This Day In History
- 1789 Alexander Hamilton was appointed the first U.S. secretary of the treasury.
- 1814 An American fleet scored a decisive victory over the British in the Battle of Lake Champlain in the War of 1812.
- 1850 Jenny Lind, the ''Swedish Nightingale,'' gave her first concert in the United States, at Castle Garden in New York.
- 1885 Author D.H. Lawrence was born in Eastwood, England.
- 1936 President Franklin D. Roosevelt dedicated Boulder Dam (now Hoover Dam) by pressing a key in Washington to signal the startup of the dam's first hydroelectric generator in Nevada.
- 1941 Charles A. Lindbergh sparked charges of anti-Semitism with a speech in which he blamed ''the British, the Jewish and the Roosevelt administration'' for trying to draw the United States into World War II.
- 1954 The Miss America pageant made its network TV debut on ABC.
- 1962 The Beatles recorded their first single, ''Love Me Do'' and ''P.S. I Love You,'' at EMI studios in London.
- 1971 Former Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev died at age 77.
- 1973 Chilean President Salvador Allende died in a violent military coup.
- 1985 Pete Rose of the Cincinnati Reds recorded his 4,192nd hit, breaking Ty Cobb's career record.
- 1987 CBS went black for six minutes after anchorman Dan Rather walked off the set of ''The CBS Evening News'' because a tennis tournament being carried by the network ran overtime.
- 1997 The Army issued a searing indictment of itself, asserting that ''sexual harassment exists throughout the Army, crossing gender, rank and racial lines.''
- 1997 Scots voted to create their own Parliament after 290 years of union with England.
- 1998 Congress released Kenneth Starr's report that offered graphic details of President Bill Clinton's alleged sexual misconduct and leveled accusations of perjury and obstruction of justice.
- 2001 At 8:48 a.m. EDT a passenger jet crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center in New York City. Flames and smoke At 9:06 a.m. nother plane hit the WTC’s South Tower. At 9:43 a.m. the Pentagon in Washington DC was hit by another jet airliner. A few minutes later, a fourth jet airliner crashed in a field in Shanksville, PA, some 80 miles southeast of Pittsburgh. For the first time, terrorists had struck on U.S. soil. Air traffic to and from U.S. airports was halted. 19 Muslim militants, all men, all in their 20s and 30s, members of Osama Bin Laden’s al-Qaeda, had hijacked at least four planes all in the name of their religion: Islam. Almost 3,000 people died at the World Trade Center, including 385+ firefighters and police who valiantly attempted to save the thousands in the towers. One jet destroyed a section of the Pentagon, killing 189 people. On the plane in Pennsylvania, the brave souls aboard tried to regain control from their hijackers. Their plane crashed in a field. There were no survivors. The 19 Islamic religious fanatics of Middle Eastern descent wanted to destroy what Americans stand for. They died in vain. But, the people they murdered did not. Americans are now prouder, more committed to stand together; united from Maine to Hawaii, from Alaska to Florida, determined not to let any country, religion, or people steal our freedoms. Americans will fight all evil-doers for the inalienable right to live in our democracy. The battle cry of the United States against terrorists: “Let’s roll!” (Todd Beamer’s last words as heard by an Airfone operator minutes before Flight 93 crashed.)
- 2002 Football hall-of-famer Johnny Unitas died at age 69.
- 2003 Swedish Foreign Minister Anna Lindh died from stab wounds inflicted when she was attacked in a Stockholm department store a day earlier.
- 1862 O. Henry (William Sydney Porter) (author: short stories: Gift of the Magi; died June 5, 1910)
- 1885 D.H. (David Herbert) Lawrence (writer: Lady Chatterly’s Lover; died in Mar 2, 1930)
- 1913 Paul ‘Bear’ Bryant (football coach: University of Alabama: the winningest coach in college football [323 wins, 85 losses, 17 ties in 25 years]; died Jan 26, 1983)
- 1924 Tom Landry (Pro Football Hall of Famer: coach: Dallas Cowboys [1960-1988], record: 270-178-6, 20 straight winning seasons, five NFC titles, two Super Bowl wins; died Feb 12, 2000)
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