TODAY IN HISTORY

On this date:

1787: The Constitution of the United States was completed and signed by a majority of delegates attending the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia.

1862: More than 3,600 men were killed in the Civil War Battle of Antietam in Maryland.

1908: Lt. Thomas E. Selfridge of the U.S. Army Signal Corps became the first person to die in the crash of a powered aircraft, the Wright Flyer, at Fort Myer, Virginia, just outside Washington, D.C.

1937: The likeness of President Abraham Lincoln’s head was dedicated at Mount Rushmore.

1939: The Soviet Union invaded Poland during World War II, more than two weeks after Nazi Germany had launched its assault.

1944: During World War II, Allied paratroopers launched Operation Market Garden, landing behind German lines in the Netherlands. (After initial success, the Allies were beaten back by the Germans.)

1954: The novel “Lord of the Flies” by William Golding was first published by Faber & Faber of London.

1971: Citing health reasons, Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black, 85, retired. (Black, who was succeeded by Lewis F. Powell Jr., died eight days later.)

1978: After meeting at Camp David, Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat signed a framework for a peace treaty.

1980: Former Nicaraguan president Anastasio Somoza was assassinated in Paraguay.

1987: The city of Philadelphia, birthplace of the U.S. Constitution, threw a big party to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the historic document; in a speech at Independence Hall, President Ronald Reagan acclaimed the framing of the Constitution as a milestone “that would profoundly and forever alter not just these United States but the world.”

1994: Heather Whitestone of Alabama was

crowned the first deaf Miss America.

2001: Six days after 9/11, stock prices nosedived but stopped short of collapse in an emotional reopening of Wall Street.