12)(AP, 10/3/07)(WSJ, 10/3/07,
p.A1)
2007 Oct 2, Myanmar's reclusive
junta leader, Senior Gen. Than Shwe, finally granted an au-dience to a
UN envoy hoping to broker an end to Myanmar's crackdown on
pro-democracy pro-testers.
(AP, 10/2/07)
2007 Oct 2, North Korean leader
Kim Jong Il showed scant enthusiasm for the visiting South Korean
president, while orchestrated crowds of thousands cheered the start of
the second summit between the divided Koreas since World War II.
(AP, 10/2/07)
2007 Oct 2, Pakistan agreed to
grant ex-premier Benazir Bhutto an amnesty on corruption charges.
Opposition legislators resigned to undercut President Gen. Pervez
Musharraf's re-election bid, but the Pakistani leader pushed ahead with
plans for an expected victory, naming Gen. Ashfaq Kayani, a former
spymaster, to head the military in his place.
(AP, 10/2/07)(AFP, 10/2/07)(Econ, 10/6/07, p.48)
2007 Oct 2, A group of elder
statesmen, including former President Carter and Nobel peace laureate
Desmond Tutu, began a tour of Darfur to promote a political solution to
the region's conflict.
(AP, 10/2/07)
2007 Oct 2, Thailand's coup leader
General Sonthi Boonyaratglin was officially named a dep-uty prime
minister, but he denied that his appointment to the cabinet was an
attempt to cling to power.
(AP, 10/2/07)
2007 Oct 2, Shop owners said
Zimbabwe's supermarkets have run out of bread after bakers were forced
to suspend their operations due to a critical shortage of wheat.
(AFP, 10/2/07)
2008 Oct 2, US vice presidential
candidates held their only debate prior to elections. Alaska’s Gov.
Sarah Palin often spoke in generalities. Delaware Sen. Joe Biden was
generally focused and forceful, and seemed to take painstaking care not
to appear disrespectful in the least.
(AP, 10/3/08)
2008 Oct 2, The US FBI arrested
Puerto Rico Sen. Jorge de Castro Font (45) for providing political
favors in exchange for cash and services totaling roughly half a
million dollars. He was indicted by a federal grand jury on 31 criminal
counts including bribery, wire fraud and money laundering.
(AP, 10/2/08)
2008 Oct 2, A new report suggested
that HIV, the AIDS virus, originated in Africa between 1884 and 1924.
Earlier estimates had put the date around 1930. A new estimate of how
many Americans have the AIDS virus put the number at about 1.1 million.
(SFC, 10/2/08, p.A3)(Reuters, 10/3/08)
2008 Oct 2, Bolivian state media
reported that President Evo Morales has rejected a request from the US
Drug Enforcement Administration to fly anti-narcotics missions over the
South American nation's territory.
(AP, 10/3/08)
2008 Oct 2, Britain’s Beckley
Foundation, a charity which numbers senior experts and other academics
among its advisors, reported that cannabis is less harmful than alcohol
or tobacco, and called for a "serious rethink" of drug policy.
(AFP, 10/2/08)(www.beckleyfoundation.org/aboutus/)
2008 Oct 2, General Vladimir
Zagorec was extradited from Austria to Croatia on charges of stealing
gems used a collateral in an arms deal during the Balkan wars of the
1990s. 4 days later his lawyer’s daughter Ivana Hodak (26) was murdered.
(Econ, 11/1/08, p.61)
2008 Oct 2, Suicide bombers
targeted Shiite worshippers as they left morning prayers at two Baghdad
mosques, killing 24 people and injuring 50 others. Gunmen fatally shot
six Sunnis as they traveled in a minibus in the mainly Shiite town of
Wajihiyah, 60 miles north of Baghdad. A suicide bomber in western
Baghdad wounded four American soldiers and 2 Iraqis.
(AP, 10/2/08)(WSJ, 10/3/08, p.A14)
2008 Oct 2, India’s ban on smoking
in public places became effective, leaving public health officials with
a much tougher task: get the nation's estimated 120 million smokers to
stub out their cigarettes.
(AP, 10/2/08)
2008 Oct 2, In northwest Pakistan
a suicide bomber blew himself up near the house of politi-cian
Asfandyar Wali Khan, who was receiving guests to mark the end of the
Islamic fasting month at his home in Charsadda, killing at least four
people.
(AP, 10/2/08)
2008 Oct 2, Choi Jin-sil (39), one
of South Korea's most popular actresses, was found dead in an apparent
suicide after suffering from post-divorce depression and harassment by
online ru-mors about her allegedly irregular financial dealings.
(AP, 10/2/08)
2008 Oct 2, Sri Lanka’s air force
bombed the offices of the rebel peace secretariat, the head-quarters
for its negotiating team in long-defunct peace talks. Scattered battles
killed 42 rebel fighters and two soldiers.
(AP, 10/3/08)
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