This day in history

[October 04, 2010]  (AP)  Today is Monday, Oct. 4, the 277th day of 2010. There are 88 days left in the year.

Today's highlight in history:

On Oct. 4, 1957, the Space Age began as the Soviet Union launched Sputnik 1, the first artificial satellite, into orbit.

On this date:

In 1777, Gen. George Washington's troops launched an assault on the British at Germantown, Pa., resulting in heavy American casualties.

In 1822, the 19th president of the United States, Rutherford B. Hayes, was born in Delaware, Ohio.

In 1931, the comic strip "Dick Tracy," created by Chester Gould, made its debut.

In 1940, Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini conferred at Brenner Pass in the Alps.

In 1958, the first trans-Atlantic passenger jetliner service was begun by the British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC) with flights between London and New York.

In 1959, the Soviet Union launched Luna 3, a space probe which transmitted images of the far side of the moon.

In 1960, an Eastern Air Lines Lockheed L-188A Electra crashed on takeoff from Boston's Logan International Airport, killing all but 10 of the 72 people on board.

In 1970, rock singer Janis Joplin, 27, was found dead in her Hollywood hotel room.

In 1976, agriculture secretary Earl Butz resigned in the wake of a controversy over a joke he'd made about blacks.

In 1980, fire broke out aboard the Dutch cruise vessel Prinsendam in the Gulf of Alaska, forcing the 520 people aboard to abandon ship; no deaths or serious injury resulted. (The ship capsized and sank a week later.)

Ten years ago: Amid fresh bloodshed in the West Bank and Gaza, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright brought Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak (EH'-hud bah-RAHK') and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat together for talks in Paris. In an apparent attempt to buy time for Slobodan Milosevic (sloh-BOH'-dahn mee-LOH'-shuh-vich), Yugoslavia's highest court invalidated parts of the presidential election after thousands of opposition supporters forced police to back off from seizing a strikebound mine.

Five years ago: President George W. Bush defended his Supreme Court nominee, Harriet Miers, from suggestions by some skeptical Republicans that she was not conservative enough, and insisted Miers shared his strict-constructionist views. (Miers ended up withdrawing.) Hurricane Stan slammed into Mexico's Gulf coast. Americans John L. Hall and Roy J. Glauber and German Theodor W. Haensch won the 2005 Nobel Prize in physics.

One year ago: Greek Socialists trounced the governing conservatives in a landslide election. Argentine folk singer Mercedes Sosa, 74, died in Buenos Aires.

Today's birthdays: Country singer Leroy Van Dyke is 81. Pro and College Football Hall of Famer Sam Huff is 76. Actor Eddie Applegate is 75. Actress Felicia Farr is 75. Author Jackie Collins is 73. Author Roy Blount Jr. is 69. Author Anne Rice is 69. Actress Lori Saunders ("Petticoat Junction") is 69. Baseball manager Tony La Russa is 66. Actor Clifton Davis is 65. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen, is 64. Actress Susan Sarandon is 64. Blues musician Duke Robillard is 62. Playwright Lee Blessing is 61. Actor Armand Assante is 61. Actor Alan Rosenberg is 60. Actor Bill Fagerbakke (FAY'-guhr-bah-kee) is 53. Producer Russell Simmons is 53. Musician Chris Lowe (The Pet Shop Boys) is 51. Country musician Gregg "Hobie" Hubbard (Sawyer Brown) is 50. Actor David W. Harper is 49. Singer Jon Secada is 49. TV personality John Melendez is 45. Actor Liev Schreiber is 43. Actor Abraham Benrubi is 41. Country singer-musician Heidi Newfield is 40. Actress Alicia (ah-LEE'-see-ah) Silverstone is 34. Actor Phillip Glasser is 32. Rock singer-musician Marc Roberge (O.A.R.) is 32. Actress Rachael Leigh Cook is 31. Actor Jimmy Workman is 30. Rhythm-and-blues singer Jessica Benson (3lw) is 23. Actor Michael Charles Roman is 23. Figure skater Kimmie Meisner is 21.

Thought for today: "Sometimes even to live is an act of courage." -- Seneca the Younger, Roman statesman and philosopher (3 B.C.-A.D 65)

[Associated Press]

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