Other Notable Events, Oct. 23

on Oct 22, 2009

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In 1707, the British Parliament met for the first time.

In 1942, the British Eighth Army launched an offensive at El Alamein in Egypt, a World War II battle that eventually swept the Germans out of North Africa.

In 1945, Jackie Robinson, the first black baseball player hired by a major league team, was signed by the Brooklyn Dodgers and sent to their Montreal farm team. He moved up to the Dodgers in 1947 and became one of the sport's greatest stars.

In 1972, earthquakes killed more than 10,000 people in Nicaragua.

In 1983, suicide bomb attacks on peacekeeping troops in Beirut killed 241 U.S. Marines and 58 French soldiers.

In 1989, Hungary formally declared an end to 40 years of communist rule and proclaimed itself a republic, setting the stage for creation of Western-style democracy in the Eastern Bloc state.

In 1990, Iraq released 64 British hostages.

In 1995, the U.S. Defense Department announced it was ending a program designed to help minority-owned firms secure government contracts.

In 1998, after nine days of tense negotiations at the Wye Conference Center in Queenstown, Md., Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat signed an agreement to revive the stalled Middle East peace process.

Also in 1998, Dr. Barnett Slepian, an obstetrician who performed abortions, was shot to death by a sniper who fired a bullet through a window of Slepian's home in Amherst, N.Y.

In 2002, a group of 20 Chechen gunmen stormed a Moscow theater, taking hostage more than 700 members of the audience, actors and theater staff and demanding an end to the war in the separatist republic.

In 2003, the U.S. Congress passed a bill banning late-term abortions.

In 2004, insurgents struck at three minibuses carrying U.S.-trained Iraqi soldiers, reportedly killing about 50 of them.

In 2005, all 117 people aboard were reported killed in the crash of a Nigerian plane crash shortly after takeoff from Lagos.

In 2006, Iran said it is ready to have talks on its nuclear program while other reports spoke of threatened retaliation if U.N. sanctions were imposed.

Also in 2006, Panamanians voted overwhelmingly to support a proposal to expand the Panama Canal to allow larger ships to pass through.

In 2007, a U.S. federal audit of a State Department's private security contractor in Iraq said that $1.2 billion couldn't be accounted for in police training expenses.