Today in History

Today is Friday, Oct. 10, the 283rd day of 2014. There are 82 days left in the year.

Today's Highlight in History:

On Oct. 10, 1964, the Summer Olympics were opened in Tokyo by Japanese Emperor Hirohito; it was the first time the games were held in Asia.

On this date:

In 1845, the U.S. Naval Academy was established in Annapolis, Maryland.

In 1913, the Panama Canal was effectively completed as President Woodrow Wilson sent a signal from the White House by telegraph, setting off explosives that destroyed a section of the Gamboa dike.

In 1914, "The Missouri Waltz" by John Valentine Eppel was first published.

In 1935, the George Gershwin opera "Porgy and Bess," featuring an all-black cast, opened on Broadway; it ran for 124 performances.

In 1938, Nazi Germany completed its annexation of Czechoslovakia's Sudetenland.

In 1943, Chiang Kai-shek took the oath of office as president of China.

In 1957, President Dwight D. Eisenhower apologized to the finance minister of Ghana, Komla Agbeli Gbdemah, after the official was refused seating in a Howard Johnson's restaurant near Dover, Delaware.

In 1964, entertainer Eddie Cantor, 72, died in Beverly Hills, California.

In 1967, the Outer Space Treaty, prohibiting the placing of weapons of mass destruction on the moon or elsewhere in space, entered into force.

In 1970, Quebec Labor Minister Pierre Laporte was kidnapped by the Quebec Liberation Front, a militant separatist group. (Laporte's body was found a week later.) Fiji became independent after nearly a century of British rule.

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

In 1985, U.S. fighter jets forced an Egyptian plane carrying the hijackers of the Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro to land in Italy, where the gunmen were taken into custody. Actor-director Orson Welles died in Los Angeles at age 70; actor Yul Brynner died in New York at age 65.

Ten years ago: Christopher Reeve, the "Superman" of celluloid who became a quadriplegic after a May 1995 horse riding accident, died in Mount Kisco, New York, at age 52. Ken Caminiti, the National League's 1996 most valuable player who later admitted using steroids during his Major League baseball career, died in New York at age 41.

Five years ago: Turkey and Armenia signed a landmark agreement to establish diplomatic relations and open their sealed border after a century of enmity. President Barack Obama, addressing the Human Rights Campaign, restated his campaign pledge to allow homosexual men and women to serve openly in the military. Stephen Gately, 33, a singer with the Irish boy band Boyzone, died while vacationing on the Spanish island of Mallorca.

One year ago: Gunmen from one of Libya's many militias stormed a hotel where Prime Minister Ali Zidan had a residence and held him for several hours. Kwame Kilpatrick, a former Democratic mayor of Detroit, was sent to federal prison to serve a 28-year sentence for widespread corruption that occurred under his watch. Scott Carpenter, 88, the second American to orbit the Earth and one of the last surviving Mercury 7 astronauts, died in Denver.

Today's Birthdays: Former Illinois Sen. Adlai Stevenson III is 84. Actor Peter Coyote is 73. Entertainer Ben Vereen is 68. Singer John Prine is 68. Actor Charles Dance is 68. Rock singer-musician Cyril Neville (The Neville Brothers) is 66. Actress Jessica Harper is 65. Author Nora Roberts (aka "J.D. Robb") is 64. Singer-musician Midge Ure is 61. Rock singer David Lee Roth is 60. Actor J. Eddie Peck is 56. Country singer Tanya Tucker is 56. Actress Julia Sweeney is 55. Actor Bradley Whitford is 55. Musician Martin Kemp is 53. Rock musician Jim Glennie (James) is 51. Actress Rebecca Pidgeon is 49. Rock musician Mike Malinin (Goo Goo Dolls) is 47. NFL quarterback Brett Favre is 45. Actor Manu Bennett is 45. Actress Joelle Carter is 45. Actress Wendi McLendon-Covey is 45. Actor/TV host Mario Lopez is 41. Race driver Dale Earnhardt Jr. is 40. Actress Jodi Lyn O'Keefe is 36. Singer Mya is 35. Actor Dan Stevens is 32. Singer Cherie is 30. Actress Aimee Teegarden is 25.

Thought for Today: "The opposite of a fact is falsehood, but the opposite of one profound truth may very well be another profound truth." -- Niels Bohr, Danish physicist (1885-1962).

Copyright 2014, The Associated Press. All rights reserved.