On this date
In 1683,
13 families from Krefeld, Germany, arrived in Philadelphia to begin Germantown, one of America’s oldest settlements.
In 1892,
British poet laureate Alfred, Lord Tennyson died in Surrey, England, at age 83.
In 1927,
the era of talking pictures arrived with the opening of “The Jazz Singer” starring Al Jolson, a feature containing both silent and sound-synchronized sequences.
In 1928,
Chiang Kai-shek became president of China.
In 1939, in a speech to the Reichstag, German Chancellor Adolf Hitler spoke of his plans to reorder the ethnic layout of Europe — a plan which would entail settling the “Jewish problem.”
In 1949,
President Harry S. Truman signed the Mutual Defense Assistance Act, providing $1.3 billion in military aid to NATO countries.
In 1979,
Pope John Paul II, on a weeklong U.S. tour, became the first pontiff to visit the White House, where he was received by President Jimmy Carter.
In 1981,
Egyptian President Anwar Sadat was shot to death by extremists while reviewing a military parade.
Ten years ago:
As global markets plunged, the Dow industrial average dropped to 9,955, its first close below 10,000 since 2004.
Five years ago:
International disarmament experts began dismantling and destroying Syria’s chemical weapons arsenal and the equipment used to produce it.
One year ago:
The board of directors of The Weinstein Co. said movie mogul Harvey Weinstein was on indefinite leave from the company he founded amid an internal investigation into sexual harassment allegations against him.