TODAY IN HISTORY

Today is Wednesday, Sept. 23, the 267th day of 2020. There are 99 days left in the year.

Today's Highlight in

History: On Sept. 23, 1952, Sen. Richard M. Nixon, R-Calif., salvaged his vicepresidential nomination by appearing on television from Los Angeles to refute allegations of improper campaign fundraising in what became known as the "Checkers" speech.

On this date:

In 63 B.C., Caesar Augustus, the first Roman emperor, was born.

In 1806, the Lewis and Clark expedition returned to St. Louis more than two years after setting out for the Pacific Northwest.

In 1846, Neptune was identified as a planet by German astronomer Johann Gottfried Galle.

In 1932, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was founded.

In 1939, Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, died in London at age 83.

In 1949, President Harry S. Truman announced there was evidence the Soviet Union had recently conducted a nuclear test explosion. (The test had been carried out on Aug. 29, 1949.)

In 1955, a jury in Sumner, Mississippi, acquitted two white men, Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam, of murdering Black teenager Emmett Till. (The two men later admitted to the crime in an interview with Look magazine.)

In 1957, nine Black students who'd entered Little Rock Central High School in Arkansas were forced to withdraw because of a white mob outside.

In 1999, the Mars Climate Orbiter apparently burned up as it attempted to go into orbit around the Red Planet.

In 2001, President George W. Bush returned the American flag to full staff at Camp David, symbolically ending a period of national mourning following the 9/11 attacks.

In 2002, Gov. Gray Davis signed a law making California the first state to offer workers paid family leave.

Ten years ago: The U.S. delegation walked out of a U.N. speech by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad after he said some in the world had speculated that the U.S. staged the September 11, 2001 attacks in an attempt to assure Israel's survival. Congressional Republicans unveiled their "Pledge to America," a strongly worded manifesto promising to return government to the people. Teresa Lewis, 41, was executed by the state of Virginia for arranging the killings of her husband and stepson to collect on a $250,000 insurance policy.

Five years ago: In the first canonization on U.S. soil, Pope Francis elevated to sainthood Junipero Serra, an 18thcentury missionary who'd brought Catholicism to the American West Coast.