Today in history
Today in History Today is Thursday, Sept. 6, the 249th day of 2018. There are 116 days left in the year.
Today’s Highlight in History:
On Sept. 6, 1997, a public funeral was held for Princess Diana at Westminster Abbey in London, six days after her death in a car crash in Paris.
On this date:
In 1901, President William McKinley was shot and mortally wounded by anarchist Leon Czolgosz (CHAWL’-gawsh) at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York. (McKinley died eight days later; Czolgosz was executed on Oct. 29.)
In 1909, American explorer Robert Peary sent a telegram from Indian Harbor, Labrador, announcing that he had reached the North Pole five months earlier.
In 1943, 79 people were killed when a New Yorkbound Pennsylvania Railroad train derailed and crashed in Philadelphia.
In 1944, during World War II, the British government relaxed blackout restrictions and suspended compulsory training for the Home Guard.
In 1970, Palestinian guerrillas seized control of three U.S.-bound jetliners. (Two were later blown up on the ground in Jordan, along with a London-bound plane hijacked on Sept. 9; the fourth plane was destroyed on the ground in Egypt. No hostages were harmed.)
In 1972, the Summer Olympics resumed in Munich, West Germany, a day after the deadly hostage crisis that claimed the lives of eleven Israelis and five Arab abductors.
In 1975, 18-year-old tennis star Martina Navratilova of Czechoslovakia, in New York for the U.S. Open, requested political asylum in the United States.
In 1985, all 31 people aboard a Midwest Express Airlines DC-9 were killed when the Atlanta-bound jetliner crashed just after takeoff from Milwaukee’s Mitchell Field.
In 1995, Baltimore Orioles shortstop Cal Ripken broke Lou Gehrig’s record by playing his twothousand-131st consecutive game.
In 1997, weeping masses gathered in Calcutta, India, to pay homage to Mother Teresa, who had died the day before at age 87.
In 2002, meeting outside Washington, D.C. for only the second time since 1800, Congress convened in New York to pay homage to the victims and heroes of September 11.
In 2006, President George W. Bush acknowledged for the first time that the CIA was running secret prisons overseas and said tough interrogation had forced terrorist leaders to reveal plots to attack the United States and its allies.
Ten years ago: In the wake of Russia’s military standoff with Georgia, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said that now was not the right time for the U.S. to move forward on a oncecelebrated deal for civilian nuclear cooperation with Russia. (President George W. Bush canceled the deal two days later.) More than 100 people died in a rockslide that crashed into a shantytown just outside Cairo, Egypt. Actress Anita Page died in Los Angeles at age 98.
Five years ago: NASA’s newest robotic lunar explorer, LADEE, rocketed into space in an unprecedented moonshot from Virginia that dazzled sky watchers along the East Coast.
One year ago: Hurricane Irma, the most powerful hurricane ever recorded in the Atlantic, pounded Puerto Rico with heavy rain and powerful winds; authorities said more than 900,000 people were without power.