October 3 is the 276th day of the year (277th in leap years). There are 89 days remaining until the end of the year. (Image: The Mickey Mouse Club® logo.)

Today in History

• Vercingetorix surrenders to Julius Caesar following the Siege of Alesia (52 BCE)
• Mark Anthony and Octavian defeat Brutus and Cassius at the Battle of Philippi (42 BCE)
• George Washington declares the first official Thanksgiving Day in the United States (1789 CE)
• The Bloomingdale brothers open their first store (1872 CE)
• The first successful launch of a V-2 rocket results in the first man-made object to reach space (1942 CE)
• The “Shot Heard ‘Round the World” gives the National League pennant to the New York Giants (1951 CE)
• The Mickey Mouse Club first airs (1955 CE)
• The Dick Van Dyke Show premiers (1961 CE)
• Project Mercury’s Sigma 7 sends Wally Schirra on a nine-orbit flight (1962 CE)
• Buffalo wings appear for the first time at the Anchor Bar in Buffalo, New York (1964 CE)
• East Germany ceases to exist as the two Germanies merge (1990 CE)
• O.J. Simpson is acquitted of murder (1995 CE)

(For more on Vercingetorix and Wally Schirra, click the links to read my piece on the Battle of Alesia from my book Project: Impossible and on why I may own Wally Schirra’s spacesuit in “Have Spacesuit, Will Travel.“)

Birthdays

• Warner Oland, Charlie Chan player (1879)
• Leo McCarey, Duck Soup director (1898)
• Thomas Wolfe, couldn’t go home again (1900)
• James Herriot, veterinarian (1916)
• Harvey Kurtzman, Mad creator (1924)
• Gore Vidal, author (1925)
• Eddie Cochran, wrote “Summertime Blues” (1938)
• Chubby Checker, twist creator (1941)
• Lindsey Buckingham, Fleetwood Mac member (1949)
• Pamela Hensley, Princess Ardala player (1950)
• Hart Bochner, actor (1956)
• Tommy Lee, Mötley Crüeman (1962)
• Neve Campbell, actress (1973)

Deaths

• Dafydd ap Gruffyd, Welsh prince, first nobleman to be hanged, drawn, and quartered (1283)
• Myles Standish, Plymouth Colony military advisor (1656)
• Black Hawk, Sauk war leader (1838)
• Rembrandt Peale, painter (1860)
• Zachary Scott, actor (1965)
• Woodie Guthrie, dust bowl troubadour (1967)
• Jean Anouihl, dramatist (1987)
• Roddy McDowell, actor (1998)
• 盛田 昭夫 (Akio Morita), Sony founder (1999)
• Janet Leigh, actress (2004)

Holidays

• Feast of the Two Ewalds (Christianity)
• 개천절 (Gaecheonjeol) (South Korea)
• Morazán Day (Honduras)
• National Caramel Custard Day (US)
• National Day (Iraq)
• Unity Day (Germany)