Mohandas K. Gandhi, also known as the Mahatma or Great Soul, is born in India then under British colonial rule.

Gandhi’s use of non-violent tactics as a political and spiritual leader helps India gain its independence decades later.

1919In Washington, President Woodrow Wilson suffers a stroke which leaves him partially paralyzed. Wilson never fully recovers, effectively putting his presidency in limbo for the rest of his term in office. And the stroke ends Wilson’s drive for the United States to join the League of Nations, forerunner of the United Nations.

1967Also in the nation’s capital, Thurgood Marshall is sworn in as the first black Justice on the US Supreme Court.

1985Actor Rock Hudson dies at his home in Beverly Hills, California after a battle with AIDS. He was 59. Hudson was the first major celebrity to reveal he had AIDS, a disclosure that helped raise awareness and changed perceptions about the disease.

1890“One morning I shot an elephant in my pajamas, how he got into my pajamas? I don’t know.”

Comedian Groucho Marx, star of silver green and TV, both with his comedy team, brothers, and on his own, is born in New York City.

1950Here comes Charlie Brown again as a daily comic strip, Peanuts, premiers in newspapers. The strip runs nearly 50 years until its creator, Charles Schulz dies in 2000.

And 1951“You'll forget the sun in his jealous sky as we walk in fields of gold. So she took her love for to gaze awhile upon the fields of barley.”

Sting, the singer and actor, who first gained fame as front man for the rock group The Police, is born Gordon Sumner in Wallsend, England.

Today in History, October 2nd, Camille Bohannon, the Associated Press.