Today in History

By Associated Press

Oct. 18

In 1867, the United States took formal possession of Alaska from Russia.

In 1898, the American flag was first raised in Puerto Rico, shortly before Spain formally relinquished control of the island to the U.S.

In 1931, inventor Thomas Alva Edison died at his home in West Orange, New Jersey, at the age of 84.

In 1954, Texas Instruments unveiled the Regency TR-1, the first commercially produced transistor radio.

In 1962, James D. Watson, Francis Crick and Maurice Wilkins were honored with the Nobel Prize for Medicine and Physiology for determining the double-helix molecular structure of DNA.

In 1968, American Bob Beamon shattered the previous long jump world record by nearly two feet, leaping 29 feet, 2¼ inches at the Summer Olympics in Mexico City.

In 1972, Congress passed the Clean Water Act, overriding President Richard Nixon’s veto.

In 1977, West German commandos stormed a hijacked Lufthansa jetliner on the ground in Mogadishu, Somalia, freeing all 87 hostages and four crew members and killing three of the four hijackers.

In 2018, President Donald Trump threatened to close the U.S. border with Mexico if authorities could not stop a caravan of migrants making their way from Central America.

Oct. 19

In 1781, British troops under Gen. Lord Cornwallis surrendered at Yorktown, Virginia, as the American Revolution neared its end.

In 1914, the First Battle of Ypres began in World War I.

In 1960, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was arrested during a sit-down protest at a lunch counter in Atlanta.

In 1977, the supersonic Concorde made its first landing in New York City, flying from Toulouse, France, in three hours and 44 minutes.

In 2003, Pope John Paul II beatified Mother Teresa during a ceremony in St. Peter’s Square.

In 2005, Saddam Hussein was put on trial by the Iraqi Interim Government, accused of crimes against humanity.

In 2016, in the third and final 2016 presidential debate, Republican Donald Trump refused to say he would accept the results of the election if he were to lose.

—From AP reports