Today in history

On Sept. 22, 1776, Nathan Hale was hanged as a Revolutionary War spy by the British in New York. (His last words: “I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country.”) In 1789 Congress created the office of postmaster general. In 1791 physicist and chemist Michael Faraday was born. In 1792 the French Republic was proclaimed.

In 1830 Venezuela seceded from Colombia and became independent.

In 1862 President Abraham Lincoln unveiled his Emancipation Proclamation, in which he called for freedom for slaves in all rebel states by Jan. 1, 1863. In 1927 heavyweight boxing champion Gene Tunney defeated Jack Dempsey in the famous “long-count” bout in Soldier Field.

In 1949 the Soviet Union exploded its first atomic bomb. In 1950 Omar Bradley was promoted to the rank of five-star general, joining an elite group that included Dwight Eisenhower, Douglas MacArthur, George Marshall and Henry Arnold. In 1958 Sherman Adams, a close aide to President Dwight D. Eisenhower, resigned amid charges of improperly using his influence to help an industrialist. In 1961 the Interstate Commerce Commission issued rules forbidding racial discrimination in interstate bus transportation. In 1964 the musical “Fiddler on the Roof ”’ opened on Broadway. It would run 3,242 performances.

In 1969 Willie Mays of the San Francisco Giants hit his 600th career home run during a game in San Diego. In 1973 Henry Kissinger was sworn in as secretary of state, becoming the first naturalized citizen to hold the office.

In 1975 President Gerald Ford escaped an assassination attempt by Sara Jane Moore as he stepped out of a hotel in San Francisco. In 1985 France admitted its intelligence agents were behind the July bombing of the Rainbow Warrior, an anti-nuclear ship in New Zealand belonging to the environmental group Greenpeace.