Today is Thursday, Oct. 15, the 289th day of 2020. There are 77 days left in the year.

Today’s Highlight in History:

On Oct. 15, 1976, in the first debate of its kind between vice-presidential nominees, Democrat Walter F. Mondale and Republican Bob Dole faced off in Houston.

On this date:

In 1815, Napoleon Bonaparte, the deposed Emperor of the French, arrived on the British-ruled South Atlantic island of St. Helena, where he spent the last 5 1/2 years of his life in exile.

In 1940, Charles Chaplin’s first all-talking comedy, “The Great Dictator,” a lampoon of Adolf Hitler, opened in New York.

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

In 2003, 11 people were killed when a Staten Island ferry slammed into a maintenance pier. (The ferry’s pilot, who’d blacked out at the controls, later pleaded guilty to eleven counts of manslaughter.)

In 2017, actress and activist Alyssa Milano tweeted that women who had been sexually harassed or assaulted should write “Me too” as a status; within hours, tens of thousands had taken up the #MeToo hashtag (using a phrase that had been introduced 10 years earlier by social activist Tarana Burke.)

Today’s Birthdays: Singer Barry McGuire is 85. Actor Linda Lavin is 83. Baseball Hall of Famer Jim Palmer is 75. Singer-musician Richard Carpenter is 74. Former tennis player Roscoe Tanner is 69. Singer Tito Jackson is 67. Actor-comedian Larry Miller is 67. Britain’s Duchess of York, Sarah Ferguson, is 61. Chef Emeril Lagasse is 61. Actor Tanya Roberts is 61. Singer-actor-TV host Paige Davis is 51.