ON SEPTEMBER 20 ...
In 1519 Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan set sail from Spain to find a western passage to the Spice Islands of Indonesia. (He would die on the voyage, but one of his ships eventually became the first to circle the Earth.)
In 1870 Italian troops took control of the Papal States, leading to the unification of Italy.
In 1878 author and socialist activist Upton Sinclair was born in Baltimore.
In 1881 Chester Arthur was sworn in as the 21st president of the United States, succeeding James Garfield, who had been assassinated.
In 1873 panic swept the floor of the New York Stock Exchange in the wake of railroad bond defaults and bank failures.
In 1934 actress Sophia Loren was born Sofia Villani Scicolone in Rome.
In 1947 former New York Mayor Fiorello La Guardia died; he was 64.
In 1962 James Meredith, an African-American, was blocked from enrolling at the University of Mississippi by Gov. Ross Barnett. (Later, Meredith succeeded in earning a degree from the school.)
In 1973 Billie Jean King defeated Bobby Riggs 6-4, 6-3, 6-3 in a $100,000 winner-take-all tennis match dubbed the “battle of the sexes” in Houston. Also in 1973 singer Jim Croce died in a plane crash near Natchitoches, La.; he was 30.
In 1976 Playboy magazine released an interview in which Democratic presidential nominee Jimmy Carter admitted he had “looked on a lot of women with lust.”
In 1977 the first wave of Southeast Asian “boat people” arrived in San Francisco under a new U.S. resettlement program.
In 1984 a suicide car bomber attacked the U.S. Embassy annex in north Beirut, killing 12 people.
In 1995 AT&T Corp. announced it was splitting into three companies. Also in 1995 the House voted to drop the national speed limit and let states decide how fast people should drive.
In 1998, after playing in a record 2,632 consecutive baseball games, Baltimore Oriole Cal Ripken Jr. sat out a game, ending his 16-year run.
In 1999 Raisa Gorbachev, wife of the last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, died of leukemia; she was 67.
In 2000 Independent Counsel Robert Ray announced the end of the Whitewater investigation, saying there was insufficient evidence to warrant charges against President Bill Clinton and Hillary Rodham Clinton.
In 2001 President George W. Bush addressed a joint session of Congress regarding the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and named Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge to head the new Office of Homeland Security.
In 2004 CBS News apologized for a “mistake in judgment” in its story questioning President George W. Bush’s National Guard service, saying it could not vouch for the authenticity of documents featured in the report.
In 2012 the space shuttle Endeavour, carried atop a modified 747, flew over Tucson, Ariz., as a tribute to former U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords before landing in California.
In 2014 the Vatican selected Blase Cupich, 65, bishop of Spokane, Wash., as the successor to Chicago Archbishop Cardinal Francis George.
In 2017 Hurricane Maria ravaged Puerto Rico, knocking out electricity to the entire island and triggering landslides and floods; at least 30 people were killed during the Category 4 storm’s rampage through the Carribean.