TODAY IN HISTORY
Today is Saturday, Sept. 22, the 265th day of 2018. There are 100 days left in the year. Autumn arrives at 9:54 p.m. Eastern time.
Today’s Highlight in History:
On Sept. 22, 1949, the Soviet Union exploded its first atomic bomb.
On this date:
■ In 1776, during the Revolutionary War, Capt. Nathan Hale, 21, was hanged as a spy by the British in New York.
■ In 1792, the French First Republic was proclaimed.
■ In 1862, President Abraham Lincoln issued the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, declaring all slaves in rebel states should be free as of January 1, 1863.
■ In 1927, Gene Tunney successfully defended his heavyweight boxing title against Jack Dempsey in the famous “longcount” fight in Chicago.
■ In 1950, Omar N. Bradley was promoted to the rank of five-star general, joining an elite group that included Dwight D. Eisenhower, Douglas MacArthur, George C. Marshall and Henry H. “Hap” Arnold.
■ In 1959, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev arrived in Iowa for a two-day stopover, during which he visited a corn farm, held talks with former Illinois Gov. Adlai Stevenson, and ate his first hot dog.
■ In 1961, the Interstate Commerce Commission issued rules prohibiting racial discrimination on interstate buses.
■ In 1975, Sara Jane Moore attempted to shoot President Gerald R. Ford outside a San Francisco hotel, but missed. (Moore served 32 years in prison before being paroled on Dec. 31, 2007.)
■ In 1980, the Persian Gulf conflict between Iran and Iraq erupted into full-scale war.
■ In 1993, 47 people were killed when an Amtrak passenger train fell off a bridge and crashed into Big Bayou Canot near Mobile, Ala. (A tugboat pilot lost in fog pushed a barge into the railroad bridge, knocking the tracks 38 inches out of line just minutes before the train arrived.)
Ten years ago: Marjorie Knoller, whose dogs viciously attacked and killed her neighbor, Dianne Whipple, in their San Francisco apartment building in 2001, was sentenced to 15 years to life in prison after her second-degree murder conviction was reinstated.
One year ago: As the scale of the damage from Hurricane Maria started to become clearer, Puerto Rican officials said they could not contact more than half of the communities in the U.S. territory, where all power had been knocked out to the island’s 3.4 million people. President Donald Trump said NFL owners should fire players who kneel during the national anthem. Sen. John McCain declared his opposition to the GOP’s last-ditch effort to repeal and replace “Obamacare,” the second time in three months McCain had emerged as the destroyer of his party’s signature promise to voters. Thought for Today: “I saw old Autumn in the misty morn/ Stand shadowless like silence, listening/ To silence.”— Thomas Hood, English author (1799-1845).