Today is Monday, Oct. 23, the 296th day of 2017. There are 69 days left in the year.
Today's Highlight in History:
On Oct. 23, 1942, during World War II, Britain launched a major offensive against Axis forces at El Alamein (el ah-lah-MAYN') in Egypt, resulting in an Allied victory.
On this date:
In 1864, forces led by Union Maj. Gen. Samuel R. Curtis repelled Confederate Maj. Gen. Sterling Price's army in the Civil War Battle of Westport in Missouri.
In 1915, tens of thousands of women paraded up Fifth Avenue in New York City, demanding the right to vote.
In 1935, mobster Dutch Schultz, 34, was shot and mortally wounded with three other men during a gangland hit at the Palace Chophouse in Newark, New Jersey. (Schultz died the following day.)
In 1941, the Walt Disney animated feature "Dumbo," about a young circus elephant who learns how to fly, premiered in New York.
In 1944, the World War II Battle of Leyte (LAY'-tee) Gulf began, resulting in a major Allied victory against Japanese forces.
In 1946, the United Nations General Assembly convened in New York for the first time, at an auditorium in Flushing Meadow.
In 1956, a student-sparked revolt against Hungary's Communist rule began; as the revolution spread, Soviet forces started entering the country, and the uprising was put down within weeks.
In 1963, the Neil Simon comedy "Barefoot in the Park," starring Elizabeth Ashley and Robert Redford, opened on Broadway.
In 1973, President Richard Nixon agreed to turn over White House tape recordings subpoenaed by the Watergate special prosecutor to Judge John J. Sirica.
In 1983, 241 U.S. service members, most of them Marines, were killed in a suicide truck-bombing at Beirut International Airport in Lebanon; a near-simultaneous attack on French forces killed 58 paratroopers. NBC News reporter and anchorwoman Jessica Savitch, 36, and New York Post executive Martin Fischbein, 34, died in a car accident in New Hope, Pennsylvania.
In 1991, Cambodia's warring factions and representatives of 18 other nations signed a peace treaty in Paris.
In 2001, the nation's anthrax scare hit the White House with the discovery of a small concentration of spores at an offsite mail processing center.
