October third

Today's Highlight in History:
On October third, 1863, President Lincoln declared the last Thursday in November Thanksgiving Day.

On this date:
In 1226, St. Francis of Assisi, founder of the Franciscan order, died; he was canonized in 1228.

In 1929, the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes formally changed its name to the Kingdom of Yugoslavia.

In 1941, Adolf Hitler declared in a speech in Berlin that Russia had been "broken" and would "never rise again."

In 1942, President Roosevelt established the Office of Economic Stabilization.

In 1944, during World War Two, US troops cracked the Siegfried Line north of Aachen, Germany.

In 1955, "Captain Kangaroo" and "The Mickey Mouse Club" premiered on CBS and ABC, respectively.

In 1960, "The Andy Griffith Show" premiered on CBS.

In 1962, astronaut Wally Schirra blasted off from Cape Canaveral aboard the "Sigma Seven" on a nine-hour flight.

In 1974, Frank Robinson was named major-league baseball's first black manager as he was placed in charge of the Cleveland Indians.

In 1981, Irish nationalists at the Maze Prison near Belfast, Northern Ireland, ended seven months of hunger strikes that had claimed ten lives.

Ten years ago: West Germany and East Germany ended 45 years of postwar division, declaring the creation of a new unified country. Iraqi President Saddam Hussein made his first known visit to Kuwait since his country seized control of the oil-rich emirate.

Five years ago: The jury in the O.J. Simpson murder trial found the former football star innocent of the 1994 slayings of his former wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and Ronald Goldman (however, Simpson was later found liable in a civil trial).

One year ago: Sony co-founder Akio Morita, the entrepreneur, engineer and savvy salesman who helped give new meaning to the words "Made in Japan," died in Tokyo at age 78.

"The worst disease in the world is the plague of vengeance."

-- Dr. Karl Menninger, American psychiatrist (1893-1990).