On this date in history:

In 1888, 40 years after construction began, the Washington Monument opens to the public. Work on the obelisk was halted from 1854 to 1877 due to a lack of funds, internal squabbling within the Washington National Monument Society, and the American Civil War.

In 1919, the Cincinnati Reds won the World Series defeating the Chicago White Sox. Eight members of the White Sox would be accused of intentionally losing games in exchange for money from gamblers in what would become known as the Black Sox Scandal. The players were later found not guilty, though all were banned from the sport for life.

In 1931, gangster Al Capone's Florida spending told at tax evasion trial. The government's contention was that if Mr. Capone was rich enough to be a moviesque Florida Play-boy, then he certainly must have an income worthy of taxation.

In 1931, the Japanese government endorsed military action against Manchuria. The invasion was one of a series of battles and skirmishes which took place in the run-up to the Second Sino-Japanese War.

In 1934, King Alexander of Yugoslavia was assassinated by a Croatian terrorist during a state visit to France.

In 1967, one day after being captured in the jungles of Bolivia where he was waging a guerrilla war, Marxist revolutionary Ernesto Che Guevara, a leading figure in the 1959 Cuban revolution, is executed by the Bolivian military.

In 1975, Andrei Sakharov, father of the Soviet hydrogen bomb, became the first Soviet citizen to win the Nobel Peace Prize.

In 1983, James Watt, facing U.S. Senate condemnation for a racially insensitive remark, resigned as U.S. President Ronald Reagan's interior secretary.

In 1992, NASA announced that the unmanned Pioneer spacecraft was apparently lost after orbiting Venus for 14 years.

In 2009, U.S. President Barack Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples.

In 2012, Malala Yousafzai, an advocate for girls' education in Pakistan and future Nobel Peace Prize winner, survived being shot three times as she attempted to board a bus to school.

In 2020, the United Nations' World Food Program won the Nobel Peace Prize for its efforts to fight hunger and bring peace to parts of the world affected by violence.

In 2023, a Minnesota farmer's 2,749-pound pumpkin took the top spot at the 50th annual World Championship Pumpkin Weigh-off and broke a world record for heaviest pumpkin. The farmer, Travis Gienger, named the pumpkin Michael Jordan.

Copyright 2024 by United Press International