1698 Russia’s Peter the Great imposed a tax on beards.
1774 The first Continental Congress assembled in Philadelphia.
1793 The Reign of Terror began during the French Revolution as the National Convention instituted harsh measures to repress counterrevolutionary activities.
1836 Sam Houston was elected president of the Republic of Texas.
1882 The nation’s first Labor Day parade was held in New York City.
1905 The Treaty of Portsmouth, ending the Russo-Japanese War, was signed in New Hampshire.
1914 The First Battle of the Marne began during World War I.
1939 The United States proclaimed its neutrality in World War II.
1945 Iva Toguri D’Aquino, a Japanese-American suspected of being wartime radio propagandist “Tokyo Rose,” was arrested in Yokohama.
1957 “On the Road” by Jack Kerouac, the defining novel of the Beat Generation, was published.
1958 “Doctor Zhivago” by Russian author Boris Pasternak was published in the United States.
1972 Palestinian terrorists attacked the Israeli Olympic team at the summer games in Munich; 11 Israeli athletes and coaches, five terrorists and a police officer were killed.*
1975 President Gerald R. Ford escaped an attempt on his life in Sacramento, Calif., by Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme, a follower of Charles Manson. (The would-be assassin is no relation to a certain prominent CR poster.)
1977 The United States launched the Voyager 1 spacecraft two weeks after launching its twin, Voyager 2.
1997 Nobel Peace Prize winner Mother Teresa died in Calcutta, India, at age 87.
2005 President George W. Bush nominated John Roberts for chief justice.
2008 Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice became the highest-ranking American official in half a century to visit Libya, where she met Moammar Gadhafi.
*Two Israelis died during the actual attack, including one who heroically held the door against the invading terrorists, which allowed others to escape with their lives.
The remaining nine victims were cold-bloodedly murdered with grenades and gunfire by the Arab terrorists while the Israelis were helplessly bound.
In a shocking display of callousness, the Olympic games continued after the massacre, without even a postponement of events.
Wrestling coach Moshe Weinberg, 33
Weightlifter Yossef Romano, 31
Wrestling referee Yossef Gutfreund, 40
American-born weightlifter David Berger, 28
Wrestler Mark Slavin, 18
Weightlifting judge Yacov Springer, 51
Weightlifter Ze’ev Friedman, 28
Track coach Amitzur Shapira, 40
Wrestler Eliezer Halfin, 24
Shooting coach Kehat Shorr, 53
Fencing coach Andre Spitzer, 27
Three terrorists were captured alive.
A little over a month later, on Oct. 29, a Lufthansa jet was hijacked by terrorists demanding that the Munich killers be released.
The Germans capitulated and the terrorists were released.
An Israeli assassination squad was assigned to track them down, along with those responsible for planning the massacre. According to George Jonas in Vengeance: The True Story of an Israeli Counter-Terrorist Team, eight of the 11 targeted for death were killed. Of the remaining three, one died of natural causes and the other two were assassinated, but it is not known with certainty if they were killed by Israeli agents.
Abu Daoud, the mastermind behind the attack was arrested by France in 1977, but the French cravenly let him leave to Algeria despite requests from both Wast Germany and Israel for his extradition. Daoud denied his role for years, until openly admitting it in his 1999 autobiography Palestine: From Jerusalem to Munich or Memoirs of a Palestinian Terrorist .
Abu Daoud was a member of the Palestinian government, and in 1996 was allowed safe transit thru Israel.
Daoud continues to live freely, supposedly in Damascus at this time, and has to date not been brought to justice.
(portions cut-and-pasted from online sources)