Today is Monday, Oct. 14, the 288th day of 2024. There are 78 days left in the year.
On Oct. 14, 1986, Holocaust survivor and human rights advocate Elie Wiesel (EL’-ee vee-ZEHL’) was named winner of the Nobel Peace Prize.
In 1066, Normans under William the Conqueror defeated the English at the Battle of Hastings.
In 1586, Mary, Queen of Scots, went on trial in England, accused of committing treason against Queen Elizabeth I. (Mary was beheaded in February 1587.)
In 1910, aviator Claude Grahame-White flew his biplane over Washington, D.C. and landed it on West Executive Avenue, next to the White House.
In 1944, German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel took his own life rather than face trial and certain execution for allegedly conspiring against Adolf Hitler.
In 1947, U.S. Air Force Capt. Chuck Yeager became the first test pilot to break the sound barrier as he flew the experimental Bell XS-1 rocket plane over Muroc Dry Lake in California.
In 1964, in one of the greatest upsets in Olympic history, American Billy Mills won the 10,000 meter race at the Tokyo Summer Games. Also in 1964, civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. was named winner of the Nobel Peace Prize.
In 1981, the new president of Egypt, Hosni Mubarak (HOHS’-nee moo-BAH’-rahk), was sworn in to succeed the assassinated Anwar Sadat.
In 2008, a grand jury in Orlando, Florida, returned charges of first-degree murder, aggravated child abuse and aggravated manslaughter against Casey Anthony in the death of her 2-year-old daughter, Caylee. (She was acquitted in July 2011.)
In 2012, retired Air Force Brig. Gen. Chuck Yeager, at the age of 89, marked the 65th anniversary of his supersonic flight by smashing through the sound barrier again, this time in the backseat of an F-15 that took off from Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada.
