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Highlight in History
On Oct. 15, 1917, Dutch dancer Mata Hari, convicted of spying for the Germans, was executed by a firing squad outside Paris.
Ten years ago
ImClone Systems founder Sam Waksal pleaded guilty in New York to charges stemming from the biotech company’s insider trading scandal. (He was later sentenced to more than seven years in prison.) Iraqis turned out for a national referendum on whether Saddam Hussein should remain their president for another seven years; Saddam won with a reported 100 percent of the votes cast. Five Japanese kidnapping victims who’d been abducted in their youth by North Korean spies finally returned home, tearfully hugging their aging parents for the first time in nearly a quarter-century.
Five years ago
Americans Leonid Hurwicz, Eric S. Maskin and Roger B. Myerson won the Nobel economics prize. The Colorado Rockies beat the Arizona Diamondbacks 6-4 in Game 4 to sweep the National League championship series and advance to the World Series for the first time in franchise history.
One year ago
Italian riot police fired tear gas and water cannons in Rome as violent protesters hijacked a peaceful demonstration against corporate greed, smashing bank windows, torching cars and hurling bottles. Iran’s Foreign Ministry dismissed U.S. accusations that Tehran was involved in a plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador in Washington, D.C., saying that American the claims had no “legal logic.” The Texas Rangers finished off the Detroit Tigers to become the American League’s first repeat champion in a decade with a 15-5 win in Game 6 of the ALCS. Former Hollywood superagent Sue Mengers, 81, died in Beverly Hills, Calif.
