TODAY IN HISTORY
TODAY IS THURSDAY, SEPT. 6, the 249th day of 2018. There are 116 days left in the year. TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT IN HISTORY: On this date 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 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 Oct. 29.)
In 1909, American explorer Robert Peary sent a telegram from Indian Harbor, Labrador, announcing that he had reached the North Pole five months earlier.
In 1943, 79 people were killed when a New York-bound Pennsylvania Railroad train derailed and crashed in Philadelphia.
In 1944, during World War II, the British government relaxed blackout restrictions and suspended compulsory training for the Home Guard.
In 1970, Palestinian guerrillas seized control of three U.S.-bound jetliners. (Two were later blown up on the ground in Jordan, along with a London-bound plane hijacked on Sept. 9; the fourth plane was destroyed on the ground in Egypt. No hostages were harmed.)
In 1972, the Summer Olympics resumed in Munich, West Germany, a day after the deadly hostage crisis that claimed the lives of eleven Israelis and five Arab abductors.
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 1985, all 31 people aboard a Midwest Express Airlines DC-9 were killed when the Atlanta-bound jetliner crashed just after takeoff from Milwaukee’s Mitchell Field. In 1995, Baltimore Orioles shortstop Cal Ripken broke Lou Gehrig’s record by playing his 2,131st consecutive game. In 1997, weeping masses gathered in Calcutta, India, to pay homage to Mother Teresa, who had died the day before at age 87.
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.
In 2006, President George W. Bush acknowledged for the first time that the CIA was running secret prisons overseas and said tough interrogation had forced terrorist leaders to reveal plots to attack the United States and its allies.
TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS: Comedian JoAnne Worley is 83. Country singer David Allan Coe is 79. Rock singermusician Roger Waters (Pink Floyd) is 75. Actress Swoosie Kurtz is 74. Comedian-actress Jane Curtin is 71. Rock musician Mick Mashbir is 70. Country singer-songwriter Buddy Miller is 66. Actor James Martin Kelly is 64. Country musician Joe Smyth (Sawyer Brown) is 61. Actor-comedians Jeff Foxworthy and Michael Winslow are 60. Rock musician Perry Bamonte is 58. Actor Steven Eckholdt, rock musician Scott Travis (Judas Priest) and pop musician Pal Waaktaar (a-ha) are 57. Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, rock musician Kevin Miller and ABC News correspondent Elizabeth Vargas are 56. Country singer Mark Chesnutt and actress Betsy Russell are 55. Actress Rosie Perez is 54. Rhythm and blues singer Macy Gray is 51. Country songwriter Lee Thomas Miller (Songs: “The Impossible” ‘’You’re Gonna Miss This”) is 50. Singer CeCe Peniston and rhythm-and-blues singer Darryl Anthony (Az Yet) are 49. Actress Daniele Gaither is 48. Actors Dylan Bruno and Idris Elba, and actresses Justina Machado and Anika Noni Rose are 46. Rock singer Nina Persson (The Cardigans) and actor Justin Whalin are 44. Actress Naomie Harris is 42. Rapper Noreaga is 41. Actress Natalia Cigliuti and rapper Foxy Brown are 40. Actor Howard Charles and actress/singer Deborah Joy Winans are 35. Actress Lauren Lapkus is 33. Rock singer Max George (The Wanted) is 30.