This day in history

► Today is Thursday, Oct. 22, the 295th day of 2009. There are 70 days left in the year. ► Today’s birthdays: Actress Joan Fontaine is 92. Nobel Prize-winning author Doris Lessing is 90. Black Panthers cofounder Bobby Seale is 73. Actor Christopher Lloyd is 71. Actor Derek Jacobi is 71. Actor Tony Roberts is 70. Actress Annette Funicello is 67. Movie director Jan de Bont is 66. Actress Catherine Deneuve is 66. Rock musician Leslie West is 64. Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour is 62. Actor Jeff Goldblum is 57. Movie director Bill Condon is 54. Actor Luis Guzman is 52. Actor-writer-producer Todd Graff is 50. Rock musician Cris Kirkwood is 49. Olympic gold medal figure skater Brian Boitano is 46. Christian singer TobyMac is 45. Singer-songwriter John Wesley Harding is 44. Actress Valeria Golino is 43. Comedian Carlos Mencia is 42. Country singer Shelby Lynne is 41. Reggae rapper Shaggy is 41. Director Spike Jonze is 40. Rapper Tracey Lee is 39. Actress Saffron Burrows is 37. Actor Jesse Tyler Ferguson is 34. Actor Michael Fishman is 28. Talk show host Michael Essany is 27. Rock musician Rickard Goransson (Carolina Liar) is 26. Rock musician Zac Hanson is 24. Actor Jonathan Lipnicki is 19. Actress Sofia Vassilieva is 17. ► In 1746, Princeton University was first chartered as the College of New Jersey. ► In 1797, French balloonist Andre-Jacques Garnerin made the first parachute descent, landing safely from a height of about 3,000 feet over Paris. ► In 1836, Sam Houston was inaugurated as the first president of the Republic of Texas. ► In 1883, the original Metropolitan Opera House in New York held its grand opening with a performance of Gounod’s “Faust.’’ ► In 1928, Republican presidential nominee Herbert Hoover spoke of the “American system of rugged individualism’’ in a speech at New York’s Madison Square Garden. ► In 1934, bank robber Charles “Pretty Boy’’ Floyd was shot to death by federal agents at a farm in East Liverpool, Ohio. ► In 1962, President Kennedy announced a quarantine of all offensive military equipment shipped to Cuba, following the discovery of Soviet-built missile bases on the island. ► In 1968, Apollo 7 returned safely from Earth orbit, splashing down in the Atlantic Ocean. ► In 1979, the US government allowed the deposed Shah of Iran to travel to New York for medical treatment, a decision that precipitated the Iran hostage crisis. ► In 1981, the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization was decertified by the federal government for its strike the previous August. ► In 1986, President Reagan signed into law sweeping tax-overhaul legislation. ► In 1999, former Vichy official Maurice Papon was expelled from Switzerland and sent back to France. ► In 2004, in a wrenching videotaped statement, kidnapped aid worker Margaret Hassan begged Britain to help save her by withdrawing its troops from Iraq, saying these “might be my last hours.’’ (Hassan was apparently killed by her captors a month later.) President George W. Bush signed a corporate tax overhaul to close loopholes and provide $136 billion in new tax breaks for businesses, farmers, and others. ► In 2008, Wall Street tumbled again as investors worried that the global economy was poised to weaken. The major indexes fell more than 4 percent, including the Dow Jones industrial average, which finished with a loss of more than 500 points. The fishing vessel Katmai sank in the Bering Sea off Alaska’s Aleutian Islands, killing seven crewmen; four survived. India launched its first mission to the moon to redraw maps of the lunar surface. (India lost contact with its lunar satellite Chandrayaan-1 last August.)