History for October 8

History for October 8 - On-This-Day.com
Eddie Rickenbacker 1890, Juan Peron 1895, Paul Hogan 1939 - Actor ("Crocodile Dundee" movies) 


Jesse Jackson 1941 - Civil rights leader, Chevy Chase 1943 - Actor, comedian, Sigourney Weaver 1949 - Actress 


Robert "Kool" Bell (Kool & the Gang) 1950, Darrell Hammond 1955, Matt Damon 1970 - Actor 


1918 - U.S. Corporal Alvin C. York almost single-handedly killed 25 German soldiers and captured 132 in the Argonne Forest in France. York had originally tried to avoid being drafted as a conscientious objector. After this event his was promoted to sergeant and was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. 


1938 - The cover of "The Saturday Evening Post" portrayed Norman Rockwell. 


1944 - "The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet" debuted on CBS radio. 


1945 - U.S. President Truman announced that only Britain and Canada would be given the secret to the atomic bomb. 


1950 - U.N. forces crossed into North Korea from South Korea. 


1956 - Donald James Larsen (New York Yankees) pitched the first perfect game in the history of the World Series. 


1966 - The U.S. Government declared that LSD was dangerous and an illegal substance. 


1970 - Soviet author Alexander Solzhenitsyn won the Nobel Prize for literature. 


1993 - The U.S. government issued a report absolving the FBI of any wrongdoing in its final assault in Waco, TX, on the Branch Davidian compound. The fire that ended the siege killed as many as 85 people. 


2001 - Tom Ridge, former Governor of Pennsylvania, was sworn in as director of the new U.S. department of Homeland Security.