TODAY IN HISTORY
Today is Thursday, Sept. 29, the 273rd day of 2016. There are 93 days left in the year.
Today’s Highlight in History:
On Sept. 29, 1789, the U.S. War Department established a regular army with the strength of several hundred men.
On this date:
■ In 1829, London’s reorganized police force, which became known as Scotland Yard, went on duty.
■ In 1910, the National Urban League had its beginnings in New York as The Committee on Urban Conditions Among Negroes.
■ In 1938, British, French, German and Italian leaders concluded the Munich Agreement, which was aimed at appeasing Adolf Hitler by allowing Nazi annexation of Czechoslovakia’s Sudetenland.
■ In 1982, Extra-Strength Tylenol capsules laced with deadly cyanide claimed the first of seven
victims in the Chicago area. (To date, the case remains unsolved.)
■ In 1986, the Soviet Union released Nicholas Daniloff, an American journalist confined on spying charges.
■ In 1990, the Washington National Cathedral, begun in 1907, was formally completed with President George H.W. Bush overseeing the laying of the final stone atop the southwest pinnacle of the cathedral’s St. Paul Tower.
■ In 2005, John G. Roberts Jr. was sworn in as the nation’s 17th chief justice after winning Senate confirmation.
Ten years ago: U.S. Rep. Mark Foley, R-Fla., resigned after being confronted with sexually explicit computer messages he’d sent to former House pages.
Five years ago: Phillip Matthew Hannan, the former New Orleans archbishop who eulogized President John F. Kennedy and who served more than three decades as the popular leader of his Roman Catholic archdiocese, died on the 47th anniversary of his ordination.
One year ago: NCAA banned the SMU men’s basketball team from the postseason and suspended coach Larry Brown for nine games, saying he had lied to investigators and ignored a case of academic fraud by a player.
Today’s Birthdays: Singer Jerry Lee Lewis is 81. Nobel Peace laureate Lech Walesa (lehk vah-WEN’sah) is 73. TV personality Bryant Gumbel is 68. Broadcast journalist Gwen Ifill is 61. Comedian-actor Andrew “Dice” Clay is 59. Actress Jill Whelan is 50. Actor Luke Goss is 48. Rock musician Brad Smith (Blind Melon) is 48. Rhythmand-blues singer Devante Swing (Jodeci) is 47. Actress Emily Lloyd is 46. Actress Natasha Gregson Wagner is 46. Actress Rachel Cronin is 45. Country musician Danick Dupelle (Emerson Drive) is 43. Actor Zachary Levi is 36. Thought for Today: “Wars teach us not to love our enemies, but to hate our allies.”—W.L. George, English writer (1882-1926).