World/nation trivia: The week of Oct. 6-12

Oct. 6:

1927, the era of talking pictures arrived with the opening of “The Jazz Singer” starring Al Jolson, a feature film containing both silent and sound-synchronized sequences.

1973, war erupted in the Middle East as Egypt and Syria launched a surprise attack on Israel during the Yom Kippur holiday, starting a nearly three-week conflict that would become known as the Yom Kippur War.

1981, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat was shot to death by members of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad while reviewing a military parade.

2014, the Supreme Court unexpectedly cleared the way for a dramatic expansion of gay marriage in the United States as it rejected appeals from five states seeking to preserve their bans, effectively making such marriages legal in 30 states.

Oct. 7:

1765, the Stamp Act Congress convened in New York to draw up colonial grievances against England.

1985, Palestinian gunmen hijacked the Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro in the Mediterranean Sea. The hijackers shot and killed Leon Klinghoffer, a Jewish American tourist in a wheelchair, and pushed him overboard, before surrendering on Oct. 9.

1998, Matthew Shepard, a gay college student, was beaten and left tied to a wooden fencepost outside of Laramie, Wyoming; he died five days later. Russell Henderson and Aaron McKinney are serving life sentences for Shepard’s murder.

2003, California voters recalled Gov. Gray Davis and elected Arnold Schwarzenegger their new governor.

Oct. 8:

1871, the Great Chicago Fire began; more than 300 people died and more than 17,000 structures were destroyed during the three-day blaze.

1956, Don Larsen pitched the only perfect game in a World Series as the New York Yankees beat the Brooklyn Dodgers in Game 5, 2-0.

1997, scientists reported the Mars Pathfinder had yielded what could be the strongest evidence yet that Mars might once have been hospitable to life.

2020, authorities in Michigan said six men had been charged with conspiring to kidnap Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in reaction to what they viewed as her “uncontrolled power.”

Oct. 9:

1910, a coal dust explosion at the Starkville Mine in Colorado left 56 miners dead.

1967, Marxist revolutionary guerrilla leader Che Guevara, 39, was executed by the Bolivian army a day after his capture.

2009, President Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize for what the Norwegian Nobel Committee called “his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples.”

2010, a drill broke through into an underground chamber where 33 Chilean miners had been trapped for more than two months.

Oct. 10:

1845, the U.S. Naval Academy was established in Annapolis, Maryland, with an inaugural class of 50 students.

1973, Vice President Spiro T. Agnew, accused of accepting bribes, resigned his office and pleaded no contest to one count of federal income tax evasion.

2001, a month after the Sept. 11 attacks, U.S. jets pounded the Afghan capital of Kabul while President George W. Bush unveiled a list of 22 most-wanted terrorists, including Osama bin Laden.

2018, Hurricane Michael, the first to strike the U.S. mainland as a Category 5 hurricane in 26 years, made landfall in Florida.

Oct. 11:

1906, the San Francisco Board of Education ordered all the city’s Asian students segregated into their own school. (The order was later rescinded at the behest of President Theodore Roosevelt, who in exchange promised to curb future Japanese immigration to the United States.)

1968, Apollo 7, the first manned Apollo mission, was launched with astronauts Wally Schirra, Donn Fulton Eisele and R. Walter Cunningham aboard.

1991, testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Anita Hill accused Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas of sexual harassment; Thomas re-appeared before the panel to denounce the proceedings as a “high-tech lynching.”

2017, the Boy Scouts of America announced that it would admit girls into the Cub Scouts starting the following year and establish a new program for older girls based on the Boy Scout curriculum.

Oct. 12:

1492, Christopher Columbus’s first expedition made landfall on what is now San Salvador Island in the Bahamas.

1960, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev protested remarks at the United Nations by pounding his shoe on his desk.

1973, President Richard Nixon nominated House minority leader Gerald R. Ford of Michigan to succeed Spiro T. Agnew as vice president.

2000, 17 sailors were killed in a suicide bomb attack on the destroyer USS Cole in Yemen.

– Associated Press