Today in History: October 6, the launch of Instagram

Today in History

Today is Thursday, Oct. 6, the 279th day of 2022. There are 86 days left in the year.

Today’s Highlight in History:

On Oct. 6, 1973, war erupted in the Middle East as Egypt and Syria launched a surprise attack on Israel during the Yom Kippur holiday. (Israel, initially caught off guard, managed to push back the Arab forces before a cease-fire finally took hold in the nearly three-week conflict.)

On this date:

In 1536, English theologian and scholar William Tyndale, who was the first to translate the Bible into Early Modern English, was executed for heresy.

In 1927, the era of talking pictures arrived with the opening of “The Jazz Singer” starring Al Jolson, a feature containing both silent and sound-synchronized sequences.

In 1928, Chiang Kai-shek became president of China.

In 1939, in a speech to the Reichstag, German Chancellor Adolf Hitler spoke of his plans to reorder the ethnic layout of Europe — a plan that would entail settling the “Jewish problem.”

In 1976, President Gerald R. Ford, in his second presidential debate with Democrat Jimmy Carter, asserted that there was “no Soviet domination of eastern Europe.” (Ford later conceded such was not the case.)

In 1979, Pope John Paul II, on a week-long U.S. tour, became the first pontiff to visit the White House, where he was received by President Jimmy Carter.

In 1981, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat was shot to death by extremists while reviewing a military parade.

In 2003, American Paul Lauterbur and Briton Peter Mansfield won the Nobel Prize for medicine for discoveries that led to magnetic resonance imaging.

In 2010, social networking app Instagram was launched by Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger.

In 2014, the Supreme Court unexpectedly cleared the way for a dramatic expansion of gay marriage in the United States as it rejected appeals from five states seeking to preserve their bans, effectively making such marriages legal in 30 states.

In 2018, in the narrowest Senate confirmation of a Supreme Court justice in nearly a century and a half, Brett Kavanaugh was confirmed by a 50-48 vote; he was sworn in hours later.

In 2020, President Donald Trump, recovering from COVID-19, tweeted his eagerness to return to the campaign trail and said he still planned to attend an upcoming debate with Democrat Joe Biden in Miami; Biden said there should be no debate as long as Trump remained COVID positive. (The debate would be canceled.)

Ten years ago: Five terror suspects, including Egyptian-born preacher Mustafa Kamel Mustafa, widely known as Abu Hamza al-Masri, arrived in the United States from England and appeared in court in New York and Connecticut. (Mustafa was convicted in 2014 of supporting terrorist organizations.)

Five years ago: The board of directors of The Weinstein Co. said movie mogul Harvey Weinstein was on indefinite leave from the company he founded amid an internal investigation into sexual harassment allegations against him. The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, a grassroots effort aimed at pressuring the world’s nuclear powers to give up those weapons, won the Nobel Peace Prize.

One year ago: A federal judge ordered Texas to suspend a new law that had banned most abortions in the state since September. (An appeals court would reinstate the law two days later.) The Los Angeles City Council voted to enact one of the nation’s strictest vaccine mandates; it required the shots for everyone entering bars, restaurants, nail salons, gyms and even a Lakers game. The World Health Organization endorsed the world’s first malaria vaccine and said it should be given to children across Africa in the hope that it would spur stalled efforts to curb the spread of the parasitic disease; the vaccine was developed by GlaxoSmithKline in 1987.

Today’s Birthdays: Broadcaster and writer Melvyn Bragg is 83. Actor Britt Ekland is 80. The former leader of Sinn Fein (shin fayn), Gerry Adams, is 74. Singer-musician Thomas McClary is 73. Musician Sid McGinnis is 73. Rock singer Kevin Cronin (REO Speedwagon) is 71. Rock singer-musician David Hidalgo (Los Lobos) is 68. Pro Football Hall of Famer Tony Dungy is 67. Actor Elisabeth Shue is 59. Singer Matthew Sweet is 58. Actor Jacqueline Obradors is 56. Country singer Tim Rushlow is 56. Rock musician Tommy Stinson is 56. Actor Amy Jo Johnson is 52. Actor Emily Mortimer is 51. Actor Lamman (la-MAHN’) Rucker is 51. Actor Ioan Gruffudd (YOH’-ihn GRIH’-fihth) is 49. Actor Jeremy Sisto is 48. Actor Brett Gelman is 46. R&B singer Melinda Doolittle is 45. Actor Wes Ramsey is 45. Actor Karimah Westbrook is 44. Singer-musician Will Butler is 40. Actor Stefanie Martini is 32.