TODAY IN HISTORY

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT 2017

A van plowed through pedestrians along a packed promenade in the Spanish city of Barcelona, killing 13 people and injuring 120. Another man was stabbed to death in a carjacking that night as the van driver made his getaway, and a woman died early the next day in a vehicle-and-knife attack in a nearby coastal town.

1915

A mob in Cobb County, Georgia, lynched Jewish businessman Leo Frank, 31, whose death sentence for the murder of 13-year-old Mary Phagan had been commuted to life imprisonment.

1960

The newly renamed Beatles began their first gig in Hamburg, West Germany, at the Indra Club.

1983

Lyricist Ira Gershwin died in Beverly Hills, Calif., at age 86.

1987

Rudolf Hess, the last member of Adolf Hitler’s inner circle, died at Spandau Prison at age 93, an apparent suicide.

1988

Pakistani President Mohammad Zia ul-haq and U.S. Ambassador Arnold Raphel were killed in a mysterious plane crash.

1998

President Bill Clinton gave grand jury testimony via closed-circuit television from the White House concerning his relationship with Monica Lewinsky; he then delivered a TV address in which he denied previously committing perjury, admitted his relationship with Lewinsky was “wrong,” and criticized Kenneth Starr’s investigation.

1999

More than 17,000 people were killed when a magnitude 7.4earthquake struck Turkey.

2018

President Donald Trump said he had canceled plans for a Veterans Day military parade, citing what he called a “ridiculously high” price tag; he accused local politicians in Washington of price-gouging.