Today in History

Today is Tuesday, Oct. 29, the 302nd day of 2013. There are 63 days left in the year.

Today's Highlight in History:

On Oct. 29, 1929, Wall Street crashed on "Black Tuesday," heralding the beginning of America's Great Depression.

On this date:

In 1618, Sir Walter Raleigh, the English courtier, military adventurer and poet, was executed in London.

In 1787, the opera "Don Giovanni" by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart had its world premiere in Prague.

In 1901, President William McKinley's assassin, Leon Czolgosz, was electrocuted.

In 1923, the Republic of Turkey was proclaimed.

In 1940, Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson drew the first number -- 158 -- in America's first peacetime military draft.

In 1956, during the Suez Canal crisis, Israel invaded Egypt's Sinai Peninsula. "The Huntley-Brinkley Report" premiered as NBC's nightly television newscast.

In 1960, a chartered plane carrying the California Polytechnic State University football team crashed on takeoff from Toledo, Ohio, killing 22 of the 48 people on board.

In 1966, the National Organization for Women was formally organized during a conference in Washington, D.C.

In 1967, Expo 67 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, closed after six months.

In 1979, on the 50th anniversary of the great stock market crash, anti-nuclear protesters tried but failed to shut down the New York Stock Exchange.

In 1987, following the confirmation defeat of Robert H. Bork to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court, President Ronald Reagan announced his choice of Douglas H. Ginsburg, a nomination that fell apart over revelations of Ginsburg's previous marijuana use. Jazz great Woody Herman died in Los Angeles at age 74.

In 1994, gunman Francisco Martin Duran fired more than two dozen shots from a semiautomatic rifle at the White House. (Duran was later convicted of trying to assassinate President Bill Clinton and was sentenced to 40 years in prison.)

In 1998, Sen. John Glenn, at age 77, roared back into space aboard the shuttle Discovery, retracing the trail he'd blazed for America's astronauts 36 years earlier.

In 2004, Osama bin Laden, in a videotaped statement, directly admitted for the first time that he'd ordered the Sept. 11 attacks and told America "the best way to avoid another Manhattan" was to stop threatening Muslims' security.

Ten years ago: International organizations continued their exodus from Iraq in the wake of car bombings in the capital and attacks against coalition troops. A powerful geomagnetic storm walloped the Earth, knocking out some airline communications but apparently causing no large power outages or other major problems. Opera star Franco Corelli died in Milan, Italy, at age 82.

Five years ago: A 6.4-magnitude earthquake in southwestern Pakistan killed at least 215 people. Nearly 50 hours after Game 5 started but was stopped by rain, the Philadelphia Phillies finished off the Tampa Bay Rays 4-3 in a three-inning sprint to win the World Series for the first time since 1980.

One year ago: Superstorm Sandy came ashore in New Jersey and slowly marched inland. It swamped lower Manhattan with a 13-foot surge of seawater, devastated New Jersey coastal communities and left more than 8 million people without power. The storm and its aftermath would kill more than 100 people in the United States.

Today's Birthdays: Bluegrass singer-musician Sonny Osborne (The Osborne Brothers) is 76. Country singer Lee Clayton is 71. Rock musician Denny Laine is 69. Singer Melba Moore is 68. Musician Peter Green is 67. Actor Richard Dreyfuss is 66. Actress Kate Jackson is 65. The president of Turkey, Abdullah Gul, is 63. Actor Dan Castellaneta ("The Simpsons") is 56. Country musician Steve Kellough (Wild Horses) is 56. Comic strip artist Tom Wilson ("Ziggy") is 56. Actress Finola Hughes is 54. Singer Randy Jackson is 52. Rock musician Peter Timmins (Cowboy Junkies) is 48. Actress Joely Fisher is 46. Rapper Paris is 46. Actor Rufus Sewell is 46. Actor Grayson McCouch is 45. Rock singer SA Martinez (311) is 44. Musician Toby Smith is 43. Actress Winona Ryder is 42. Actress Tracee Ellis Ross is 41. Actor Trevor Lissauer is 40. Actress Gabrielle Union is 40. Olympic gold medal bobsledder Vonetta Flowers is 40. Actress Milena Govich is 37. Actor Jon Abrahams is 36. Actor Brendan Fehr is 36. Actor Ben Foster is 33. Rock musician Chris Baio (Vampire Weekend) is 29. Actress India Eisley (TV: "The Secret Life of the American Teenager") is 20.

Thought for Today: "It may be necessary temporarily to accept a lesser evil, but one must never label a necessary evil as good." -- Margaret Mead, American anthropologist (1901-1978).

Copyright 2013, The Associated Press. All rights reserved.