ANDREWS MCMEEL ALMANAC

Today is the 282nd day of 2017 and the 18th day of autumn.

TODAY'S HISTORY: In 1635, Rhode Island founder Roger Williams was banished from Massachusetts Bay Colony as a religious dissident.

In 1888, the Washington Monument opened to the general public.

In 1967, guerrilla leader Ernesto "Che" Guevara was executed for attempting to lead revolutionaries in Bolivia.

In 1986, the musical "The Phantom of the Opera" opened in London's West End.

In 2006, North Korea claimed it had performed its first nuclear test.

TODAY'S BIRTHDAYS: Alastair Sim (1900-1976), actor; John Lennon (1940-1980), singer-songwriter; Jackson Browne (1948- ), singer-songwriter; Tony Shalhoub (1953- ), actor; Scott Bakula (1954- ), actor; Mike Singletary (1958- ), football player; Guillermo del Toro (1964- ), director; David Cameron (1966- ), British prime minister; Annika Sorenstam (1970- ), golfer; Brandon Routh (1979- ), actor; Scotty McCreery (1993- ), singer; Bella Hadid (1996- ), model.

TODAY'S FACT: Andrew Lloyd Webber's "The Phantom of the Opera" is the longest-running show in the history of Broadway, with 12,342 performances as of late September 2016.

TODAY'S SPORTS: In 1915, Woodrow Wilson became the first sitting president to attend a World Series game.

TODAY'S QUOTE: "That's part of our policy, is not to be taken seriously, because I think our opposition, whoever they may be, in all their manifest forms, don't know how to handle humor." -- John Lennon

TODAY'S NUMBER: 36,491 -- marble bricks used to build the Washington Monument.

TODAY'S MOON: Between full moon (Oct. 5) and last quarter moon (Oct. 12).

ANDREWS MCMEEL ALMANAC

Today is the 281st day of 2017 and the 17th day of autumn.

TODAY'S HISTORY: In 1871, the Great Chicago Fire leveled three square miles, leaving 100,000 homeless and more than 300 dead.

In 1945, President Harry Truman announced that the United States would share its knowledge of the atomic bomb exclusively with Britain and Canada.

In 2005, an earthquake on the border of India and Pakistan killed more than 75,000 people and left 3 million homeless.

TODAY'S BIRTHDAYS: Otto Heinrich Warburg (1883-1970), physiologist/physician; Frank Herbert (1920-1986), author; Harvey Pekar (1939-2010), writer; Jesse Jackson (1941- ), civil rights leader; Chevy Chase (1943- ), comedian/actor; R.L. Stine (1943- ), children's author; Sigourney Weaver (1949- ), actress; Jeremy Davies (1969- ), actor; Matt Damon (1970- ), actor; Nick Cannon (1980- ), actor/TV personality; Bruno Mars (1985- ), singer; Bella Thorne (1997- ), actress.

TODAY'S FACT: On the same day as the Great Chicago Fire, a fire in Peshtigo, Wisconsin, (about 250 miles outside of Chicago) destroyed the town and claimed more than 1,200 lives.

TODAY'S SPORTS: In 1956, New York Yankee Don Larsen pitched the first and only perfect World Series game, against the Brooklyn Dodgers.

TODAY'S QUOTE: "A man is a fool not to put everything he has, at any given moment, into what he is creating." – Frank Herbert

TODAY'S NUMBER: $26 billion -- estimated cost (in 2016 dollars) of the Manhattan Project, which developed the first atomic bombs, through August 1945.

TODAY'S MOON: Between full moon (Oct. 5) and last quarter moon (Oct. 12).

ANDREWS MCMEEL ALMANAC

Today is the 280th day of 2017 and the 16th day of autumn.

TODAY'S HISTORY: In 1896, The Wall Street Journal began publishing what is known today as the Dow Jones Industrial Average as a daily feature.

In 1985, the cruise ship Achille Lauro was hijacked in the Mediterranean by Palestinian terrorists.

In 1996, Fox News Channel was launched on cable TV.

In 2001, the United States and Great Britain began air strikes against strategic targets in Afghanistan.

TODAY'S BIRTHDAYS: Niels Bohr (1885-1962), physicist; Elijah Muhammad (1897-1975), spiritual/political leader; June Allyson (1917-2006), actress; Al Martino (1927-2009), singer/actor; Desmond Tutu (1931- ), archbishop/Nobel laureate; Thomas Keneally (1935- ), novelist; John Mellencamp (1951- ), singer-songwriter; Vladimir Putin (1952- ), Russian politician; Yo-Yo Ma (1955- ), cellist; Simon Cowell (1959- ), record executive/TV personality; Thom Yorke (1968- ), musician; Charles Woodson (1976- ), football player.

TODAY'S FACT: The first photographs of the far side of the moon were transmitted by the Soviet probe Luna 3 on this day in 1959.

TODAY'S SPORTS: In 1984, running back Walter Payton of the Chicago Bears broke Jim Brown's career-rushing record of 12,312 yards during a 20-7 victory over the New Orleans Saints.

TODAY'S QUOTE: "The fact that religions through the ages have spoken in images, parables and paradoxes means simply that there are no other ways of grasping the reality to which they refer." -- Niels Bohr

TODAY'S NUMBER: 222 -- points scored by the Georgia Tech Engineers in a football game played on this day in 1916. Their opponents, the Cumberland College Bulldogs, were shut out. The final score of 222-0 marked the most lopsided game in college football history.

TODAY'S MOON: Between full moon (Oct. 5) and last quarter moon (Oct. 12).