Tuesday, September 20, 2005

Tuesday, September 20

This Day In History

  • 1519   Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan set out from Spain on a voyage to find a western passage to the Spice Islands in Indonesia.
  • 1870   Italian troops took control of the Papal States, leading to the unification of Italy.
  • 1881   Chester A. Arthur was sworn in as the 21st president of the United States, succeeding James A. Garfield, who had been assassinated.
  • 1884   If you thought equal rights for women is a modern concept, think again. On this day, the Equal Rights Party was formed in San Francisco, California. The party nominated Mrs. Belva Lockwood as their U.S. presidential candidate and Marietta Snow as Lockwood’s running mate.
  • 1947   Former New York City Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia died at age 64.
  • 1962   Black student James Meredith was blocked from enrolling at the University of Mississippi by Governor Ross R. Barnett.
  • 1973   Singer-songwriter Jim Croce died in a plane crash near Natchitoches, La., at age 30.
  • 1977   The first wave of Southeast Asian ''boat people'' arrived in San Francisco under a new U.S. resettlement program.
  • 1984   A suicide car bomber attacked the U.S. Embassy annex in north Beirut, killing a dozen people.
  • 1995   AT&T announced that it would be splitting into three companies: AT&T (communication services); Lucent Technologies (systems and technology communications products); and NCR Corp. (computer business).
  • 1998   After playing in a record 2,632 consecutive games over 16 seasons, Cal Ripken of the Baltimore Orioles sat out a game against the New York Yankees.
  • 1998   Muriel Humphrey Brown, widow of Vice President Hubert Humphrey and his brief successor in the U.S. Senate, died in Minneapolis at age 86.
  • 1999   Lawrence Russell Brewer was convicted in the dragging death of James Byrd Jr. in Jasper, Texas.
  • 1999   International peacekeepers landed in East Timor.
  • 1999   Raisa Gorbachev, wife of the last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, died of leukemia at age 67.
  • 2000   Independent Counsel Robert Ray announced the end of the Whitewater investigation, saying there was insufficient evidence to warrant charges against President Bill Clinton and his wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton.
  • 2001   President George W. Bush addressed a joint session of Congress regarding the terrorist attacks and named Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge to head the new Office of Homeland Security.
Happy Birthday To
  • 1878   Upton (Beall) Sinclair (social/political reformer, author)
  • 1917   Red (Arnold) Auerbach (Basketball Hall of Famer: Boston Celtics coach: most NBA Championships [9] [1957 & 1959-1966])
  • 1934   Sophia Loren (Sofia Scicolone) (Academy Award-winning actress)

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