This Day in History

On Aug. 28, 1963, more than 200,000 people listened as the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.

On this date:

In 1609, English sea explorer Henry Hudson and his ship, the Half Moon, reached present-day Delaware Bay.

In 1862, the Second Battle of Bull Run (also known as Second Manassas) began in Prince William County, Virginia, during the Civil War; the result was a Confederate victory.

In 1916, Italy declared war on Germany during World War I.

In 1941, Japan’s ambassador to the U.S., Kichisaburo Nomura, presented a note to President Franklin D. Roosevelt from Japan’s prime minister, Prince Fumimaro Konoye, expressing a desire for improved relations.

In 1955, Emmett Till, a black teen-ager from Chicago, was abducted from his uncle’s home in Money, Mississippi, by two white men after he had supposedly whistled at a white woman; he was found brutally slain three days later.

In 1968, police and anti-war demonstrators clashed in the streets of Chicago as the Democratic National Convention nominated Hubert H. Humphrey for president.

In 1972, Mark Spitz of the United States won the first two of his seven gold medals at the Munich Olympics, finishing first in the 200-meter butterfly and anchoring the 400-meter freestyle relay. The Soviet women gymnasts won the team all-around.

In 1988, 70 people were killed when three Italian stunt planes collided during an air show at the U.S. Air Base in Ramstein, West Germany.

In 1990, an F5 tornado struck the Chicago area, killing 29 people.

In 1995, a mortar shell tore through a crowded market in Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina, killing some three dozen people and triggering NATO airstrikes against the Bosnian Serbs.

In 1996, Democrats nominated President Bill Clinton for a second term at their national convention in Chicago. The troubled 15-year marriage of Britain’s Prince Charles and Princess Diana officially ended with the issuing of a divorce decree.