On This Day in History - October 7th - Almanac

Today is Thursday, Oct. 7, the 280th day of 2021 with 85 to follow.

The moon is waxing. Morning stars are Jupiter, Neptune, Saturn and Uranus. Evening stars are Jupiter, Neptune, Saturn, Uranus and Venus.

Those born on this date are under the sign of Libra. They include signer of the Declaration of Independence Caesar Rodney in 1728; Danish atomic physicist Niels Bohr in 1885; Nation of Islam leader Elijah Muhammad in 1897; actor June Allyson in 1917; South African archbishop/Nobel Peace Prize laureate Desmond Tutu in 1931 (age 90); television personality Joy Behar in 1942 (age 79); Oliver North, the former White House aide who became the center of the Iran-Contra controversy, in 1943 (age 78); Rock and Roll Hall of Fame member John Mellencamp in 1951 (age 70); Russian President Vladimir Putin in 1952 (age 69); classical cellist Yo-Yo Ma in 1955 (age 66); recording executive/television personality Simon Cowell in 1959 (age 62); Democratic National Committee chair Tom Perez in 1961 (age 60); singer Toni Braxton in 1967 (age 54); singer Thom Yorke in 1968 (age 53); actor Allison Munn in 1974 (age 47); singer Taylor Hicks in 1976 (age 45); actor Holland Roden in 1986 (age 35); singer Lewis Capaldi in 1996 (age 25); actor Nicole Maines in 1997 (age 24); actor Lulu Wilson in 2005 (age 16).

On this date in history:

In 1913, for the first time, Henry Ford's entire Highland Park automobile factory was run on a continuously moving assembly line.

In 1916, Georgia Tech defeated Cumberland University 222-0 in the most lopsided college football game in American history.

In 1949, less than five months after Britain, the United States and France established the Federal Republic of Germany in West Germany, the Democratic Republic of Germany (East Germany) was proclaimed within the Soviet occupation zone.

In 1958, the U.S. manned space-flight project, originally called Project Astronaut, was officially approved, and renamed Project Mercury.

In 1963, President John F. Kennedy signed the Limited Test Ban Treaty. Signed by the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States, the treaty was developed to slow the nuclear arms race and reduce the amount of nuclear fallout in the earth's atmosphere.

In 1968, the U.S. movie industry adopted a film ratings system for the first time: G (for general audiences), M (for mature audiences), R (no one under 16 admitted without an adult) and X (no one under 16 admitted).

In 1985, a mudslide in Ponce, Puerto Rico, killed an estimated 500 people in the island's worst disaster of the 20th century.

In 1985, Palestinian terrorists hijacked the Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro after it left Alexandria, Egypt, killing one American.

In 1991, Slovenia and Croatia formally declared secession from Yugoslavia.

In 2003, Californians voted to recall Democratic Gov. Gray Davis and elected actor Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican, as their new governor.

In 2004, Cambodian King Norodom Sihanouk abdicated the throne.

In 2009, a statue of blind and deaf 7-year-old Helen Keller at the moment she got a sense of language was unveiled at the U.S. Capitol. She is shown at a pump with water running into one hand while alphabet motions on her other hand (by teacher Anne Sullivan) spell "w-a-t-e-r." Keller went on to become a world-famous speaker and author of a dozen books.

In 2020, the Nobel Prize in chemistry was awarded to French scientist Emmanuelle Charpentier and American professor Jennifer Doudna for their work in developing "genetic scissors" used to fight human diseases.

A thought for the day: "All television ever did was shrink the demand for ordinary movies. The demand for extraordinary movies increased." -- Australian writer Clive James