Today in history: Oct. 12
One year ago: The New Jersey Nets said Kyrie Irving could not play or practice with them until he could be a full participant; New York City required professional athletes to be vaccinated against COVID-19 in order to play or practice in public venues. (Irving would be allowed to rejoin the team for out-of-town games in January 2022, and for home games two months later.)
1933: John Dillinger
In 1933, bank robber John Dillinger escaped from a jail in Allen County, Ohio, with the help of his gang, who killed the sheriff, Jess Sarber.
1942: Francis Biddle
In 1942, Attorney General Francis Biddle announced during a Columbus Day celebration at Carnegie Hall in New York that Italian nationals in the United States would no longer be considered enemy aliens.
1973: Gerald Ford
In 1973, President Richard Nixon nominated House minority leader Gerald R. Ford of Michigan to succeed Spiro T. Agnew as vice president.
1984: Margaret Thatcher
In 1984, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher escaped an attempt on her life when an Irish Republican Army bomb exploded at a hotel in Brighton, England, killing five people.
1986: Reykjavik, Iceland
In 1986, the superpower meeting in Reykjavik, Iceland, ended in stalemate, with President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev unable to agree on arms control or a date for a full-fledged summit in the United States.
1997: John Denver
In 1997, singer John Denver was killed in the crash of his privately built aircraft in Monterey Bay, California; he was 53.
2000: USS Cole
In 2000, 17 sailors were killed in a suicide bomb attack on the destroyer USS Cole in Yemen.
2002: Bali, Indonesia
In 2002, bombs blamed on al-Qaida-linked militants destroyed a nightclub on the Indonesian island of Bali, killing 202 people, including 88 Australians and seven Americans.
2007: Al Gore
In 2007, former Vice President Al Gore and the U.N.‘s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change won the Nobel Peace Prize for sounding the alarm over global warming.
2011: Seal Beach, California
Ten years ago: Eight people were killed in a shooting at a hair salon in Seal Beach, California. (Scott Dekraai, whose ex-wife, Michelle Fournier, was among the victims, pleaded guilty to murder in 2014 and is serving life in prison.)
2011: Underwear Bomber
Ten years ago: A Nigerian al-Qaida operative pleaded guilty to trying to bring down a jetliner with a bomb in his underwear; Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab (OO’-mahr fah-ROOK’ ahb-DOOL’-moo-TAH’-lahb) defiantly told a federal judge in Detroit that he had acted in retaliation for the killing of Muslims worldwide.
2012: Mohammed Morsi
Ten years ago: Thousands of supporters and opponents of Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi clashed in Cairo’s Tahrir Square in the first such violence since Morsi took office more than three months earlier.
2016: Wells Fargo
Five years ago: Wells Fargo announced that its embattled CEO, John Stumpf, was stepping down as the nation’s second-largest bank found itself roiled by a scandal over its sales practices.
2017: Donald Trump
In 2017, President Donald Trump lashed out at hurricane-devastated Puerto Rico, saying the federal government can’t keep sending help “forever” and suggesting that the U.S. territory was to blame for its financial struggles.
2019: Atatiana Jefferson
In 2019, a Black woman, Atatiana Jefferson, was fatally shot by a white Fort Worth, Texas, police officer inside her home after police were called to the residence by a neighbor who reported that the front door was open.
2020: Amy Coney Barrett
One year ago: At the start of fast-tracked Senate confirmation hearings, Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett presented her approach to the law as conservative and fair, while Democrats cast her as a threat to Americans’ health care coverage during the coronavirus pandemic.
2020: Donald Trump
In 2020, at his first campaign rally since he contracted COVID-19, President Donald Trump insisted to supporters in Florida that he had delivered the nation a “rapid recovery” from the pandemic.
2020: Roberta McCain
One year ago: Roberta McCain, the mother of the late Arizona Sen. John McCain, died at 108.
2021: Kyrie Irving
In 2021, the NBA’s Brooklyn Nets said Kyrie Irving could not play or practice with them until he could be a full participant; New York City required professional athletes to be vaccinated against COVID-19 in order to play or practice in public venues.