October 3, O.J. Simpson found not guilty of murder

Today is Thursday, Oct. 3, the 277th day of 2024. There are 89 days left in the year.

Today in history:

On Oct. 3, 1995, the jury in the O.J. Simpson murder trial in Los Angeles found the former football star not guilty of the 1994 slayings of his former wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and Ronald Goldman.

Also on this date:

In 1944, during World War II, U.S. Army troops cracked the Siegfried Line north of Aachen, Germany.

In 1951, the New York Giants captured the National League pennant by a score of 5-4 as Bobby Thomson hit a three-run homer off Ralph Branca of the Brooklyn Dodgers, which became known as the “Shot Heard ‘Round the World.”

In 1974, Frank Robinson was named the American League’s first Black manager after he was hired by the Cleveland Indians.

In 1990, West Germany and East Germany ended 45 years of postwar division, declaring the creation of a reunified country.

In 1993, 18 U.S. service members and hundreds of Somalis were killed in the Battle of Mogadishu — the deadliest battle for U.S. troops since the Vietnam War, and inspired the film “Black Hawk Down.”

In 2008, O.J. Simpson was found guilty of robbing two sports-memorabilia dealers at gunpoint in a Las Vegas hotel room. (Simpson was later sentenced to nine to 33 years in prison; he was granted parole in July 2017 and released from prison in October of that year.)

In 2011, an Italian appeals court freed Amanda Knox of Seattle after four years in prison, tossing murder convictions against Knox and an ex-boyfriend in the stabbing of their British roommate, Meredith Kercher.

In 2013, a smugglers’ ship packed with African migrants sank off the coast of a southern Italian island, killing more than 365 people.

In 2023, the U.S. House of Representatives voted to remove House Speaker Kevin McCarthy — the first time in U.S. history a Speaker had been ousted from the position.