Today in history
In 1869 financiers Jay Gould and James Fisk tried to corner the gold market, sending Wall Street into a panic and leaving thousands of investors in financial ruin.
In 1896 author F. Scott Fitzgerald was born in St. Paul, Minn.
In 1906 President Theodore Roosevelt signed a bill establishing Devils Tower in Wyoming as the first national monument.
In 1934 Babe Ruth made his farewell appearance as a regular player with the New York Yankees in a game against the Boston Red Sox.
In 1936 Jim Henson, creator of the Muppets, was born in Greenville, Miss.
In 1960 the USS Enterprise, the first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, was launched at Newport News, Va.
In 1969 the “Chicago Eight” went on trial on charges of conspiring to incite riots during the 1968 Democratic National Convention.
In 1991 children’s author Theodor Seuss Geisel, better known as Dr. Seuss, died in La Jolla, Calif.; he was 87.
In 1996 the United States, represented by President Bill Clinton, and the world’s other major nuclear powers signed a treaty to end all testing and development of nuclear weapons.
In 1998 new $20 bills redesigned to be harder to counterfeit went into circulation.
In 2001 President George W. Bush froze the assets of 27 suspected terrorists and terrorist groups.
In 2002 British Prime Minister Tony Blair asserted that Iraq had a growing arsenal of chemical and biological weapons and planned to use them, as he disclosed an intelligence dossier to a special session of Parliament.
In 2003 Tony-winning playwright Herb Gardner (“A Thousand Clowns,” “I’m Not Rappaport”) died in New York; he was 68.
In 2005 Vice President Dick Cheney had surgery to repair aneurysms on the backs of both knees.
In 2007 Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad questioned the official version of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and defended the right to cast doubt on the Holocaust in a tense appearance at Columbia University in New York. Also in 2007
Chuck Lorre’s top-rated comedy “The Big Bang Theory” debuted on CBS.
In 2012 Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Israel would be “eliminated” in remarks ahead of an annual session of the U.N. General Assembly.
In 2013 the U.S. Senate confirmed Todd Hughes, the first openly gay judge, to serve on the Washingtonbased U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. Also
in 2013 a magnitude-7.7 earthquake killed at least 400 people in southwestern
Pakistan.
In 2014 the U.S. agreed to pay the Navajo Nation $554 million in a mineral income settlement, the largest obtained by a tribe against the federal government.
In 2015 a stampede among Muslim worshippers near the Saudi holy city of Mecca left more than 700 people dead and hundreds more injured at the height of the annual hajj pilgrimage.
In 2017 NFL Sunday began with protests at every game two days after President Donald Trump said that any player who protested on the field before a game should be fired.