TODAY IN HISTORY
TODAY IS WEDNESDAY, SEPT. 6, the 249th day of 2017. There are 116 days left in the year.
TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT IN HISTORY:
On this date in 1901, President William McKinley was shot and mortally wounded by anarchist Leon Czolgosz at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, N.Y. (McKinley died eight days later; Czolgosz was executed on October 29.)
In 1861, Union forces led by Gen. Ulysses S. Grant occupied Paducah, Ky., during the Civil War.
In 1916, the first self-serve grocery store, Piggly Wiggly, was opened in Memphis, Tenn., by Clarence Saunders.
In 1925, the silent film horror classic “The Phantom of the Opera,” starring Lon Chaney, had its world premiere at the Astor Theater in New York.
In 1966, birth control advocate Margaret Sanger died in Tucson at age 86, eight days before her birthday. South African Prime Minister Hendrik Verwoerd was stabbed to death by an apparently deranged page during a parliamentary session in Cape Town.
In 1975, 18-year-old tennis star Martina Navratilova of Czechoslovakia, in New York for the U.S. Open, requested political asylum in the United States.
In 1997, a public funeral was held for Princess Diana at Westminster Abbey in London, six days after her death in a car crash in Paris.
In 2002, meeting outside Washington, D.C. for only the second time since 1800, Congress convened in New York to pay homage to the victims and heroes of September 11.
TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS: Comedian JoAnne Worley is 82. Country singer David Allan Coe is 78. Rock singermusician Roger Waters (Pink Floyd) is 74. Actress Swoosie Kurtz is 73. Comedian-actress Jane Curtin is 70. Rock musician Mick Mashbir is 69. Country singer-songwriter Buddy Miller is 65. Actor James Martin Kelly is 63. Country musician Joe Smyth (Sawyer Brown) is 60. Actor-comedian Jeff Foxworthy is 59. Actor-comedian Michael Winslow is 59. Rock musician Perry Bamonte is 57. Actor Steven Eckholdt is 56. Pop musician Pal Waaktaar (a-ha) is 56. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is 55. Country singer Mark Chesnutt is 54. Actress Betsy Russell is 54. Actress Rosie Perez is 53. Rhythm and blues singer Macy Gray is 50. Singer CeCe Peniston is 48. Rhythm-and-blues singer Darryl Anthony (Az Yet) is 48.