Today in history

On Sept. 13, 1759, during the final French and Indian War, the British defeated the French on the Plains of Abraham overlooking Quebec City.

In 1788 the Congress of the Confederation authorized the first national election, and declared New York City the temporary national capital.

In 1943 Chiang Kai-shek became president of China.

In 1948 Republican Margaret Chase Smith, of Maine, was elected to the U.S. Senate, becoming the first woman to serve in both houses of Congress.

In 1949 the Ladies Professional Golf Association of America was formed in New York City, with Patty Berg as its first president.

In 1971 a four-day inmates’ rebellion at the Attica Correctional Facility in upstate New York ended as police and guards stormed the prison; the ordeal and final assault claimed 43 lives.

In 1993, at the White House, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and PLO chairman Yasser Arafat shook hands after signing an accord granting limited Palestinian autonomy.

In 1994 about 180 nations adopted a 20-year blueprint for slowing the world’s population growth at a U.N.-sponsored conference in Cairo.

In 1995 the FBI made at least a dozen arrests, capping a nationwide 2-year investigation of pedophiles and pornographers using the America Online computer network.

In 1996 rapper Tupac Shakur died at a Las Vegas hospital six days after he was wounded in a drive-by shooting; he was 25.

In 2001 President George W. Bush called the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington “the first war of the 21st century” as his administration labeled fugitive Osama bin Laden a prime suspect. (The United States promised to wage all-out retaliation against those responsible and any regime that protected them.) Also in 2001 jetliners returned to the nation’s skies for the first time in two days, carrying passengers who faced strict new security measures.

In 2002 President George W. Bush said it was “highly doubtful” that Saddam Hussein would comply with demands that he disarm and avoid a confrontation with the world community.

In 2013 a court in India sentenced four men to death in the December 2012 gang rape and slaying of a 23-year-old student in New Delhi.

In 2014 Prime Minister David Cameron called the beheading of British aid worker David Haines, 44, by an Islamic State militant “an act of pure evil.”