TODAY IN HISTORY

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT Sept. 7, 1977

The Panama Canal treaties, calling for the U.S. to eventually turn over control of the waterway to Panama, were signed in Washington by President Jimmy Carter and Panamanian leader Omar Torrijos.

ALSO ON THIS DATE 1892

James J. Corbett knocked out John L. Sullivan to win the world heavyweight crown in New Orleans in a fight conducted under the Marquess of Queensberry rules.

1936

Rock-and-roll legend Buddy Holly was born Charles Hardin Holley in Lubbock, Texas.

1940

Nazi Germany began its eight-month blitz of Britain during World War II with the first air attack on London.

1963

The National Professional Football Hall of Fame was dedicated in Canton, Ohio.

1990

Kimberly Bergalis of Fort Pierce, Florida, came forward to identify herself as the young woman who had been infected with AIDS, allegedly by her late dentist.

1996

Rapper Tupac Shakur was shot and mortally wounded on the Las Vegas Strip; he died six days later.

2005

Police and soldiers went house to house in New Orleans to try to coax the last stubborn holdouts into leaving the storm-shattered city. President George W. Bush led the nation in a final tribute to William H. Rehnquist, remembering the late chief justice as the Supreme Court’s steady leader and a man of lifetime integrity.

2007

Osama bin Laden appeared in a video for the first time in three years, telling Americans they should convert to Islam if they wanted the war in Iraq to end.

2008

Troubled mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were placed in government conservatorship.