Today’s Highlight in History:

On October 20, 1965, in one of the more colorful moments of his presidency, Lyndon B. Johnson, recovering from gall bladder surgery at Bethesda Naval Medical Center, pulled up his shirt and jacket to show off his abdominal scar to reporters and photographers. (Although critics were appalled by the display, Johnson later said he was trying to dispel rumors that he’d actually been operated on for cancer.)

On this date:

In 1714, the coronation of Britain’s King George I took place in Westminster Abbey.

In 1803, the U.S. Senate ratified the Louisiana Purchase.

In 1914, “Stay Down Here Where You Belong,” an antiwar song by Irving Berlin, was published by Waterson, Berlin & Snyder Co. in New York.

In 1936, Helen Keller’s teacher, Anne Sullivan Macy, died in Forest Hills, New York, at age 70.

In 1944, during World War II, Gen. Douglas MacArthur stepped ashore at Leyte in the Philippines, 2 1/2 years after saying, “I shall return.” A series of gas storage tank explosions and fires in Cleveland killed 130 people.

In 1947, the House Un-American Activities Committee opened hearings into alleged Communist influence and infiltration in the U.S. motion picture industry.

In 1964, the 31st president of the United States, Herbert C. Hoover, died in New York at age 90.

In 1968, former first lady Jacqueline Kennedy married Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis.

In 1973, in the so-called “Saturday Night Massacre,” special Watergate prosecutor Archibald Cox was dismissed and Attorney General Elliot L. Richardson and Deputy Attorney General William B. Ruckelshaus resigned.

In 1981, a bungled armored truck robbery carried out by members of radical groups in Nanuet, New York, left a guard and two police officers dead.

In 1990, three members of the rap group 2 Live Crew were acquitted by a jury in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, of violating obscenity laws with an adults-only concert in nearby Hollywood the previous June.

In 2011, Moammar Gadhafi, 69, Libya’s dictator for 42 years, was killed as revolutionary fighters overwhelmed his hometown of Sirte and captured the last major bastion of resistance two months after his regime fell.

Ten years ago: U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay turned himself in at the sheriff’s office in Travis County, Texas, where he was fingerprinted, photographed and released on $10,000 bail on conspiracy and money-laundering charges. (DeLay was convicted in 2010, but had his convictions overturned on appeal.) A defense lawyer in Saddam Hussein’s mass murder trial was abducted from his office and found murdered hours later. Jazz pianist and vocalist Shirley Horn died in Washington, D.C. at age 71.

Five years ago: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and visiting Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez hailed what they called their strong strategic relationship, saying they were united in efforts to establish a “new world order” that would eliminate Western dominance over global affairs. NPR fired news analyst Juan Williams after he talked about feeling nervous on airline flights with people in Muslim attire during an interview on Fox News Channel. Bob Guccione, 79, founder of Penthouse magazine, died in Plano, Texas.

One year ago: The White House said former Nazis should not have been collecting Social Security benefits as they aged overseas as it responded to an Associated Press investigation that revealed millions of dollars had been paid to war-crimes suspects and former SS guards forced out of the U.S. Police investigating the slayings of seven northwestern Indiana women said they believed it was the work of a serial killer. (Suspect Darren Vann has been charged with two deaths; police said he has confessed to all seven slayings.) New York’s Metropolitan Opera opened “The Death of Klinghoffer” amid protests that the work glorified Palestinian terrorists. Fashion designer Oscar de la Renta, 82, died in Kent, Connecticut. Rene Burri, 81, a Swiss photographer best known for his black-and-white portraits of Communist revolutionary Ernesto “Che” Guevara and painter Pablo Picasso, died in Zurich.

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