Ten years ago: Chile’s 33 trapped miners cheered and embraced each other as a drill punched into their underground chamber where they had been stuck for an agonizing 66 days. The International Monetary Fund wrapped up two days of talks in Washington without resolving deep differences over currency movements. A crush of fans circled a flower-graced mosaic in Central Park’s Strawberry Fields and sang lyrics from “Imagine” to honor John Lennon on his 70th birthday.
Five years ago: President Barack Obama visited Roseburg, Oregon, the scene of a community college shooting that had claimed the lives of nine victims as well as the gunman; the president met with victims’ relatives, but also faced protests from legal gun owners. A democracy group, the Tunisian National Dialogue Quartet, won the Nobel Peace Prize for its contributions to the first and most successful Arab Spring movement. Former British Treasury chief and foreign secretary Geoffrey Howe, 88, died in Warwickshire, England.
One year ago: Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden said for the first time that President Donald Trump must be impeached for abusing the powers of his office to help his own reelection. Turkey launched airstrikes, fired artillery and began a ground offensive against Kurdish fighters in northern Syria after U.S. troops pulled back from the area. A heavily-armed man tried to force his way into a synagogue in Germany on Yom Kippur, Judaism’s holiest day, then shot two people to death nearby in an attack that was livestreamed on a gaming site. (The suspect was arrested about 1 [1/2] hours after the attack and is charged with murder and attempted murder.) The Nobel Prize in chemistry was awarded to three scientists, including American John Goodenough, for their work on lithium-ion batteries.