DAILY ALMANAC
Today is Thursday, Sept. 2, the 245th day of 2021. There are 120 days left in the year.
On this date:
1666: The Great Fire of London broke out.
1789: The United States Treasury Department was established.
1864: During the Civil War, Union Gen. William T. Sherman’s forces occupied Atlanta.
1944: During World War II, Navy pilot Lt. (jg) George Herbert Walker Bush was shot down by Japanese forces as he completed a bombing run over the Bonin Islands. (Bush was rescued by the crew of the submarine USS Finback; his two crew members, however, died.)
1945: Japan formally surrendered in ceremonies aboard the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay, ending World War II.
1960: Wilma Rudolph of the United
States won the first of her three gold medals at the Rome Summer Olympics as she finished the 100-meter dash in 11 seconds.
1963: Alabama Gov. George C. Wallace prevented the integration of Tuskegee High School by encircling the building with state troopers. “The CBS Evening News” with Walter Cronkite was lengthened from 15 to 30 minutes, becoming network television’s first halfhour nightly newscast.
1969: In what some regard as the birth of the Internet, two connected computers at the University of California, Los Angeles, passed test data through a 15-foot cable.
1998: A Swissair MD-11 jetliner crashed off Nova Scotia, killing all 229 people aboard.
2005: A National Guard convoy packed with food, water and medicine rolled into New Orleans four days after Hurricane Katrina.
2008: Republicans assailed Barack Obama as the most liberal, least experienced White House nominee in history at their convention in St. Paul, Minnesota, and enthusiastically extolled their own man, John Mccain, as ready to lead the nation.
2018: Sen. John Mccain was laid to rest on a grassy hill at the U.S. Naval Academy, after a horse-drawn caisson carrying the senator’s casket led a procession of mourners from the academy’s chapel to its cemetery.
2019: A fire swept a boat carrying recreational scuba divers that was anchored near an island off the Southern California coast; the captain and four other crew members were able to escape the flames, but 34 people who were trapped below died.
Sportscaster Terry Bradshaw is 73. Actor Mark Harmon is 70. Actor Linda Purl (“Happy Days,” “Matlock”) is 66. Drummer Jerry Augustyniak of 10,000 Maniacs is 63. Drummer Paul Deakin of The Mavericks is 62. Actor Keanu Reeves is 57. Actor Salma Hayek is 55. Actor Tuc Watkins (“One Life to Live”) is 55. Actor
Cynthia Watros (“Lost,” “Titus”) is 53. Singer K-CI
of K-CI and Jojo is 52. Actor Nicholas Pinnock
(“For Life”) is 48. Comedian Katt Williams (“Norbit”) is 48. Actor Michael Lombardi (“Rescue Me”) is 47. Actor
Tiffany Hines (“Nikita,” “Bones”) is 44. Bassist Sam Rivers of Limp Bizkit is 44. Actor Jonathan Kite (“2 Broke Girls”) is 42. Actor Joshua Henry (“Hamilton”) is 37. Dj-music producer Zedd is 32.