Good morning, it’s Monday, October 8, the 281st day of 2007. There are 84 days left in the year. This is Columbus Day, as well as Thanksgiving Day in Canada. The forecast calls for a 50 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms during the day and a 30 percent chance tonight.

Scientists reported the Mars Pathfinder had yielded what could be the strongest evidence yet that Mars might once have been hospitable to life—indications that there was or is water on the Red Planet.

"Water, of course, is the very ingredient that is necessary to support life," said Dr. Matthew Golombek, Mars Pathfinder project scientist during an Oct. 8, 1997 news conference.

“And that leads to the $64,000 question: Are we alone in the universe? Did life ever develop on Mars? If so, what happened to it and, if not, why not?"

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This month’s photo:

These cowboys are literally poised to ride off into the sunset at the 2nd Annual Evant Ranch Rodeo, which features working cowboys from ranches around Central Texas. The photo was taken by Fred Daschofsky of Gatesville and was selected for the 2007 KWTX Hometown Calendar. Click here for information about the 2008 KWTX Hometown Calendar.

What’s Going On Today
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Today's Highlight in History:
On October 8, 1871, the Great Chicago Fire erupted; fires also broke out in Peshtigo, Wisconsin, and in the Michigan communities of Holland, Manistee and Port Huron.

On This Date:
In 1869, the 14th president of the United States, Franklin Pierce, died in Concord, New Hampshire.
In 1918, Sergeant Alvin C. York almost single-handedly killed 25 German soldiers and helped captured 132 in the Argonne Forest in France.
In 1934, Bruno Hauptmann was indicted by a grand jury in New Jersey for murder in the death of the son of Charles A. Lindbergh.
In 1945, President Truman announced that the secret of the atomic bomb would be shared only with Britain and Canada.
In 1956, Don Larsen pitched the only perfect game in a World Series to date as the New York Yankees beat the Brooklyn Dodgers in Game 5, 2-0.
In 1957, the Brooklyn Baseball Club announced it was accepting an offer to move the Dodgers from New York to Los Angeles.
In 1967, former British Prime Minister Clement Attlee died in London at age 84.
In 1970, Soviet author Aleksander Solzhenitsyn was named winner of the Nobel Prize for literature.
In 1981, at the White House, President Reagan greeted former Presidents Carter, Ford and Nixon, who were preparing to travel to Egypt for the funeral of Anwar Sadat.
In 1982, all labor organizations in Poland, including Solidarity, were banned.

Ten years ago:
Scientists reported the Mars Pathfinder had yielded what could be the strongest evidence yet that Mars might once have been hospitable to life. Gueorgui Makharadze, a diplomat from the Republic of Georgia, pleaded guilty in Washington to charges stemming from a car crash that killed Maryland teen-ager Jovianne Waltrick. (Makharadze was sentenced to seven years in prison; he initially served his term in a U.S. prison, but was later transferred to Georgia, where he was paroled in 2002.)

Five years ago:
A federal judge approved President Bush's request to reopen West Coast ports, ending a caustic 10-day labor lockout that was costing the U.S. economy an estimated one to two billion dollars a day. Two Kuwaiti gunmen attacked U.S. forces during war games on a Gulf island, killing one Marine and wounding another before they were shot to death. Americans Raymond Davis Junior and Riccardo Giacconi and Masatoshi Koshiba, a Japanese, won the Nobel Prize in physics.

One year ago:
Word reached the United States of North Korea's claim that it had conducted its first nuclear weapons test (because of the time difference, it was October 9th in North Korea).

Today's Birthdays:
Entertainment reporter Rona Barrett is 71. Actor Paul Hogan is 68. Rhythm-and-blues singer Fred Cash (The Impressions) is 67. Reverend Jesse Jackson is 66. Comedian Chevy Chase is 64. Author R.L. Stine is 64. Country singer Susan Raye is 63. TV personality Sarah Purcell is 59. Actress Sigourney Weaver is 58. Rhythm-and-blues singer Robert "Kool" Bell (Kool & the Gang)
is 57. Producer-director Edward Zwick is 55. Country singer-musician Ricky Lee Phelps is 54. Actor Michael Dudikoff is 53. Comedian Darrell Hammond is 52. Actress Stephanie Zimbalist is
51. Rock musician Mitch Marine is 46. Rock singer Steve Perry (Cherry Poppin' Daddies) is 44. Actor Ian Hart is 43. Gospel/rhythm-and-blues singer CeCe Winans is 43. Rock musician
C.J. Ramone (The Ramones) is 42. Singer-producer Teddy Riley is 41. Actress Emily Procter is 39. Actor-screenwriter Matt Damon is 37. Actress Kristanna Loken is 28. Rhythm-and-blues singer Byron Reeder (Mista) is 28. Actor Nick Cannon is 27. Actor Max Crumm (TV: "You're The One That I Want") is 22. Actor Angus T. Jones is 14.

Thought for Today:
"I hope we never live to see the day when a thing is as bad as some of our newspapers make it." – Will Rogers, American humorist (1879-1935).

(Source: Associated Press)

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