ON THIS DATE
In 1776, during the Revolutionary War, Capt. Nathan Hale, 21, was hanged as a spy by the British in New York.
In 1862, President Abraham Lincoln issued the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, declaring all slaves in rebel states should be free as of January 1, 1863.
In 1911, pitcher Cy Young, 44, gained his 511th and final career victory as he hurled a 1-0 shutout for the Boston Rustlers against the Pittsburgh Pirates at Forbes Field. In 1950, Omar N. Bradley was promoted to the rank of five-star general, joining an elite group that included Dwight D. Eisenhower, Douglas MacArthur, George C. Marshall and Henry H.“Hap” Arnold.
In 1959, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev arrived in Iowa for a two-day stopover, during which he visited a corn farm, held talks with former Illinois Gov. Adlai Stevenson, and ate his first hot dog.
In 1961, the Interstate Commerce Commission issued rules prohibiting racial discrimination on interstate buses.
In 1975, Sara Jane Moore attempted to shoot President Gerald R. Ford outside a San Francisco hotel, but missed. (Moore served 32 years in prison before being paroled on December 31, 2007.)
In 1980, the Persian Gulf conflict between Iran and Iraq erupted into full-scale war.
In 1985, rock and country music artists participated in “FarmAid,” a concert staged in Champaign, Illinois, to help the nation’s farmers.
In 1993, 47 people were killed when an Amtrak passenger train fell off a bridge and crashed into Big Bayou Canot near Mobile, Alabama. (A tugboat pilot lost in fog pushed a barge into the railroad bridge, knocking the tracks 38 inches out of line just minutes before the train arrived.)
Ten years ago: Jury selection began in Washington for the federal corruption trial of Republican Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska. (Jurors later found that Stevens had lied on Senate financial disclosure forms to conceal hundreds of thousands of dollars in gifts and home renovations from a wealthy oil contractor, but the Justice Department later moved to dismiss the indictment because prosecutors had mishandled the case; Stevens lost his reelection bid.) Five years ago: President Barack Obama spoke at a memorial service for the 12 men and women killed in the Washington Navy Yard shooting, calling on Americans to raise their voices against gun violence.
One year ago: As the scale of the damage from Hurricane Maria started to become clearer, Puerto Rican officials said they could not contact more than half of the communities in the U.S. territory, where all power had been knocked out to the island’s 3.4 million people.