TODAY IN HISTORY
Today is Sunday, Sept. 16, the 259th day of 2018. There are 106 days left in the year.
Today’s Highlights in History:
On Sept. 16, 1987, two dozen countries signed the Montreal Protocol, a treaty designed to save the Earth’s ozone layer by calling on nations to reduce emissions of harmful chemicals by the year 2000.
On this date:
■ In 1857, the song “Jingle Bells” by James Pierpont was copyrighted under its original title, “One Horse Open Sleigh.” (The song, while considered a Christmastime classic, was actually written for Thanksgiving.)
■ In 1908, General Motors was founded in Flint, Mich., by William C. Durant.
■ In 1940, Samuel T. Rayburn of Texas was elected Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives.
■ In 1974, President Gerald R. Ford announced a conditional amnesty program for Vietnam war deserters and draft-evaders.
■ In 1982, the massacre of between 1,200 and 1,400 Palestinian men, women and children at the hands of Israeli-allied Christian Phalange militiamen began in west Beirut’s Sabra and Shatila refugee camps.
■ In 2001, President George W. Bush, speaking on the South Lawn of the White House, said there was “no question” Osama bin Laden and his followers were the prime suspects in the Sept. 11 attacks; Bush pledged the government would “find them, get them running and hunt them down.”
■ In 2007, contractors for the U.S. security firm Blackwater USA guarding a U.S. State Department convoy in Baghdad opened fire on civilian vehicles, mistakenly believing they were under attack; 14 Iraqis died. O.J. Simpson was arrested in the alleged armed robbery of sports memorabilia collectors in Las Vegas. (Simpson was later convicted of kidnapping and armed robbery and sentenced to nine to 33 years in prison; he was released in 2017.)
Ten years ago: President George W. Bush got a firsthand look at the fury that Hurricane Ike had unleashed on the Gulf Coast with stops in Houston and Galveston, Texas, and a helicopter tour.
Thought for Today: “You can love a person deeply and sincerely whom you do not like. You can like a person passionately whom you do not love.”— Robert Hugh Benson, English author and clergyman (18711914).