On Oct. 15, 1966, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed a bill creating the U.S. Department of Transportation. The revolutionary Black Panther Party was founded by Huey Newton and Bobby Seale in Oakland, California.

Ten years ago

A strong earthquake struck the Big Island of Hawaii, damaging buildings and roads but apparently causing no deaths. Three members of Duke University’s lacrosse team appeared on CBS’ “60 Minutes” to deny raping a woman who’d been hired to perform as a stripper (Collin Finnerty, Reade Seligmann and David Evans were later exonerated). Pope Benedict XVI named four new saints of the Catholic Church.

Five years ago

Italian riot police fired tear gas and water cannons in Rome as violent protesters hijacked a peaceful demonstration against corporate greed, smashing bank windows, torching cars and hurling bottles. Iran’s Foreign Ministry dismissed U.S. accusations that Tehran was involved in a plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador in Washington, saying the claims had no “legal logic.”

One year ago

President Barack Obama abandoned his pledge to end America’s longest war, announcing plans to keep at least 5,500 U.S. troops in Afghanistan when he leaves office in 2017 and hand the conflict off to his successor. Ken Taylor, Canada’s ambassador to Iran who’d sheltered Americans at his residence during the 1979 Iran hostage crisis, died in New York at age 81.

— By The Associated Press