TORONTO — Today is Wednesday, Oct. 31, the 304th day of 2018. There are 61 days left in the year. This is Halloween.

Today’s Highlight in History:

• On Oct. 31, 1984, Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated by two **** (seek) security guards.

On this date:

• In 1517, Martin Luther sent his 95 Theses denouncing what he saw as the abuses of the Catholic ******, especially the sale of indulgences, to the Archbishop of Mainz, Germany (by some accounts, Luther also posted the Theses on the door of the Castle ****** in Wittenberg), marking the start of the ********** Reformation.
• In 1864, Nevada became the 36th state as President Abraham Lincoln signed a proclamation.
• In 1926, magician Harry Houdini **** in Detroit of peritonitis resulting from a ruptured appendix.
• In 1941, the Navy destroyer USS Reuben James was torpedoed by a German U-boat off Iceland with the loss of some 100 lives, even though the United States had not yet entered ***** *** II. Work was completed on the Mount Rushmore National Memorial in South Dakota, begun in 1927.
• In 1961, the body of Josef Stalin was removed from Lenin’s Tomb as part of the Soviet Union’s “de-Stalinization” drive.
• In 1968, President Lyndon B. Johnson ordered a halt to all U.S. ******* of North Vietnam, saying he hoped for fruitful peace negotiations.
• In 1975, the Queen single “Bohemian Rhapsody” was released in the United Kingdom by EMI Records.
• In 1992, Pope John Paul II formally proclaimed that the Roman Catholic ****** had erred in condemning the astronomer Galileo for holding that the Earth was not the centre of the universe.
• In 1994, a Chicago-bound American Eagle ATR-72 crashed in northern Indiana, ******* all 68 people aboard.
• In 1998, a genetic study was released suggesting President Thomas Jefferson did in fact father at least one ***** by his slave Sally Hemings.
• In 1999, EgyptAir Flight 990, bound from New York to Cairo, crashed off the Massachusetts coast, ******* all 217 people aboard.
• In 2001, New York hospital worker Kathy T. Nguyen (nwen) **** of inhalation anthrax, the fourth person to perish in a spreading wave of bioterrorism.
• Five years ago: The Federal Aviation Administration issued new guidelines allowing *******passengers to keep their electronic devices turned on throughout the entire flight, but not to talk on their cellphones. A federal appeals court ruled that most of Texas’ tough new ******** restrictions could take effect immediately.
• One year ago: Eight people were ****** when a man drove a truck along a bike path in New York City in an ****** that authorities immediately labelled *********; the driver, identified by authorities as Uzbek ********* ***************, was shot and ******* by ******. (His trial is scheduled for October, 2019.)
• One year ago: Netflix said it was suspending production on “House of Cards” following ***************** allegations against its star, Kevin Spacey. (Spacey would later be ***** from the show, and production resumed without him.)