October 2 is the 275th day of the year (276th in leap years). There are 90 days remaining until the end of the year. (Photo: John Logie Baird and the first television receiver, 1925)

Today in History

• صلاح الدين يوسف بن أيوب‎ (Ṣalāḥ ad-Dīn) recaptures Jerusalem from the Crusaders (1187)
• Edward IV is overthrown and Henry VI is restored to the English throne (1470)
• British officer John André is hanged as a spy by American revolutionary forces (1780)
• The Bill of Rights amendments are sent to the states for ratification (1789)
• Woodrow Wilson suffers a stroke that leaves him partially paralyzed (1919)
• John Logie Baird tests the first working television system (1925)
• Opus Dei is founded (1928)
• The first Peanuts strip is published (1950)
• The Twilight Zone premiers (1959)
• Thurgood Marshall becomes the first African-American Supreme Court Justice (1967)
• Michael Myers is expelled from Congress, the first expulsion since 1861 (1980)
• The Beltway Sniper attacks begin near my old bus stop in Aspen Hill, Maryland (2002)
• Five Amish schoolgirls are murdered (2006)

Birthdays

• Richard III of England, monarch (1452)
• Nat Turner, rebellious slave (1800)
• Paul von Hindenburg, Zeppelin inspiration (1847)
• Ferdinand Foch, World War I Generalissimo (1851)
• Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, mahatma (1869)
• Cordell Hull, “father of the United Nations” (1871)
• Plum Warner, cricketer (1873)
• Wallace Stevens, poet (1879)
• Groucho Marx, Freedonian leader (1890)
• Bud Abbott, Costello straight man (1895)
• Graham Greene, man in Havana (1904)
• Jack Finney, body snatcher (1911)
• Robert Runcie, archbishop (1921)
• George “Spanky” McFarland, little rascal (1928)
• Maury Wills, baseball player (1932)
• Earl Wilson, baseball player (1934)
• Johnnie Cochran, OJ attorney (1937)
• Rex Reed, film critic (1938)
• Vernor Vinge, science fiction writer (1944)
• Don McLean, American piemaker (1945)
• Avery Brooks, DS9 commander (1948)
• Donna Karan, fashion designer (1948)
• Persis Khambatta, bald lieutenant (1948)
• Annie Leibovitz, photographer (1949)
• Mike Rutherford, Genesis mechanic (1950)
• Sting, policeman (1951)
• Lorraine Bracco, soprano (1954)
• El Dandy, lucha libre (1962)
• Badly Drawn Boy, singer (1969)
• Kelly Ripa, talk show host (1970)

Deaths

• Samuel Adams, beer namesake (1803)
• Svante Arrhenius, chemist (1927)
• Пётр Успе́нский (P. D. Ouspensky), esotericist (1947)
• Marcel Duchamp, dadaist (1968)
• Harry Golden, Carolina Israelite (1981)
• Rock Hudson, Day bedder (1985)
• Madeline Carroll, actress (1987)
• Harriet Nelson, sitcom spouse (1994)
• Gene Autry, reindeer songster (1998)
• Nipsey Russell, comedian (2005)
• Tamara Dobson, movie Cleopatra (2006)

Holidays

• Batik Day (Indonesia)
• Feast of the Guardian Angels (Christianity)
• Gandhi Jayanti (India)
• Independence Day (Guinea)
• International Day of Non-Violence
• مهرگان‎ (Mehrgân) (Zoroastrianism, Iran)