This day in history
Today is Thursday, Sept. 29, the 272nd day of 2022. There are 93 days left in the year.
Birthdays: Conductor Richard Bonynge is 92. Writer-director Robert Benton is 90. Singer Jerry Lee Lewis is 87. Actor Ian McShane is 80. Blues-gospel singer Sherman Holmes is 83. NASA administrator and former senator Bill Nelson is 80. Jazz violinist Jean-Luc Ponty is
80. Nobel Peace laureate Lech Walesa is 79. Television-film composer Mike Post is 78. Actor Patricia Hodge is 76. TV personality Bryant Gumbel is 74. Olympic gold medal runner Sebastian Coe is 66. Singer Suzzy Roche is 66. Comedian Andrew “Dice” Clay is 65. Actor Roger Bart is 60. Actor Chrissy Metz is
42. NBA All-Star Kevin Durant is 34. Actor Doug Brochu is 32. Pop singer Halsey is 28.
►In 1789, the US War Department established a regular army with a strength of several hundred men.
►In 1829, London’s reorganized police force, which became known as Scotland Yard, went on duty.
►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 1965, President Lyndon Johnson signed the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act of 1965, creating the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Endowment for the Arts.
►In 1976, a dedication ceremony was held for the Hancock Tower in the Back Bay, five years later than expected because of various architectural problems. Construction had started eight years earlier.
►In 1978, Pope John Paul I was found dead in his Vatican apartment just over a month after becoming head of the Roman Catholic Church.
►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 2000, Israeli riot police stormed a major Jerusalem shrine and opened fire on stonethrowing Muslim worshippers, killing four Palestinians and wounding 175.
►In 2005, John G. Roberts Jr. was sworn in as the nation’s 17 th chief justice after winning Senate confirmation.
►In 2020, the first debate between President Trump and Democrat Joe Biden deteriorated into bitter taunts and near chaos, as Trump repeatedly interrupted his opponent with angry and personal jabs and the two men talked over each other. Trump refused to condemn white supremacists who had supported him, telling one such group known as Proud Boys to “stand back, stand by.”
►Last year, in a major victory for pop star Britney Spears, a judge in Los Angeles suspended the singer’s father from the conservatorship that had controlled her life and money for 13 years.