On This Day, Oct. 25: Japan uses kamikaze unit for first time

Oct. 25 (UPI) -- On this date in history:

In 1854, known to history as the Charge of the Light Brigade, 670 British cavalrymen fighting in the Crimean War attacked a heavily fortified Russian position and were killed.

In 1929, during the Teapot Dome scandal, Albert B. Fall, who served as U.S. President Warren Harding's interior secretary, was found guilty of accepting a bribe while in office. He was the first presidential Cabinet member convicted of a crime.

In 1944, the Japanese military employed its first unit of Kamikaze pilots during the Battle of Leyte Gulf off the coast of the Philippines.

In 1971, the United Nations admitted China as a member, ousting the Nationalist Chinese government of Taiwan.

In 1983, U.S. troops, supported by six Caribbean nations, invaded the tiny, leftist-ruled island of Grenada, rescuing 1,000 American students and restoring order to the country. The death toll in about two months of fighting exceeded 100.

In 1993, Canadian voters rejected the Progressive Conservative Party of Prime Minister Kim Campbell and gave the Liberal Party, led by Jean Chretien of Quebec, a firm majority in Parliament.

File Photo by H. Ruckemann/UPI

In 1994, Susan Smith falsely reported her two young sons were missing after a carjacking. After several days of intense public and media scrutiny, the South Carolina woman admitted she drove her car with her children inside it into a lake, killing them. She was sentenced to life in prison for the murders.

In 2002, Democratic U.S. Sen. Paul Wellstone of Minnesota and seven others were killed in the crash of a small plane about 180 miles northeast of Minneapolis.

File Photo by Chris Corder/UPI

In 2009, the World Health Organization reported a global death toll from the H1N1 virus, known as swine flu, at 5,700. About 440,000 people were confirmed as having the disease.

In 2010, more than 400 coastal residents in western Sumatra were killed and thousands left homeless by a tsunami triggered by a 7.7-magnitude earthquake. About 750 miles away in central Java, the Mount Merapi volcano began a series of three eruptions that left a reported death toll of more than 300 with about 6,000 homeless.

In 2013, the Obama administration said it had hired a new contractor to fix the healthcare.gov website, which had been plagued by problems since it opened on Oct 1.