World/national trivia 10-13-13

Oct. 13:1307, King Philip IV of France ordered the arrests of Knights Templar on charges of heresy.

1792, the cornerstone of the executive mansion, later known as the White House, was laid during a ceremony in the District of Columbia.

1944, American troops entered Aachen, Germany, during World War II.

1972, a Uruguayan chartered flight carrying 45 people crashed in the Andes; 16 survivors who resorted to feeding off the remains of some of the dead in order to stay alive were rescued more than two months later.

Oct. 14:

1066, Normans under William the Conqueror defeated the English at the Battle of Hastings.

1912, former President Theodore Roosevelt, campaigning for the White House as the Progressive candidate, was shot in the chest in Milwaukee by New York saloonkeeper John Schrank. Despite the wound, Roosevelt went ahead with a scheduled speech, declaring, "It takes more than one bullet to kill a bull moose."

1947, Air Force test pilot Charles E. ("Chuck") Yeager broke the sound barrier as he flew the experimental Bell XS-1 (later X-1) rocket plane over Muroc Dry Lake in California.

1987, a 58-hour drama began in Midland, Texas, as 18-month-old Jessica McClure slid 22 feet down an abandoned well at a private day care center; she was rescued on Oct. 16.

Oct. 15:

1860, 11-year-old Grace Bedell of Westfield, N.Y., wrote a letter to presidential candidate Abraham Lincoln, suggesting he could improve his appearance by growing a beard.

1969, peace demonstrators staged activities across the country as part of a "moratorium" against the Vietnam War.

1991, despite sexual harassment allegations by Anita Hill, the Senate narrowly confirmed the nomination of Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court, 52-48.

Oct. 16:

1859, radical abolitionist John Brown led a group of 21 men in a raid on Harpers Ferry in western Virginia. (Ten of Brown's men were killed and five escaped. Brown and six followers ended up being captured; all were executed.)

1962, President John F. Kennedy was informed by national security adviser McGeorge Bundy that reconnaissance photographs had revealed the presence of missile bases in Cuba.

1978, the College of Cardinals of the Roman Catholic Church chose Cardinal Karol Wojtyla to be the new pope; he took the name John Paul II.

1987, a 58-1/2-hour drama in Midland, Texas, ended happily as rescuers freed Jessica McClure, an 18-month-old girl trapped in an abandoned well.

Oct. 17:

1777, British forces under Gen. John Burgoyne surrendered to American troops in Saratoga, N.Y., in a turning point of the Revolutionary War.

1931, mobster Al Capone was convicted of income tax evasion. (Sentenced to 11 years in prison, Capone was released in 1939.)

1973, Arab oil-producing nations announced they would begin cutting back oil exports to Western nations and Japan; the result was a total embargo that lasted until March 1974.

2012, Federal authorities in New York said a Bangladeshi student was arrested in an FBI sting after he tried to detonate a phony 1,000-pound truck bomb outside the Federal Reserve building in Manhattan. (Quazi Mohammad Rezwanul Ahsan Nafis, who spent a semester at Southeast Missouri State University, later pleaded guilty to attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction and attempting to provide material support to al-Qaida and was sentenced to 30 years in prison.)

Oct. 18:

1867, the United States took formal possession of Alaska from Russia.

1962, James D. Watson, Francis Crick and Maurice Wilkins were honored with the Nobel Prize for Medicine and Physiology for determining the double-helix molecular structure of DNA.

Oct. 19:

1781, British troops under Gen. Lord Cornwallis surrendered at Yorktown, Va., as the American Revolution neared its end.

1960, the United States began a limited embargo against Cuba covering all commodities except medical supplies and certain food products.

1987, the stock market crashed as the Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged 508 points, or 22.6 percent in value, to close at 1,738.74.

2003, Pope John Paul II beatified Mother Teresa during a ceremony in St. Peter's Square.

Source: Associated Press