By The Associated Press

Today is Thursday, Oct. 24, the 297th day of 2019. There are 68 days left in the year.

Today’s Highlight in History:

On Oct. 24, 1940, the 40-hour work week went into effect under the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938.

On this date:

In 1861, the first transcontinental telegraph message was sent by Chief Justice Stephen J. Field of California from San Francisco to President Abraham Lincoln in Washington, D.C., over a line built by the Western Union Telegraph Co.

In 1931, the George Washington Bridge, connecting New York and New Jersey, was officially dedicated (it opened to traffic the next day).

In 1945, the United Nations officially came into existence as its charter took effect.

In 1962, a naval quarantine of Cuba ordered by President John F. Kennedy went into effect during the missile crisis.

In 1972, Hall of Famer Jackie Robinson, who’d broken Major League Baseball’s color barrier in 1947, died in Stamford, Connecticut, at age 53.

In 1989, former television evangelist Jim Bakker was sentenced by a judge in Charlotte, N.C., to 45 years in prison for fraud and conspiracy.