Don Singleton: Friday, September 23

Friday, September 23, 2005

Friday, September 23

This Day In History

63 B.C. Caesar Augustus was born in Rome.
1642 Harvard College in Cambridge, Mass., held its first commencement.
1779 American commander John Paul Jones is said to have declared, ''I have not yet begun to fight!'' during a Revolutionary War naval battle.
1806 The Lewis and Clark expedition returned to St. Louis from the Pacific Northwest.
1846 The planet Neptune was discovered by German astronomer Johann Gottfried Galle.
1939 Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, died in London.
1952 Rocky Marciano became the world heavyweight boxing champion by knocking out Jersey Joe Walcott in the 13th round in Philadelphia PA. It was Rocky’s 43rd consecutive victory.
1952 Pay Television for sporting events began with the Marciano-Walcott fight, coast to coast, in 49 theatres in 31 cities.
1952 U.S. President Richard M. Nixon’s dog, Checkers, was the subject of a speech given this day by Mr. Nixon, then a candidate for vice-president. In the televised speech, he stated that he would not give back a gift -- whether it had political ties or not -- because it was a present for his daughter. The gift in question was Checkers and the speech was forever referred to as the ‘Checkers Speech’.
1957 Nine black students who had entered Little Rock Central High School in Arkansas were forced to withdraw because of a white mob outside.
1973 Former Argentine president Juan Peron was returned to power.
1990 Iraq threatened to destroy Middle East oil fields and attack Israel if other nations tried to force it from Kuwait.
1999 The Mars Climate Observer apparently burned up as it was about to go into orbit around the Red Planet.
2002 A 24-count indictment charging conspiracy, securities fraud and wire fraud was filed against the founding family and two executives of bankrupt cable company Adelphia Communications Corp.