TODAY IN HISTORY
Today is Sunday, Sept. 11, the 254th day of 2022. There are 111 days left in the year. Today’s Highlight in History:
On Sept. 11, 2001, nearly 3,000 people were killed as 19 al-qaida hijackers seized control of four jetliners, sending two of the planes into New York’s World Trade Center, one into the Pentagon and the fourth into a field in western Pennsylvania. On this date:
■ In 1789, Alexander Hamilton was appointed the first U.S. Secretary of the Treasury.
■ In 1814, an American fleet scored a decisive victory over the British in the Battle of Lake Champlain in the War of 1812.
■ In 1936, Boulder Dam (now Hoover Dam) began operation as President Franklin D. Roosevelt pressed a key in Washington to signal the startup of the dam’s first hydroelectric generator.
■ In 1941, groundbreaking took place for the Pentagon. In a speech that drew accusations of anti-semitism, Charles A. Lindbergh told an America First rally in Des Moines, Iowa, that “the British, the Jewish and the Roosevelt administration” were pushing the United States toward war.
■ In 1954, the Miss America pageant made its network TV debut on ABC; Miss California, Lee Meriwether, was crowned the winner.
■ In 1967, the comedy-variety program “The Carol Burnett Show” premiered on CBS.
■ In 1972, the troubled Munich Summer Olympics ended. Northern California’s Bay Area Rapid Transit system began operations.
■ In 1973, Chilean President Salvador Allende (ah-yen’day) died during a violent military coup.
■ In 1997, Scots voted to create their own Parliament after 290 years of union with England.
■ In 2006, in a prime-time address, President George W. Bush invoked the memory of the victims of the 9/11 attacks as he staunchly defended the war in Iraq, though he acknowledged that Saddam Hussein was not responsible for the attacks.
■ In 2008, presidential candidates John Mccain and Barack Obama put aside politics as they visited ground zero together on the anniversary of 9/11 to honor its victims.
■ In 2016, Hillary Clinton abruptly left a 9/11 anniversary event at ground zero in New York after feeling “overheated,” according to her campaign, and hours later her doctor disclosed that the Democratic presidential nominee had pneumonia.
Ten years ago: A mob armed with guns and grenades launched a fiery nightlong attack on a U.S. diplomatic outpost and a CIA annex in Benghazi, Libya, killing U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans. President Barack Obama and Republican rival Mitt Romney toned down the campaign rhetoric and pulled negative ads amid commemorations of the 9/11 attacks, saying it was not a day for politics.
Five years ago: Authorities sent an aircraft carrier and other Navy ships to help with search-and-rescue operations in Florida, where a flyover of the Keys revealed what Gov. Rick Scott described as scenes of devastation from Hurricane Irma. Irma weakened to a tropical storm, and then a tropical depression, and finally left Florida after a run up the entire 400-mile length of the state. An estimated 13 million people in Florida remained without power.