GOOD MORNING – TODAY IS THURSDAY, October 18, the 291st day of 2018 with 74 to follow. Sunrise in the Boston area is @ 6:59 and sunset is @ 5:58. The moon is waxing. The morning stars are stars are Jupiter, Mars, Mercury & Saturn. The evening stars are Neptune, Uranus & Venus.

ON THIS DAY IN: 1469 – Ferdinand of Aragon married Isabella of Castile. The marriage united all the dominions of Spain.

1685 – King Louis XIV of France revoked the Edict of Nantes, which had established the legal toleration of the Protestant population.

1767 – The Mason-Dixon line was agreed upon. It was the boundary between Maryland and Pennsylvania.

1842 – Samuel Finley Breese Morse laid his first telegraph cable.

1860 – British troops burned the Yuanmingyuan at the end of the Second Opium War.

1867 – The U.S. took formal possession of Alaska from Russia. The land was purchased of a total of $7 million dollars (2 cents per acre).

1873 – The first rules for intercollegiate football were drawn up by representatives from Rutgers, Yale, Columbia and Princeton Universities.

1892 – The first long-distance telephone line between Chicago, IL, and New York City, NY, was opened.

1898 – The American flag was raised in Puerto Rico only one year after the Caribbean nation won its independence from Spain.

1929 – The Judicial Committee of England’s Privy Council ruled that women were to be considered as persons in Canada.

1943 – The first broadcast of “Perry Mason” was presented on CBS Radio. The show went to TV in 1957.

1944 – Czechoslovakia was invaded by the Soviets during World War II.

1944 – “Forever Amber”, written by Kathleen Windsor, was first published.

1950 – Connie Mack announced that he was going to retire after 50 seasons as the manager of the Philadelphia Athletics.

1956 – NFL commissioner Bert Bell disallowed the use of radio-equipped helmets by NFL quarterbacks.

1958 – The first computer-arranged marriage took place on Art Linkletter’s show.

1961 – Henri Matiss’ “Le Bateau” went on display at New York’s Museum of Modern Art. It was discovered 46 days later that the painting had been hanging upside down.

1967 – The American League granted permission for the A’s to move to Oakland. Also, new franchises were awarded to Kansas City and Seattle.

1968 – Two black athletes, Tommie Smith and John Carlos, were suspended by the U.S. Olympic Committee for giving a “black power” salute during a ceremony in Mexico City.

1969 – The U.S. government banned artificial sweeteners due to evidence that they caused cancer.

1970 – Quebec’s minister of labor was found strangled to death after eight days of being held captive by the Quebec Liberation Front (FLQ).

1971 – After 34 years, the final issue of “Look” magazine was published.

1977 – Reggie Jackson tied Babe Ruth’s record for hitting three homeruns in a single World Series game. Jackson was only the second player to achieve this.

1983 – General Motors agreed to hire more women and minorities for five years as part of a settlement with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

1985 – South African authorities hanged black activist Benjamin Moloise. Moloise had been convicted of murdering a police officer.

1989 – Egon Krenz became the leader of East Germany after Erich Honecker was ousted. Honeker had been in power for 18 years.

1989 – The space shuttle Atlantis was launched on a mission that included the deployment of the Galileo space probe.

1990 – Iraq made an offer to the world that it would sell oil for $21 a barrel. The price level was the same as it had been before the invasion of Kuwait.

1997 – A monument honoring U.S. servicewomen, past and present, was dedicated at Arlington National Cemetery.

2006 – Microsoft released Internet Explorer 7.0.

2013 – Saudi Arabia became the first nation to reject a seat on the United Nations Security Council. Jordan took the seat on December 6.