Today is Thursday, Oct. 21, the 294th day of 2021. There are 71 days left in the year.
Today’s Highlight in History:
On Oct. 21, 1966, 144 people, 116 of them children, were killed when a coal waste landslide engulfed a school and some 20 houses in Aberfan, Wales.
On this date:
In 1797, the U.S. Navy frigate Constitution, also known as “Old Ironsides,” was christened in Boston’s harbor.
In 1805, a British fleet commanded by Adm. Horatio Nelson defeated a French-Spanish fleet in the Battle of Trafalgar; Nelson, however, was killed.
In 1879, Thomas Edison perfected a workable electric light at his laboratory in Menlo Park, N.J.
In 1967, the Israeli destroyer INS Eilat was sunk by Egyptian missile boats near Port Said; 47 Israeli crew members were lost. Tens of thousands of Vietnam War protesters began two days of demonstrations in Washington, D.C.
In 1969, beat poet and author Jack Kerouac died in St. Petersburg, Fla., at age 47.
In 1971, President Richard Nixon nominated Lewis F. Powell and William H. Rehnquist to the U.S. Supreme Court. (Both nominees were confirmed.)
In 2001, Washington, D.C., postal worker Thomas L. Morris Jr. died of inhalation anthrax as officials began testing thousands of postal employees.
In 2012, former senator and 1972 Democratic presidential candidate George McGovern, 90, died in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.
In 2014, North Korea abruptly freed Jeffrey Fowle, an American, nearly six months after he was arrested for leaving a Bible in a nightclub. Former Washington Post executive editor Ben Bradlee, 93, died in Washington.
In 2015, Vice President Joe Biden announced he would not be a candidate in the 2016 White House campaign, solidifying Hillary Rodham Clinton’s status as the Democratic front-runner.
Today’s Birthdays: Actor Joyce Randolph is 97. Rock singer Manfred Mann is 81. Musician Steve Cropper (Booker T. & the MG’s) is 80. Singer Elvin Bishop is 79. TV’s Judge Judy Sheindlin is 79. Former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is 72. Musician Charlotte Caffey (The Go-Go’s) is 68. Actor Ken Watanabe is 62. Reality TV star Kim Kardashian West is 41. Country singer Kane Brown is 28.
