By The Associated Press

Today in History

Today is Thursday, Oct. 11, the 284th day of 2018. There are 81 days left in the year.

Today’s Highlight in History:

On Oct. 11, 1991, testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Anita Hill accused Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas of sexually harassing her; Thomas re-appeared before the panel to denounce the proceedings as a “high-tech lynching.”

On this date:

In 1809, just over three years after the famous Lewis and Clark expedition ended, Meriwether Lewis was found dead in a Tennessee inn, an apparent suicide; he was 35.

In 1884, American first lady Eleanor Roosevelt was born in New York City.

In 1910, Theodore Roosevelt became the first former U.S. president to fly in an airplane during a visit to St. Louis.

In 1958, the lunar probe Pioneer 1 was launched; it failed to go as far out as planned, fell back to Earth, and burned up in the atmosphere.

In 1961, actor-comedian Leonard “Chico” Marx, 74, died in Hollywood, Calif.

In 1962, Pope John XXIII convened the first session of the Roman Catholic Church’s Second Vatican Council, also known as “Vatican 2.”

In 1968, Apollo 7, the first manned Apollo mission, was launched with astronauts Wally Schirra (shih-RAH’), Donn Fulton Eisele and R. Walter Cunningham aboard. The government of Panama was overthrown in a military coup.

In 1983, the last full-fledged hand-cranked telephone system in the United States went out of service as 440 telephone customers in Bryant Pond, Maine, were switched over to direct-dial service.

In 1986, President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev opened two days of talks concerning arms control and human rights in Reykjavik, Iceland.

In 1992, in the first of three presidential debates, three candidates faced off against each other in St. Louis: President George H.W. Bush, Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton and businessman Ross Perot.

In 2001, in his first prime-time news conference since taking office, President George W. Bush said “it may take a year or two” to track down Osama bin Laden and his terrorist network in Afghanistan, but he asserted that after a five-day aerial bombardment, “we’ve got them on the run.”