QUOTE UNQUOTE
“I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country.”
NATHAN HALE,
AMERICAN SOLDIER AND SPY, BEFORE HIS EXECUTION BY BRITISH FORCES ON THIS DATE IN 1776
Today’s highlight in history
On Sept. 22, 1862, President Abraham Lincoln issued the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, declaring all slaves in rebel states should be free as of Jan. 1, 1863.
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 1792, the French First Republic was proclaimed. In 1927, Gene Tunney successfully defended his heavyweight boxing title against Jack Dempsey in the famous “long-count” fight in Chicago.
In 1949, the Soviet Union exploded its first atomic bomb. In 1964, the musical “Fiddler on the Roof,” starring Zero Mostel, opened on Broadway, beginning a run of 3,242 performances.
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 Dec. 31, 2007.)
In 1982, the situation comedy “Family Ties” premiered on NBC.
Ten years ago: Marcel Marceau, the master of mime, died in Cahors, France, at age 84.
Five years ago: President Barack Obama campaigned before a crowd of 18,000 in Wisconsin, the home state of GOP vice-presidential candidate Paul Ryan.
One year ago: Prosecutors charged a white Oklahoma police officer with first-degree manslaughter less than a week after she killed an unarmed black man on a city street, saying in court documents the officer “reacted unreasonably.” (Betty Shelby was acquitted in May 2017 of manslaughter in the death of Terence Crutcher.)