Associated Press
On Oct. 9, 1940, rock musician and songwriter John Lennon of the Beatles was born in Liverpool, England.
1635- Religious dissident Roger Williams was banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony.
1701- The Collegiate School of Connecticut – later Yale University – was chartered in New Haven.
1776- A group of Spanish missionaries settled in present-day San Francisco.
1888- The public was first admitted to the Washington Monument.
1930- Laura Ingalls became the first woman to fly across the United States as she completed a nine-stop journey from Roosevelt Field in New York to Glendale, Calif.
1936- The first generator at Boulder (later Hoover) Dam began transmitting electricity to Los Angeles.
1946- The Eugene O’Neill drama “The Iceman Cometh” opened on Broadway.
1958- Pope Pius XII died at age 82.
1967- Guerrilla leader Che Guevara was executed in Bolivia while attempting to incite revolution.
1975- Soviet scientist Andrei Sakharov was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
1985- The hijackers of the Achille Lauro cruise liner surrendered after the ship arrived in Port Said, Egypt.
1990- David Souter was sworn in as an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.
2001- Letters postmarked in Trenton, N.J., that later tested positive for anthrax spores were mailed to Sens. Tom Daschle, D-S.D., and Patrick Leahy, D-Vt.
2006- North Korea announced that it had conducted its first nuclear weapons test.
2006- Google Inc. announced it was snapping up YouTube Inc. for $1.65 billion in a stock deal.
2007- The Dow Jones industrial average closed at an all-time high of 14,164.53.
2008- The Dow Jones industrials fell below 9,000 – to 8,579.19 – for the first time in five years.
2009- President Barack Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
2010- 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.
Today’s Birthdays:
Rock musician Sean Lennon turns 40 years old today.
Trent Lott, Former U.S. senator, R-Miss., 74
Nona Hendryx, R&B singer, 71
Sharon Osbourne, TV personality, 63
Tony Shalhoub, Actor (“Monk,” “Wings”), 62
Scott Bakula, Actor (“Star Trek: Enterprise,” “Quantum Leap”), 61
James Fearnley, Rock musician (The Pogues), 61
John O’Hurley, Actor (“Seinfeld”), 61
Mike Singletary, Football Hall of Famer, 57
David Cameron, British prime minister, 49
P.J. Harvey, Rock singer, 46
Steve McQueen, Director, 46
Annika Sorenstam, Golfer, 45
Brandon Routh, Actor (“Superman Returns”), 36
Rock singer Jackson Browne turns 67 years old today.