Today in History: October 18, ‘Mr. October’ hits three homers to clinch World Series

Today is Sunday, Oct. 18, the 291st day of 2026. There are 74 days left in the year.

Today in history:

On Oct. 18, 1977, Reggie Jackson hit three home runs in Game 6 of the World Series to lead the New York Yankees to an 8-4 win and a 4-2 series victory over the Los Angeles Dodgers; his success in the Fall Classic earned him the nickname “Mr. October.”

Also on this date:

In 1867, the United States took formal possession of Alaska from Russia.

In 1898, the American flag was first raised in Puerto Rico, shortly before Spain formally relinquished control of the island to the U.S.

In 1931, inventor Thomas Edison died at his home in West Orange, New Jersey, at the age of 84.

In 1954, Texas Instruments unveiled the Regency TR-1, the first commercially produced transistor radio.

In 1962, James D. Watson, Francis Crick and Maurice Wilkins were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for determining the double-helix molecular structure of DNA.

In 1968, American Bob Beamon shattered the previous long jump world record by nearly 2 feet, leaping 29 feet, 2 1/4 inches (8.90 meters) at the Summer Olympics in Mexico City.

In 1972, Congress passed the Clean Water Act, overriding President Richard Nixon’s veto.

In 1977, West German commandos stormed a hijacked Lufthansa jetliner on the ground in Mogadishu, Somalia, freeing all 87 hostages and four crew members and killing three of the four hijackers; the Lufthansa flight had been hijacked five days earlier by members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and made multiple stops before the rescue raid.

In 1989, East German leader and communist hard-liner Erich Honecker was forced out after 18 years of iron-fisted rule amid mounting pro-democracy protests that helped trigger the fall of the Berlin Wall weeks later.

In 2007, two bombs exploded near a motorcade carrying former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto in Karachi hours after her return from eight years in exile, killing more than 130 people; Bhutto herself was unhurt but would be assassinated in December 2007.

In 2018, President Donald Trump threatened to close the U.S. border with Mexico if authorities could not stop a caravan of migrants from Central America.

In 2019, the first all-female spacewalking team made history high above Earth, replacing a broken part of the International Space Station’s power grid. It was the first time in a half-century of spacewalking that no men were part of a spacewalk as NASA astronauts Christina Koch and Jessica Meir completed the job with wrenches and power-grip tools.

Today’s Birthdays: Pro Football Hall of Famer Mike Ditka is 87. Composer Howard Shore is 80. Author Terry McMillan is 75. Tennis Hall of Famer Martina Navratilova is 70. Boxing Hall of Famer Thomas Hearns is 68. Actor Jean-Claude Van Damme is 66. Jazz musician Wynton Marsalis is 65. Musician Ne-Yo is 47. Olympic gold medal skier Lindsey Vonn is 42. Actor Zac Efron is 39. WNBA player Brittney Griner is 36. New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani is 35. Actor Sophie Thatcher is 26.