Today is Saturday, Oct. 4, the 278th day of 2008. There are 88 days left in the year.

Today’s Highlight in History:

On Oct. 4, 1957, the Space Age began as the Soviet Union launched Sputnik 1, the first artificial satellite, into orbit.

On this date:

• In 1777, George Washington’s troops launched an assault on the British at Germantown, Pa., resulting in heavy American casualties.

• In 1940, Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini conferred at Brenner Pass in the Alps.

• In 1957, Jimmy Hoffa was elected president of the Teamsters Union.

• In 1958, the first trans-Atlantic passenger jetliner service was begun by the British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC) with flights between London and New York.

• In 1970, rock singer Janis Joplin, 27, was found dead in her Hollywood, Calif., hotel room.

• In 1976, agriculture secretary Earl Butz resigned in the wake of a controversy over a joke he’d made about blacks.

Today’s Birthdays: Actress Felicia Farr is 76. Author Roy

Blount Jr. is 67. Author Anne Rice is 67. Actress Lori Saunders (“Petticoat Junction”) is 67. Actress Susan Sarandon is 62. Blues musician Duke Robillard is 60. Actor Armand Assante is 59. Singer Jon Secada is 47. Actor Liev Schreiber is 41. Actress Alicia Silverstone is 32. Actress Rachael Leigh Cook is 29. Figure skater Kimmie Meisner is 19.

Thought for Today: “He who confers a favor should at once forget it, if he is not to show a sordid, ungenerous spirit.”—Demosthenes, Greek statesman (384 B.C.-322 B.C.)