Today in HistoryToday is Monday, October 9, the 282nd day of 2006. There are 83 days left in the year. This is Columbus Day, as well as Thanksgiving Day in Canada.

ON THIS DATE<$>

In 1635, religious dissident Roger Williams was ordered banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony.

In 1776, a group of Spanish missionaries settled in present-day San Francisco.

In 1888, the public was first admitted to the Washington Monument.

In 1985, the hijackers of the Achille Lauro cruise liner surrendered after the ship arrived in Port Said, Egypt.

THOUGHT FOR TODAY

“If we would only give, just once, the same amount of reflection to what we want to get out of life that we give to the question of what to do with a two weeks’ vacation, we would be startled at our false standards and the aimless procession of our busy days.” — Dorothy Canfield Fisher, American author and essayist (1879-1958).