GMT 10/2/2017

1909 Orville Wright sets an altitude record, flying at 1,600 feet. This exceeded Hubert Latham's previous record of 508 feet.

1931 Aerial circus star Clyde Pangborn and playboy Hugh Herndon, Jr. set off to complete the first nonstop flight across the Pacific Ocean from Misawa City, Japan.

1941 The German army launches Operation Typhoon, the drive towards Moscow.

1950 The comic strip Peanuts, by Charles M. Schultz, makes its first appearance in newspapers.

1959 The groundbreaking TV series The Twilight Zone, hosted by Rod Serling, premiers on CBS.

1964 Scientists announce findings that smoking can cause cancer.

1967 Thurgood Marshall, the first African-American Supreme Court justice, is sworn in. Marshall had previously been the solicitor general, the head of the legal staff of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), and a leading American civil rights lawyer.

1970 A plane carrying the Wichita State University football team, staff, and supporters crashes in Colorado; 31 of the 40 people aboard die.

1980 Congressional Representative Mike Myers is expelled from the US House for taking a bribe in the Abscam scandal, the first member to be expelled since 1861.

1990 Flight 8301 of China's Xiamen Airlines is hijacked and crashed into Baiyun International Airport, hitting two other aircraft and killing 128 people.

2001 NATO backs US military strikes in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks.

Born on October 2



1869 Mahatma Mohandas Gandhi, political leader of India and pioneer of nonviolent activism.