On this date
In 1931, the comic strip “Dick Tracy,” created by Chester Gould, made its debut.
In 1957, the family sitcom “Leave It to Beaver” premiered on CBS.
In 1970, rock singer Janis Joplin, 27, was found dead in her Hollywood hotel room.
In 1976, Secretary of Agriculture Earl Butz resigned in the wake of a controversy over an obscene joke he’d made that was derogatory to blacks.
In 1990, for the first time in nearly six decades, German lawmakers met in the Reichstag for the first meeting of reunified Germany’s parliament.
In 1991, 26 nations, including the United States, signed the Madrid Protocol, which imposed a 50-year ban on oil exploration and mining in Antarctica. In 2002, “American Taliban” John Walker Lindh received a 20-year sentence after a sobbing plea for forgiveness before a federal judge in Alexandria, Va. Meanwhile, in a federal court in Boston, Richard Reid pleaded guilty to trying to blow up a trans-Atlantic flight with explosives in his shoes (the British citizen was later sentenced to life in prison).
Ten years ago: South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun and North Korean leader Kim Jong Il pledged to pursue a peace treaty and end their countries’ decades-long standoff.
Five years ago: Nielsen Co. said an estimated 67.2 million people had watched the Oct. 3 debate between President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney; it was the biggest TV audience for a presidential debate since 1992.
One year ago: Hurricane Matthew slammed into Haiti’s southwest peninsula, the first Category 4 storm to hit the country in more than a half century; the Haitian government put the death toll from Matthew at 546.