TODAY IN HISTORY

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT 1987

156 people were killed when Northwest Airlines Flight 255 crashed while trying to take off from Detroit; the sole survivor was 4-year-old Cecelia Cichan.

1777

American forces won the Battle of Bennington in what was considered a turning point of the Revolutionary War.

1812

Detroit fell to British and Indian forces in the War of 1812.

1861

President Abraham Lincoln issued Proclamation 86, which prohibited the states of the Union from engaging in commercial trade with states that were in rebellion — i.e., the Confederacy.

1920

Ray Chapman of the Cleveland Indians was struck in the head by a pitch thrown by Carl Mays of the New York Yankees; Chapman died the following morning.

1948

Baseball legend Babe Ruth died in New York at age 53.

1960

Britain ceded control of the crown colony of Cyprus.

1962

The Beatles fired their original drummer, Pete Best, replacing him with Ringo Starr.

1977

Elvis Presley died at his Graceland estate in Memphis, Tennessee, at age 42.

2002

Terrorist mastermind Abu Nidal reportedly was found shot to death in Baghdad, Iraq; he was 65.

2014

Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon declared a state of emergency and imposed a curfew in the St. Louis suburb of Ferguson, where police and protesters repeatedly clashed in the week since a Black teenager was shot to death by a white police officer.

2018

Aretha Franklin, the undisputed “Queen of Soul,” died of pancreatic cancer at the age of 76.