Today is Thursday, October 29, the 302nd day of 2009. There are 63 days left in the year.

Highlights in history on this date:

1618 - Sir Walter Raleigh is executed in London, charged with treason against King James I.

1863 - International Committee of the Red Cross is founded in Geneva.

1881 - Japan's first national political party is founded.

1888 - The Suez Canal convention is signed in Constantinople.

1901 - U.S. President William McKinley's assassin, Leon Czolgosz, is executed.

1918 - Croatian parliament severs all ties with Austria-Hungary.

1923 - Republic of Turkey is proclaimed.

1929 - The New York stock market collapses, marking "Black Tuesday," and the Great Depression follows.

1936 - General Bakr Sidqi overthrows Iraqi government.

1942 - Germans massacre 16,000 Jews in Pinsk, Russia.

1956 - During the Suez Canal crisis, Israel launches an invasion of Egypt's Sinai Peninsula.

1957 - Fulgencio Batista suspends Cuba's Constitution.

1962 - United States lifts its naval quarantine of Cuba at the request of U.N. Secretary-General U Thant, who had flown to Havana for talks with Fidel Castro.

1966 - The feminist National Organization for Women is founded in the U.S.

1972 - Palestinian guerrillas hijack German airliner and gain release of three people seized in massacre at Munich Olympics.

1977 - Fear of terrorism increases throughout western Europe due to kidnapping of Maurits Caransa, one of the wealthiest men in the Netherlands.

1983 - U.S. Secretary of Defense announces an inquiry into circumstances surrounding the Oct. 23 suicide truck-bombing of the U.S. Marine base in Beirut, Lebanon.

1987 - Nicaraguan leaders indicate they remain committed to their refusal to discuss a cease-fire with leaders of the contra movement.

1990 - Libya expels 145 members of the Palestine Liberation Front, a radical faction of the PLO, and close four training bases used by the guerrilla group.

1991 - Yugoslav warplanes bomb eastern Croatia as Serbia threatens to break off European Community peace talks.

1992 - Bosnia's U.N. Ambassador says the Bosnian Muslim city of Jajce has fallen to the Serbs.

1993 - Indian forces in Kashmir fire tear gas to stop hundreds of Muslims from marching toward a mosque where separatist rebels have been surrounded for two weeks.

1994 - A man armed with an assault weapon sprays bullets at the White House.

1995 - South African authorities order the arrest of former Defense Minister Magnus Malan and other high ranking officers for slayings under apartheid. Malan is later acquitted of murder and conspiracy.

1996 - Thousands of paintings, sculptures, coins and other objects plundered by the Nazis from Jewish homes in Austria go on sale in a special auction to benefit needy Holocaust survivors.

1997 - For the first time NATO peacekeepers are arrested when seven Ukrainian soldiers serving in Bosnia are caught unloading more than US$620,000 in cigarettes, whiskey, wine and cognac from two trucks in Mostar.

1998 - John Glenn, the first American in space 36 years earlier, rides the space shuttle into orbit at age 77; South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission condemns apartheid and violence committed by the African National Congress.

1999 - A man confesses to killing 140 Colombian children in a five-year spree, during which he lured his victims by posing as a beggar, a cripple and a monk.

2000 - More than 30,000 people demonstrate in Dusseldorf, Germany, against neo-Nazis and draw praise from a Jewish leader who says the nation is increasingly standing up against rising hate crimes.

2002 - A fire sweeps through a building that houses offices of foreign companies, shops and a popular disco in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, killing at least 54 people and injuring more than 100.

2004 - Muslim-Christian violence engulfs Liberia's war-battered capital, with machete-wielding mobs rampaging through the streets and U.N. peacekeepers firing warning shots and tear gas to restore order.

2005 - French youths riot for a second straight night in a Paris suburb, torching cars and throwing rocks at police to protest the deaths of two youths who were electrocuted while trying to evade police.

2006 - A Nigerian airliner crashes after taking off from the airport in Abuja, killing 96 passengers.

2007 - A long-brewing power struggle between Somalia's Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi and President Abdullahi Yusuf ends with the premier's resignation, throwing the government into further disarray as it struggles with an Islamic insurgency.

2008 - A 6.4-magnitude earthquake in southwestern Pakistan kills at least 215 people.

Today's Birthdays:

Edmund Halley, English astronomer (1656-1742); James Boswell, Scottish lawyer-biographer (1740-1795); Joseph Goebbels, Nazi minister of propaganda (1897-1945); Frank Sedgman, Australian tennis champion (1927--); Richard Dreyfuss, U.S. actor (1947--); Kate Jackson, U.S. actress (1948--); Winona Ryder, U.S. actress (1971--); Gabrielle Union, U.S. actress (1973--).

Thought for Today:

Good taste is the worst vice ever invented — Dame Edith Sitwell, English poet (1887-1964).

Copyright 2009 The Associated Press.