WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 8, 2008

Today is Wednesday, October 8, the 282nd day of 2008. There are 84 days left in the year.

1604 _ The supernova called ``Kepler's nova" is first sighted

1775 _ Officers decide to bar slaves and free blacks from Continental Army

1896 _ Dow Jones starts reporting an average of industrial stocks

1912 _ First Balkan War begins

1939 _ Germany annexes Western Poland

1945 _ Truman announced atomic bomb secret shared with Britain and Canada

1962 _ N Korea reports 100 percent election turnout, 100 percent vote for Workers' Party

1970 _ Soviet author Alexander I Solzhenitsyn awarded Nobel Prize for Literature

1971 _ John Lennon releases his mega-hit ``Imagine"

1982 _ Poland bans Solidarity