history at a glance

TODAY is Sunday September 17 the 260th day of the year. There are 105 days left in the year. Highlights in history on this date:

1894 – Battle of Yalu River, the largest naval engagement of the First Sino-Japanese War. 1908 – The Wright Flyer flown by Orville Wright, with Lieutenant Thomas Selfridge as passenger, crashes, killing Selfridge. He becomes the first airplane fatality. 1914 – World War I:The Race to the Sea begins. 1916 – World War I: Manfred von Richthofen (“The Red Baron”), a flying ace of the German

Luftstreitkräfte, wins his first aerial combat near Cambrai, France. 1939 – World War II: The Soviet Union joins Nazi Germany’s invasion of Poland during the

Polish Defensive War of 1939. 1939 – World War II: A German U-boat U 29 sinks the British aircraft carrier HMS Courageous. 1939 – Taisto Mäki becomes the first man to run the 10,000 metres in under 30 minutes, in a

time of 29:52.6 1940 – World War II: Following the German defeat in the Battle of Britain, Hitler postpones

Operation Sea Lion indefinitely. 1941 – World War II: A decree of the Soviet State Committee of Defense, restoring Vsevobuch

in the face of the Great Patriotic War, is issued. 1941 – World War II: Soviet forces enter Teheran marking the end of the Anglo-Soviet invasion

of Iran. 1943 – World War II: The Russian city of Bryansk is liberated from Germans. 1944 – World War II: Allied Airborne troops parachute into the Netherlands as the “Market”

half of Operation Market Garden. 1948 – The Lehi (also known as the Stern gang) assassinates Count Folke Bernadotte, who

was appointed by the United Nations to mediate between the Arab nations and Israel. 1948 – The Nizam of Hyderabad surrenders his sovereignty over the Hyderabad State and

joins the Indian Union. 1957 – Malaysia joins the United Nations. 1961 – The world’s first retractable-dome stadium, the Civic Arena, opens in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. 1965 – The Battle of Chawinda is fought between Pakistan and India. 1974 – Bangladesh, Grenada and Guinea-Bissau join the United Nations. 1976 – The first Space Shuttle, Enterprise, is unveiled by NASA. 1978 – The Camp David Accords are signed by Israel and Egypt. 1980 – After weeks of strikes at the Lenin Shipyard in Gdansk, Poland, the nationwide independent trade union Solidarity is established. 1983 – Vanessa Williams becomes the first black Miss America. 1987 – Pope John Paul II embraces an AIDS-infected boy while visiting San Francisco. 1991 – Estonia, North Korea, South Korea, Latvia, Lithuania, the Marshall Islands and Micronesia join the United Nations. 1991 – The first version of the Linux kernel (0.01) is released to the Internet. 1992 – An Iranian Kurdish leader and his two joiners are assassinated by political militants in

Berlin, Germany. 2001 – The New York Stock Exchange reopens for trading after the September 11 attacks, the

longest closure since the Great Depression. 2006 – Fourpeaked Mountain in Alaska erupts, marking the first eruption for the long-dormant

volcano in at least 10,000 years. 2006 – An audio tape of a private speech by Hungarian Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsány is leaked to the public, in which he confessed that his Hungarian Socialist Party had lied to win the 2006 election, sparking widespread protests across the country. 2011 – Occupy Wall Street movement begins in Zuccotti Park, New York City.