Today is Wednesday, October 14, the 287th day of 2015. There are 78 days left in the year.
On this date:
In 1066, Normans under William the Conqueror defeated the English at the Battle of Hastings.
In 1586, Mary, Queen of Scots, went on trial in England, accused of committing treason against Queen Elizabeth I. (Mary was beheaded in February 1587.)
In 1912, former President Theodore Roosevelt, campaigning for the White House as the Progressive (”Bull Moose”) candidate, went ahead with a speech in Milwaukee after being shot in the chest by New York saloonkeeper John Schrank, declaring, “It takes more than one bullet to kill a bull moose.”
In 1939, a German U-boat torpedoed and sank the HMS Royal Oak, a British battleship anchored at Scapa Flow in Scotland’s Orkney Islands; 833 of the more than 1,200 men aboard were killed.
In 1944, German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel committed suicide rather than face trial and certain execution for allegedly conspiring against Adolf Hitler.
In 1947, Air Force test pilot Charles E. “Chuck” Yeager broke the sound barrier as he flew the experimental Bell XS-1 (later X-1) rocket plane over Muroc Dry Lake in California.
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