Vice President Dan Quayle lets loose a pass at the end of a rally in the field house at Georgia Tech in Atlanta, Oct. 14, 1992. Quayle attended the rally after participating in the vice presidential debate with Al Gore and James Stockdale. (AP Photo/Tannen Maury)

Today is Sunday, Oct. 11, the 285th day of 2020. There are 81 days left in the year.

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Today’s Highlight in History

On Oct. 11, 1991, testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Anita Hill accused Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas of sexually harassing her; Thomas re-appeared before the panel to denounce the proceedings as a “high-tech lynching.”

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A fireball erupts from a 16-inch gun on the battleship USS Wisconsin during a live fire exercise in the Persian Gulf, Oct. 13, 1990. The ship is in the Gulf as part of Operation Desert Shield. (AP Photo/John Gaps III)

On this date

In 1779, Polish nobleman Casimir Pulaski, fighting for American independence, died two days after being wounded during the Revolutionary War Battle of Savannah, Georgia.

In 1809, just over three years after the famous Lewis and Clark expedition ended, Meriwether Lewis was found dead in a Tennessee inn, an apparent suicide; he was 35.

In 1905, the Juilliard School was founded as the Institute of Musical Art in New York.

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 (The order was later rescinded at the behest of President Theodore Roosevelt, who promised to curb future Japanese immigration to the United States.)

FILE--Singer John Denver talks with President George Bush during taping of "In Performance at the White House" in Washington on June 19, 1989. Denver, who scored hits with melodic, light folk-pop songs like ``Take Me Home, Country Roads'' and ``Rocky Mountain High,'' was killed in a plane crash Sunday night, Oct. 12, 1997, near Pacific Grove, Calif., according to his family. He was 53. (AP Photo/Marcy Nighswander, File)

In 1910, Theodore Roosevelt became the first former U.S. president to fly in an airplane during a visit to St. Louis.

In 1968, Apollo 7, the first manned Apollo mission, was launched with astronauts Wally Schirra (shih-RAH’), Donn Fulton Eisele and R. Walter Cunningham aboard. The government of Panama was overthrown in a military coup.

In 1983, the last full-fledged hand-cranked telephone system in the United States went out of service as 440 telephone customers in Bryant Pond, Maine, were switched over to direct-dial service.

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 2001, in his first prime-time news conference since taking office, President George W. Bush said “it may take a year or two” to track down Osama bin Laden and his terrorist network in Afghanistan, but he asserted that after a five-day aerial bombardment, “we’ve got them on the run.”

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Joe Biden (D-Del.) gestures while asking a procedural question during hearings before the committee on the nomination of Judge Clarence Thomas to be associate justice of the Supreme Court, Oct. 11, 1991, in Washington. Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.), listens behind him. (AP Photo/Greg Gibson)

In 2002, former President Jimmy Carter was named the recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize.

In 2006, the charge of treason was used for the first time in the U.S. war on terrorism, filed against Adam Yehiye Gadahn (ah-DAHM’ YEH’-heh-yuh guh-DAHN’), also known as “Azzam the American,” who’d appeared in propaganda videos for al-Qaida. (Gadahn was killed by a U.S. drone strike in Pakistan in Jan. 2015.)

In 2014, customs and health officials began taking the temperatures of passengers arriving at New York’s Kennedy International Airport from three West African countries in a stepped-up screening effort meant to prevent the spread of the Ebola virus.

Ten years ago: Rescuers in Chile finished reinforcing a hole drilled to bring 33 trapped miners to safety and sent a rescue capsule nearly all the way to where the men were trapped, proving the escape route worked. Peter Diamond, Dale Mortensen and Christopher Pissarides won the Nobel Prize in economics for their work in explaining why unemployment can remain high despite large numbers of job openings.

Five years ago: In an interview that aired on CBS’ “60 Minutes,” President Barack Obama said that Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server to conduct government business when she served as secretary of state was a mistake but didn’t endanger national security. A spokesman for Iran’s judiciary said that Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian, detained for more than a year on charges including espionage, had been convicted. (Rezaian was released in January 2016.) In Incheon, South Korea, the United States rallied to win the Presidents Cup for the sixth straight time.

One year ago: Testifying in defiance of a White House ban, former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch told House impeachment investigators that President Donald Trump had pressured the State Department to oust her from her post and get her out of the country; she’d been recalled from Ukraine as Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani pressed Ukrainian officials to investigate corruption allegations against the Bidens. Fox news anchor Shepard Smith, who had angered many of the network’s conservative viewers by frequently giving tough reports debunking statements made by Trump and his supporters, abruptly quit after signing off his final newscast. Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed won the Nobel Peace Prize in recognition of his efforts to end his country’s long-running border conflict with neighbor and bitter rival Eritrea. Character actor Robert Forster, who was nominated for an Oscar for his role as a bail bondsman in “Jackie Brown,” died of brain cancer at the age of 78.

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OCTOBER 13

On Oct. 13, 1775, the United States Navy had its origins as the Continental Congress ordered the construction of a naval fleet.

In A.D. 54, Roman Emperor Claudius I died, poisoned apparently at the behest of his wife, Agrippina.

In 1792, the cornerstone of the executive mansion, later known as the White House, was laid by President George Washington during a ceremony in the District of Columbia.

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OCTOBER 14

On Oct. 14, 1964, civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. was named winner of the Nobel Peace Prize.

In 1890, Dwight D. Eisenhower, 34th president of the United States, was born in Denison, Texas.

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. Charles E. (“Chuck”) Yeager (YAY’-gur) became the first test pilot to break the sound barrier as he flew the experimental Bell XS-1 (later X-1) rocket plane over Muroc Dry Lake in California.

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OCTOBER 15

On Oct. 15, 1976, in the first debate of its kind between vice-presidential nominees, Democrat Walter F. Mondale and Republican Bob Dole faced off in Houston.

In 1815, Napoleon Bonaparte, the deposed Emperor of the French, arrived on the British-ruled South Atlantic island of St. Helena, where he spent the last 5 1/2 years of his life in exile.

In 1917, Dutch exotic dancer Mata Hari (Margaretha ZelleGeertruida MacLeod), 41, convicted by a French military court of spying for the Germans, was executed by a firing squad outside Paris. (Maintaining her innocence to the end, Mata Hari refused a blindfold and blew a kiss to her executioners.)

In 1940, Charles Chaplin’s first all-talking comedy, “The Great Dictator,” a lampoon of Adolf Hitler, opened in New York.

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OCTOBER 16

On Oct. 16, 1968, American athletes Tommie Smith and John Carlos sparked controversy at the Mexico City Olympics by giving “Black power” salutes during a victory ceremony after they’d won gold and bronze medals in the 200-meter race.

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OCTOBER 17

On Oct. 17, 1933, Albert Einstein arrived in the United States as a refugee from Nazi Germany.

In 1931, mobster Al Capone was convicted in Chicago of income tax evasion. (Sentenced to 11 years in prison, Capone was released in 1939.)

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EDITOR’S NOTE: Today in History for Oct. 12 was not available as of presstime.

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