Today in History

Today is Sunday, Oct. 8, the 281st day of 2017. There are 84 days left in the year.

Today's Highlight in History:

On Oct. 8, 1871, the Great Chicago Fire erupted; fires also broke out in Peshtigo, Wisconsin, and in several communities in Michigan.

On this date:

In 1869, the 14th president of the United States, Franklin Pierce, died in Concord, New Hampshire.

In 1918, U.S. Army Cpl. Alvin C. York led an attack that killed 25 German soldiers and resulted in the capture of 132 others in the Argonne Forest in France.

In 1934, Bruno Hauptmann was indicted by a grand jury in New Jersey for murder in the death of the kidnapped son of Charles and Anne Morrow Lindbergh.

In 1945, President Harry S. Truman told a press conference in Tiptonville, Tennessee, that the secret scientific knowledge behind the atomic bomb would be shared only with Britain and Canada.

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

In 1957, the Brooklyn Baseball Club announced it was accepting an offer to move the Dodgers from New York to Los Angeles.

In 1967, former British Prime Minister Clement Attlee died in London at age 84.

In 1970, Soviet author Alexander Solzhenitsyn was named winner of the Nobel Prize for literature.

In 1982, all labor organizations in Poland, including Solidarity, were banned.

In 1998, the House triggered an open-ended impeachment inquiry against President Bill Clinton in a momentous 258-176 vote; 31 Democrats joined majority Republicans in opening the way for nationally televised impeachment hearings.

In 2001, an SAS airliner taking off from Milan, Italy, hit a private jet, careened into an airport building and exploded; all 110 people on the MD-87, four people in the private jet and four people on the ground were killed.

In 2005, a magnitude 7.6 earthquake flattened villages on the Pakistan-India border, killing an estimated 86,000 people.

Ten years ago: British Prime Minister Gordon Brown announced his country would cut in half its remaining troop contingent in Iraq in the spring of 2008. (Britain ended up postponing the withdrawal amid a spike in militia violence.) Michael Devlin was sentenced in Union, Missouri, to life in prison for kidnapping one of two boys he'd held captive in his suburban St. Louis apartment. (Devlin pleaded guilty the next day to dozens of other counts, resulting in a total of 74 life sentences.) Americans Mario R. Capecchi, Oliver Smithies and Briton Martin J. Evans won the 2007 Nobel Prize in medicine. Racing great John Henry, the thoroughbred who earned more than $6.5 million before retiring as a gelding, was euthanized at the Kentucky Horse Park at age 32.

Five years ago: Canadian Joshua Boyle and his U.S.-born wife, Caitlan Coleman, were last heard from in Afghanistan before being kidnapped by the Taliban; they remain in captivity. President Barack Obama designated the Keene, California, home of Cesar Chavez, the late founder of the United Farmworkers Union, as a national monument.

One year ago: Three Palm Springs, California, police officers were shot, two fatally, in what authorities called an ambush during a domestic dispute call by a gang member; a suspect has pleaded not guilty to murder. Donald Trump vowed on Twitter to continue his campaign even though he said the "media and establishment" wanted him out of the race "so badly"; many Republicans were calling on Trump to abandon his presidential bid in the wake of the release of a 2005 video in which he made lewd remarks about women and appeared to condone sexual assault.

Today's Birthdays: Entertainment reporter Rona Barrett is 81. Actor Paul Hogan is 78. Rhythm-and-blues singer Fred Cash (The Impressions) is 77. Civil rights activist Rev. Jesse Jackson is 76. Comedian Chevy Chase is 74. Author R.L. Stine is 74. Actor Dale Dye is 73. Country singer Susan Raye is 73. TV personality Sarah Purcell is 69. Rhythm-and-blues singer Airrion Love (The Stylistics) is 68. Actress Sigourney Weaver is 68. Rhythm-and-blues singer Robert "Kool" Bell (Kool & the Gang) is 67. Producer-director Edward Zwick is 65. Country singer-musician Ricky Lee Phelps is 64. Actor Michael Dudikoff is 63. Comedian Darrell Hammond is 62. Actress Stephanie Zimbalist is 61. Rock musician Mitch Marine is 56. Actress Kim Wayans is 56. Rock singer Steve Perry (Cherry Poppin' Daddies) is 54. Actor Ian Hart is 53. Gospel/rhythm-and-blues singer CeCe Winans is 53. Rock musician C.J. Ramone (The Ramones) is 52. Actress-producer Karyn Parsons is 51. Singer-producer Teddy Riley is 51. Actress Emily Procter is 49. Actor Dylan Neal is 48. Actor-screenwriter Matt Damon is 47. Actor-comedian Robert Kelly is 47. The mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, is 47. Actor Martin Henderson is 43. Actress Kristanna Loken is 38. Rhythm-and-blues singer Byron Reeder (Mista) is 38. Rock-soul singer-musician Noelle Scaggs (Fitz and the Tantrums) is 38. Actor Nick Cannon is 37. Actor Max Crumm is 32. Singer-songwriter-producer Bruno Mars is 32. Actor Angus T. Jones is 24. Actress Molly Quinn is 24.

Thought for Today: "History is the propaganda of the victors." -- Ernst Toller, German poet and dramatist (1893-1939).