This day in history

[October 07, 2009]  (AP)  Today is Wednesday, Oct. 7, the 280th day of 2009. There are 85 days left in the year.

Today's highlight in history:

On Oct. 7, 1929, former Interior Secretary Albert B. Fall, one of the main figures of the Teapot Dome scandal, went on trial in Washington, D.C., charged with accepting a bribe from oil tycoon Edward L. Doheny. (Fall was convicted and sentenced to a year in prison and fined $100,000; he ended up serving nine months. Ironically, Doheny was acquitted at trial of offering the bribe that Fall was convicted of accepting.)

On this date:

In 1777, the second Battle of Saratoga began during the American Revolution. (British forces under Gen. John Burgoyne surrendered 10 days later.)

In 1858, the fifth debate between Illinois senatorial candidates Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas took place in Galesburg.

In 1949, the Republic of East Germany was formed.

In 1959, singer-actor Mario Lanza died in Rome at age 38.

In 1960, Democratic presidential candidate John F. Kennedy and Republican opponent Richard M. Nixon held their second televised debate, in Washington, D.C.

In 1979, Pope John Paul II concluded his weeklong tour of the United States with a Mass on the Washington Mall.

In 1985, Palestinian gunmen hijacked the Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro in the Mediterranean. (The hijackers, who killed an elderly Jewish American tourist, Leon Klinghoffer, surrendered two days after taking over the ship.)

In 1989, Hungary's Communist Party renounced Marxism in favor of democratic socialism during a party congress in Budapest.

In 1991, University of Oklahoma law professor Anita Hill publicly accused Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas of making sexually inappropriate comments when she worked for him; Thomas denied Hill's allegations.

In 1998, Matthew Shepard, a gay college student at the University of Wyoming, was beaten, robbed and left tied to a wooden fence post outside of Laramie; he died five days later. (Russell Henderson and Aaron McKinney are serving life sentences for Shepard's murder.)

Ten years ago: American Home Products Corp. resolved one of the biggest product liability cases ever by agreeing to pay up to $4.83 billion to settle claims that the fen-phen diet drug combination caused dangerous heart valve problems.

Five years ago: President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney conceded that Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction as they tried to shift the Iraq war debate to a new issue -- whether the invasion was justified because Saddam was abusing a U.N. oil-for-food program. Two bombs exploded at a gathering of Sunni Muslim radicals in Multan, Pakistan, killing some three dozen people. Cambodia's King Norodom Sihanouk abdicated because of poor health. Austrian writer Elfriede Jelinek won the Nobel Prize in literature.

One year ago: The misery worsened on Wall Street, as the Dow lost more than 500 points and all the major indexes slid more than 5 percent. In their second presidential debate, held at Belmont University in Nashville, Tenn., Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain clashed repeatedly over the causes and cures for the economic crisis. Makoto Kobayashi and Toshihide Maskawa of Japan and Yoichiro Nambu of the United States won the Nobel Prize in physics.

Today's birthdays: Singer Al Martino is 82. Retired South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu is 78. Comedian Joy Behar ("The View") is 67. Former National Security Council aide Oliver North is 66. Rock musician Kevin Godley (10cc) is 64. Actress Jill Larson ("All My Children") is 62. Country singer Kieran Kane is 60. Singer John Mellencamp is 58. Rock musician Ricky Phillips is 58. Actress Mary Badham is 57. Actress Christopher Norris is 56. Rock musician Tico Torres (Bon Jovi) is 56. Cellist Yo-Yo Ma is 54. Gospel singer Michael W. Smith is 52. Actor Dylan Baker is 51. Recording executive and TV personality Simon Cowell ("American Idol") is 50. Rock musician Charlie Marinkovich (Iron Butterfly) is 50. Country singer Dale Watson is 47. Pop singer Ann Curless (Expose) is 46. R&B singer Toni Braxton is 42. Rock singer-musician Thom Yorke (Radiohead) is 41. Rock musician-dancer Leeroy Thornhill is 40. Actress Nicole Ari Parker is 39. Rock singer-musician Damian Kulash is 34. Singer Taylor Hicks ("American Idol") is 33. Actor Omar Benson Miller is 31.

Thought for today: "An egotist is a person of low taste -- more interested in himself than in me." -- Ambrose Bierce, American author-journalist (1842-1914?)

[Associated Press]

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