history at a glance

TODAY is Sunday September 18 the 261st day of the year. There are 104 days left in the year.

1947 – The United States Air Force becomes an independent branch of the United States armed forces.

1947 – The National Security Council and the Central Intelligence Agency are established in the United States under the National Security Act.

1948 – Communist Madiun uprising in Dutch Indies.

1961 – UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld dies in a plane crash while attempting to negotiate peace in the wartorn Katanga region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

1962 – Burundi, Jamaica, Rwanda and Trinidad and Tobago are admitted to the United Nations.

1964 – Constantine II of Greece marries Danish princess Anne-Marie.

1964 – North Vietnamese Army begins infiltration of South Vietnam.

1973 – The Bahamas, East Germany and West Germany are admitted to the United Nations.

1977 – Voyager I takes first photograph of the Earth and the Moon together.

1984 – Joe Kittinger completes the first solo balloon crossing of the Atlantic.

1987 – Jerzy Kukuczka becomes the second mountaineer to summit all 14 Eight-thousanders..

1990 – Liechtenstein becomes a member of the United Nations.

1991 – Yugoslavia begins a naval blockade of seven Adriatic port cities.

2007 – Pervez Musharraf announces that he will step down as army chief and restore civilian rule to Pakistan, but only after he is re-elected president.

2007 – Buddhist monks join anti-government protesters in Myanmar, starting what some call the Saffron Revolution.

2014 – Scotland votes against independence from the United Kingdom.