Today in history

In 1765 the Stamp Act Congress convened in New York to draw up colonial grievances against England.

In 1849 author Edgar Allan Poe died in Baltimore; he was 40.

In 1950 the U.N. General Assembly approved an advance by U.N. forces north of the 38th Parallel in the Korean Conflict.

In 1954 Marian Anderson became the first black singer hired by the Metropolitan Opera Company in New York.

In 1960 Democratic presidential candidate John Kennedy and Republican opponent Richard Nixon held the second of their broadcast debates.

In 1968 the Motion Picture Association of America adopted its film-rating system, ranging from G for general audiences to M (later PG) for mature audiences to R for restricted audiences to X (later NC-17) for adult patrons only.

In 1982 the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical “Cats” opened on Broadway. (The show closed Sept. 10, 2000, after a record 7,485 performances.)

In 1984 the San Diego Padres won the National League pennant by defeating the Cubs 6-3 in game five of the league playoffs. (The loss denied the Cubs their first chance at World Series play since 1945.)

In 1991 University of Oklahoma law professor Anita Hill publicly accused Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas of making sexually inappropriate comments in her presence when she worked for him, and urged the U.S. Senate to investigate her claims.

In 1992 trade representatives of the United States, Canada and Mexico initialed the North American Free Trade Agreement during a ceremony in San Antonio.

In 1993 choreographer Agnes de Mille died in New York; she was 88.

In 1995 New York’s Central Park was transformed into a giant open-air cathedral as Pope John Paul II celebrated Mass before 130,000 people.

In 1998 Matthew Shepard, a gay college student, was beaten and left tied to a wooden fencepost outside of Laramie, Wyo.; he died five days later.

In 1999 American Home Products Corp. resolved one of the biggest product liability cases ever by agreeing to pay up to $4.83 billion to settle claims that the fenphen diet drug combination caused dangerous heart valve problems.

In 2000 Vojislav Kostunica took the oath of office as Yugoslavia’s first popularly elected president, closing the turbulent era of Slobodan Milosevic.

In 2003 California voters recalled Gov. Gray Davis and elected Arnold Schwarzenegger their new governor.

In 2004 President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney conceded that Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction, even as they tried to shift the Iraq war debate to a new issue.

In 2012 Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez captured 55 percent of the vote in his re-election bid to defeat challenger Henrique Capriles.

In 2016 a video appeared online in which presidential candidate Donald Trump could be heard discussing in vulgar terms kissing, groping and trying to have sex with women during a 2005 conversation caught on a hot microphone.