Today in History

By Associated Press

Oct. 11

In 1906, the San Francisco Board of Education ordered all the city’s Asian students segregated into their own school. (The order was later rescinded at the behest of President Theodore Roosevelt, who in exchange promised to curb future Japanese immigration to the United States.)

In 1968, Apollo 7, the first manned Apollo mission, was launched with astronauts Wally Schirra, Donn Fulton Eisele and R. Walter Cunningham aboard.

In 1984, Challenger astronaut Kathryn D. Sullivan became the first American woman to walk in space as she and fellow Mission Specialist David C. Leestma spent 3 1/2 hours outside the shuttle.

In 1986, President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev opened two days of talks in Reykjavik, Iceland, concerning arms control and human rights.

In 1987, the AIDS Memorial Quilt was first displayed, during the Second National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights on the National Mall.

In 2017, the Boy Scouts of America announced that it would admit girls into the Cub Scouts starting the following year and establish a new program for older girls based on the Boy Scout curriculum.

In 2021, Jon Gruden resigned as coach of the Las Vegas Raiders following reports about messages he wrote years earlier that used offensive terms to refer to Blacks, gays and women.

Oct. 12

In 1492, Christopher Columbus’s first expedition made landfall on what is now San Salvador Island in the Bahamas.

In 1870, General Robert E. Lee died in Lexington, Virginia, at age 63.

In 1960, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev protested remarks at the United Nations by pounding his shoe on his desk.

In 1968, Mexican track and field athlete Enriqueta Basilio became the first woman to light the Olympic flame at the opening ceremonies of the Mexico City Summer Games.

In 1973, President Richard Nixon nominated House minority leader Gerald R. Ford of Michigan to succeed Spiro T. Agnew as vice president.

In 1984, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher escaped an attempt on her life when an Irish Republican Army bomb exploded at a hotel in Brighton, England, killing five people.

In 2000, 17 sailors were killed in a suicide bomb attack on the destroyer USS Cole in Yemen.

In 2019, Eliud Kipchoge became the first person to run a marathon in less than two hours, crossing the finish line of the INEOS 1:59 Challenge in Vienna, Austria, with a time of 1:59:40.

—From AP reports