TODAY IN HISTORY

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT

2001

Nearly 3,000 people were killed as 19 al-Qaida hijackers seized control of four jetliners, sending two of the planes into New York’s World Trade Center, one into the Pentagon and the fourth into a field in western Pennsylvania.

ALSO ON THIS DATE

1789

Alexander Hamilton was appointed the first U.S. Secretary of the Treasury.

1814

An American fleet scored a decisive victory over the British in the Battle of Lake Champlain in the War of 1812.

1936

Boulder Dam (now Hoover Dam) began operation as President Franklin D. Roosevelt pressed a key in Washington to signal the startup of the dam’s first hydroelectric generator.

1941

Groundbreaking took place for the Pentagon. In a speech that drew accusations of anti-Semitism, Charles A. Lindbergh told an America First rally in Des Moines, Iowa, that “the British, the Jewish and the Roosevelt administration” were pushing the United States toward war.

1967

The comedy-variety program “The Carol Burnett Show” premiered on CBS.

1973

Chilean President Salvador Allende died during a violent military coup.

1985

Pete Rose of the Cincinnati Reds cracked career hit number 4,192 off Eric Show (rhymes with “how”) of the San Diego Padres, eclipsing the record held by Ty Cobb. (The Reds won the game, 2-0).

2003

Actor John Ritter died six days before his 55th birthday at Providence St. Joseph Medical Center in Burbank, California — the same hospital where he was born in 1948.