On Oct. 21, 1772, poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge was born in Ottery St. Mary, England.
In 1797 the U.S. Navy frigate Constitution, also known as “Old Ironsides,” was launched in Boston’s harbor.
In 1833 Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite who established the Nobel Prizes, was born in Stockholm.
In 1879 Thomas Edison invented a workable electric light at his laboratory in Menlo Park, N.J.
In 1967 tens of thousands of Vietnam War protesters marched in Washington.
In 1976 Saul Bellow won the Nobel Prize for Literature, the first American honored since John Steinbeck in 1962.
In 1991 American hostage Jesse Turner was freed by his kidnappers in Lebanon after nearly five years in captivity.
In 1998 the New York Yankees swept the San Diego Padres, winning game four of the World Series, 3-0.
In 2000 fifteen Arab leaders convened in Cairo for their first summit in four years; the Libyan delegation walked out, angry over signs the summit would stop short of calling for breaking ties with Israel.
In 2001 Washington postal worker Thomas Morris Jr. died of inhaled anthrax; officials closed two postal facilities and began testing thousands of postal employees.
In 2002 President George W. Bush said he would try diplomacy “one more time,” but did not think Saddam Hussein would disarm — even if doing so would allow the Iraqi president to remain in power.
In 2003, invoking a hastily passed law, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush ordered a feeding tube reinserted into Terri Schiavo, a brain-damaged woman at the center of a bitter right-to-die battle. Also in 2003 television actor Fred Berry (“What’s Happening!”) died in Los Angeles; he was 52.
In 2004, after the Boston Red Sox won the American League championship, college student Victoria Snelgrove was fatally injured when she was shot in the eye by a pepper-spray pellet fired by police trying to control a raucous crowd outside Boston’s Fenway Park. Also in 2004 the St. Louis Cardinals defeated the Houston Astros 5-2 to take Game 7 of the National League championship series.
