This Week in History: Vigil held for Jacob Wetterling in Albert Lea on 1-year anniversary of disappearance

Published 8:23 pm Tuesday, October 20, 2020

Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

Local

Oct. 22, 2010: The Albert Lea Police Department, along with Freeborn County Partners and Youth for Christ, hosted an event at The Rock to introduce area youth to local police officers. Police Lt. J.D. Carlson said he hoped the event would allow children in the community to get to know and trust police officers.

Oct. 22, 1990: A candlelight vigil for Jacob Wetterling was held at Zion Lutheran Church. Wetterling was abducted at gunpoint one year earlier near St. Joseph.

Email newsletter signup

Oct. 20, 1980: Mayor O.H. Hagen announced the city of Albert Lea had signed a contract with Bor-Son Construction on a new waste treatment plant. The contract bid came in at $29,650,000.

Oct. 21, 1970: Albert Lea Mayor Francis Crawford was given a ride across the gridiron in a decorated wheelbarrow, courtesy of Austin Mayor Leo Redding, after the Tigers beat the Packers 20-0 in Austin’s Homecoming game.

Oct. 22, 1950: The rent control officer for Albert Lea, Blake Haddon, allowed landlords to raise rent 15 to 20%. The rent adjustment was available to landlords who had not hiked rates since June 30, 1947.

 

National

2010: The Pentagon directed the military to accept openly gay recruits for the first time in the nation’s history.

2009: President Barack Obama declared the swine flu outbreak a national emergency, giving his health chief the power to let hospitals move emergency rooms offsite to speed treatment and protect non-infected patients.

2002: Bus driver Conrad Johnson was shot to death in Aspen Hill, Md., in the final attack carried out by the “Beltway Snipers.”

Authorities apprehended John Allen Muhammad and teenager Lee Boyd Malvo near Myersville, Maryland, in the Washington-area sniper attacks. (Malvo was later sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole; Muhammad was sentenced to death and executed in 2009.)

2001: The nation’s anthrax scare hit the White House with the discovery of a small concentration of spores at an offsite mail processing center.

1995: A jury in Houston convicted Yolanda Saldivar of murdering Tejano singing star Selena. (Saldivar is serving a life prison sentence.)

Oct. 23, 1983: 241 U.S. service members, most of them Marines, were killed in a suicide truck-bombing at Beirut International Airport in Lebanon; a near-simultaneous attack on French forces killed 58 paratroopers.

1977: Three members of the rock group Lynyrd Skynyrd, including lead singer Ronnie Van Zant, were killed along with three others in the crash of a chartered plane near McComb, Mississippi.

Oct. 22, 1979: The U.S. government allowed the deposed Shah of Iran to travel to New York for medical treatment — a decision that precipitated the Iran hostage crisis.

1962: In a nationally broadcast address, President John F. Kennedy revealed the presence of Soviet-built missile bases under construction in Cuba and announced a quarantine of all offensive military equipment being shipped to the Communist island nation.

1960: The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was arrested during a sit-down protest at a lunch counter in Atlanta. (Sent to prison for a parole violation over a traffic offense, King was released after three days following an appeal by Robert F. Kennedy.)

1947: The House Un-American Activities Committee opened hearings into alleged Communist influence and infiltration in the U.S. motion picture industry.

1945: The United Nations officially came into existence as its charter took effect.

1940: The 40-hour work week went into effect under the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938.

1934: Bank robber Charles “Pretty Boy” Floyd was shot to death by federal agents and local police at a farm near East Liverpool, Ohio.

1915: Tens of thousands of women paraded up Fifth Avenue in New York City, demanding the right to vote.

Oct. 21, 1879: Thomas Edison perfected a workable electric light at his laboratory in Menlo Park, New Jersey.