Today's Highlight in History:
On Oct. 17, 1989, an earthquake measuring magnitude 7.1 struck northern California, killing 63 people and causing $6 billion worth of damage. (The quake hit just before Game 3 of the World Series between the Oakland Athletics and San Francisco Giants at Candlestick Park; the Series was suspended until Oct. 27, at which time the A's resumed their four-game sweep of the Giants.)
On this date:
In 1777, British forces under Gen. John Burgoyne surrendered to American troops in Saratoga, N.Y., in a turning point of the Revolutionary War.
In 1807, Britain declared it would continue to reclaim British-born sailors from American ships and ports regardless of whether they held U.S. citizenship.
In 1907, Guglielmo Marconi began offering limited commercial wireless telegraph service between Nova Scotia and Ireland.
In 1919, Radio Corporation of America was chartered.
In 1931, mobster Al Capone was convicted of income tax evasion. (Sentenced to 11 years in prison, Capone was released in 1939.)
In 1933, Albert Einstein arrived in the United States as a refugee from Nazi Germany.
In 1939, Frank Capra's comedy-drama "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington," starring James Stewart as an idealistic junior U.S. senator, had its premiere in the nation's capital.
In 1941, the U.S. destroyer Kearny was torpedoed by a German submarine off the coast of Iceland; 11 people died.
In 1973, Arab oil-producing nations announced they would begin cutting back oil exports to Western nations and Japan; the result was a total embargo that lasted until March 1974.
In 1979, Mother Teresa of India was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
Ten years ago: The FBI reported that serious crimes reported to police declined for seventh straight year in 1998 and murder and robbery rates reached 30-year lows. Former nurse Orville Lynn Majors was convicted of murdering six patients at a western Indiana hospital; the jury deadlocked on a seventh count. (Majors is serving a 360-year prison sentence.)
