Oct. 8
Today in history
Today is Oct. 8. On this date in:
1775: A council of officers at Cambridge, Massachusetts, unanimously voted to discharge all Black men, both slaves and free, from the Continental Army. But with recruitment low, Gen. George Washington later allowed them to reenlist, and by 1778 there were over 750 Black soldiers fighting for American independence.
1871: The Great Chicago Fire erupted, destroying about 3.5 square miles of the city. It took two days to extinguish the fire that killed more than 300 people and left about 100,000 residents homeless. According to legend, it started when Mrs. O’Leary’s cow kicked over a lantern in her barn on DeKoven Street.
1894: The Hershey Chocolate Co., one of the largest chocolate manufacturers in the United States, was founded.
1918: In the Argonne Forest of France, U.S. Sgt. Alvin C. York single-handedly took out a German machine-gun battalion during World War I, killing at least 25 enemy soldiers and capturing 132. Although he had tried to avoid the war for religious reasons, York returned a national hero. He was later awarded the Medal of Honor and the French Croix de Guerre.
1958: The first scheduled transatlantic passenger jet service began. Pan Am’s Boeing 707 took off from New York’s Idlewild Airport (now known as John F. Kennedy International Airport) and flew nonstop to Paris, drastically reducing the travel time between the two continents and revolutionizing commercial aviation.
1967: Iconic Argentine Marxist revolutionary Che Guevara, who played a key role in the Cuban Revolution, was captured by the Bolivian army and executed the next day, solidifying his status as a martyr and symbol of global revolution.
1993: The U.N. General Assembly lifted economic sanctions against South Africa following the end of racial apartheid. The sanctions had been imposed since the 1960s.
1996: Palestinian President Yasser Arafat made his first public visit to Israel for talks with Israeli President Ezer Weizman at his private residence.
1998: The popular search engine Google, founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin, was incorporated as a privately held company.
1998: The House of Representatives voted 258-176 to approve a resolution launching an impeachment inquiry of President Bill Clinton.
2001: President George W. Bush announced the creation of the Office of Homeland Security in response to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. The office later became the Department of Homeland Security, a federal agency responsible for coordinating the country’s defense against terrorism and ensuring national security.
– USA TODAY Network
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Today in history, October 8
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