HIGHLIGHTS IN HISTORY

Today is Saturday, September 24, the 267th day of 2022. There are 98 days left in the year.

Today’s Highlights in History:

1869: Thousands of businessmen were ruined in a Wall Street panic known as “Black Friday” after financiers Jay Gould and James Fisk attempted to corner the gold market.

1952: American fast food restaurant chain KFC (Kentucky Fried Chicken) opens its first franchise in Salt Lake City, Utah.

1963: The US Senate ratified a treaty with Britain and the Soviet Union limiting nuclear testing.

1969: The trial of the Chicago Eight (later seven) began. (Five were later convicted of crossing state lines to incite riots at the

1968 Democratic convention, but the convictions were ultimately overturned.)

1976: Former hostage Patricia Hearst was sentenced to seven years in prison for her part in a 1974 bank robbery in San Francisco carried out by the Symbionese Liberation Army. (Hearst was released after 22 months after receiving clemency from President Jimmy Carter.)

1996: The United States and 70 other countries became the first to sign a treaty at the United Nations to end all testing and development of nuclear weapons. (The Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty has yet to enter into force because of the refusal so far of eight nations — including the United States — to ratify it.)

2015: A stampede and crush of Muslim pilgrims occurred at an intersection near a holy site in Saudi Arabia; the Associated Press estimated that more than 2400 people were killed, while the official Saudi toll stood at 769.

2019: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi launched a formal impeachment inquiry against President Donald Trump; the probe focused partly on whether Trump abused his presidential powers and sought help from the government of Ukraine to undermine Democratic foe Joe Biden. (Trump would be acquitted by the Republican-controlled Senate on two impeachment charges.)

2020: President Donald Trump’s refusal to commit to a peaceful transfer of power if he were to lose the November election drew swift blowback from both parties in Congress, with Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell saying that the winner “will be inaugurated on January 20”.

Ten years ago: President Barack Obama told the ABC talk show The View there was “no doubt” that the assault of the US Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, that killed four Americans, including the US ambassador, “wasn’t just a mob action” but a sign of extremism in nations lacking stability.

Five years ago: German Chancellor Angela Merkel won a fourth term in office.

One year ago: A Republican-backed review of the 2020 presidential election in Arizona’s largest county ended without providing proof to support former President Donald Trump’s false claims of a stolen election; the vote tally from a firm hired by Republican lawmakers found that President Joe Biden won in the county by 360 more votes than in the official results that were certified.