POPnews (US) - October 14th

[Here we see a special message from the President and the First Lady, who on this day in 1982 declared a War on Drugs - another one of those nutty wars Republican presidents like to declare on concepts or other nebulous foes. Just Say Yes!]
1863 - At the Battle of Bristoe Station Confederate General Robert E. Lee's forces failed to drive the Union Army out of Virginia.

1910 - English aviator Claude Grahame-White landed his Farman biplane on Executive Avenue near the White House.

1912 - President Theodore Roosevelt was shot by John Schrank at a campaign stop in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. With the bullet embedded in his chest, the Progressive Party candidate proceeded to give a vigourous 90-minute speech before seeing a doctor about his wound. Unable to remove the bullet safely, it was decided to leave it there, where it stayed for the remaining seven years of his life.

1947 - Chuck Yeager flew a Bell X-1 faster than the speed of sound, making him the first man to do so in level flight.

1960 - Democratic presidential candidate John F. Kennedy suggested formation of a Peace Corps during a talk at the University of Michigan - three years after Hubert H. Humphrey, Jr. (D-Minnesota) suggested something similar.

1962 - The Cuban Missile Crisis began when a U-2 flight over Cuba took photos of Soviet nuclear weapons being installed.

1964 - Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr became the youngest person ever awarded a Nobel Peace Prize.

1968 - American Jim Hines became the first man ever to break the ten second barrier in the 100 metres Olympic final at the Summer Olympics in Mexico City with a time of 9.95 seconds; he would be the only man to do so until 1977.

1979 - The first Gay & Lesbian March on Washington drew between 100,000 and 200,000 participants.

1982 - President Ronald Reagan declared a War on Drugs, apparently.

1987 - Baby Jessica McClure fell down a well; her 58-hour plight, and the challenges presented by her rescue, captivated the American news media.

1998 - Eric Robert Rudolph was charged with the Centennial Olympic Park bombing in 1996.

2003 - John Allen Muhammad pleaded innocent to murder in the Washington-area sniper case. (He was later convicted and sentenced to death, which duly took place in November 2009.)
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