Today is Sunday, Oct. 7, the 280th day of 2018. There are 85 days left in the year.
Today's Highlight in History:
On Oct. 7, 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.
On this date:
In 1777, the second Battle of Saratoga began during the American Revolution. (British forces under General John Burgoyne surrendered ten days later.)
In 1858, the fifth debate between Illinois senatorial candidates Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas took place in Galesburg.
In 1916, in the most lopsided victory in college football history, Georgia Tech defeated Cumberland University 222-0 in Atlanta.
In 1949, the Republic of East Germany was formed.
In 1954, Marian Anderson became the first black singer hired by the Metropolitan Opera Company in New York.
In 1960, Democratic presidential candidate John F. Kennedy and Republican opponent Richard Nixon held their second televised debate, this one in Washington, D.C.
In 1979, Pope John Paul II concluded his week-long tour of the United States with a Mass on the Washington Mall.
In 1982, the Andrew Lloyd Webber-Tim Rice musical "Cats" opened on Broadway. (The show ended its original run on Sept. 10, 2000, after a then-record 7,485 performances.)
In 1985, Palestinian gunmen hijacked the Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro (ah-KEE'-leh LOW'-roh) in the Mediterranean. (The hijackers killed Leon Klinghoffer, a Jewish-American tourist, before surrendering on Oct. 9.)
In 1989, Hungary's Communist Party renounced Marxism in favor of democratic socialism during a party congress in Budapest.
In 1992, trade representatives of the United States, Canada and Mexico initialed the North American Free Trade Agreement during a ceremony in San Antonio, Texas, in the presence of President George H.W. Bush, Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney (muhl-ROO'-nee) and Mexican President Carlos Salinas de Gortari.
In 1998, Matthew Shepard, a gay college student, was beaten and left tied to a wooden fencepost outside of Laramie, Wyoming; he died five days later. (Russell Henderson and Aaron McKinney are serving life sentences for Shepard's murder.)
