Today is Thursday, Oct. 20, the 294th day of 2016. There are 72 days left in the year.

Today’s birthdays: Actor William Christopher is 84. Rockabilly singer Wanda Jackson is 79. Former actress Rev. Mother Dolores Hart is 78. Singer Tom Petty is 66. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, Democrat of Rhode Island, is 61. Movie director Danny Boyle is 60. Former labor secretary Hilda Solis is 59. Actor Viggo Mortensen is 58. Political commentator Michelle Malkin is 46. Rapper Snoop Dogg is 45.

In 1944, during World War II, General Douglas MacArthur stepped ashore at Leyte in the Philippines, 2½ years after saying, ‘‘I shall return.’’

In 1947, the House Un-American Activities Committee opened hearings into alleged Communist infiltration in the motion picture industry.

In 1968, former first lady Jacqueline Kennedy married Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis.

In 1973, in the so-called Saturday Night Massacre, special Watergate prosecutor Archibald Cox was dismissed and Attorney General Elliot L. Richardson and Deputy Attorney General William B. Ruckelshaus resigned.

In 1976, 78 people died when the tanker Frosta rammed the ferry George Prince on the Mississippi River near New Orleans.

In 2011, Moammar Gadhafi, 69, Libya’s dictator for 42 years, was killed as rebels overwhelmed his hometown of Sirte.

Last year, the United States and Russia signed an agreement to minimize risks of air collisions as they separately carried out airstrikes in Syria.