October fifth

Today's Highlight in History:
On October fifth, 1947, President Truman delivered the first televised White House address.

On this date:
In 1830, the 21st president of the United States, Chester Arthur, was born in Fairfield, Vermont.

In 1892, the Dalton Gang, notorious for its train robberies, was practically wiped out while attempting to rob a pair of banks in Coffeyville, Kansas.

In 1937, President Roosevelt called for a "quarantine" of aggressor nations.

In 1941, former Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis, the first Jewish member of the nation's highest court, died in Washington DC at age 84.

In 1953, Earl Warren was sworn in as the 14th chief justice of the United States, succeeding Fred M. Vinson.

In 1962, the Beatles' first hit, "Love Me Do," was first released in the United Kingdom.

In 1970, British trade commissioner James Richard Cross was kidnapped in Canada by militant Quebec separatists; he was released the following December.

In 1986, American Eugene Hasenfus was captured by Sandinista soldiers after the weapons plane he was flying in was shot down over southern Nicaragua.

In 1988, Democrat Lloyd Bentsen lambasted Republican Dan Quayle during their vice-presidential debate, telling Quayle, "Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy."

In 1989, a jury in Charlotte, North Carolina, convicted former PTL evangelist Jim Bakker of using his television show to defraud followers.

Ten years ago: A jury in Cincinnati acquitted an art gallery and its director of obscenity charges stemming from an exhibit of sexually graphic photographs by Robert Mapplethorpe. The US House of Representatives rejected a $500 billion budget agreement forged by congressional leaders and the Bush administration.

Five years ago: Seamus Heaney of Ireland won the 1995 Nobel Prize in literature. Bosnia's combatants agreed to a 60-day cease-fire and new talks on ending their three and a-half years of battle.

One year ago: It was announced that MCI WorldCom Incorporated had agreed to pay $115 billion for Sprint Corporation. Two packed commuter trains collided near London's Paddington Station, killing 31 people.

"There are two kinds of statistics, the kind you look up and the kind you make up."

-- Rex Stout, American writer (1886-1975).