TODAY IN HISTORY
1776: British troops captured Fort Washington in
New York during the American Revolution. 1914: The newly created Federal Reserve Banks
opened in 12 cities.
1933: The United States and the Soviet Union
established diplomatic relations.
1939: Mob boss Al Capone, ill with syphilis, was released from prison after serving 7½ years for tax evasion and failure to file tax returns.
1960: Academy Award-winning actor Clark Gable
died in Los Angeles at age 59.
1961: House Speaker Samuel T. Rayburn died in Bonham, Texas, having served as speaker since 1940 except for two terms.
1966: Dr. Samuel H. Sheppard was acquitted in Cleveland at his second trial of murdering his pregnant wife, Marilyn, in 1954.
1981: Actor William Holden was found dead in his
apartment in Santa Monica; he was 63.
1982: An agreement was announced in the 57th day of a strike by National Football League players.
2001: Investigators found a letter addressed to Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., containing anthrax; it was the second letter bearing the deadly germ known to have been sent to Capitol Hill.
2004: President George W. Bush picked national security adviser Condoleezza Rice to be his new secretary of state, succeeding Colin Powell. 1997: China’s most prominent pro-democracy campaigner, Wei Jingsheng, arrived in the United States after being released following nearly 18 years of imprisonment in his country.
2006: Democrats embraced Nancy Pelosi as the first female House speaker in history, but then selected Steny Hoyer as majority leader against her wishes.
2014: The Islamic State group released a video featuring a masked militant standing over the severed head of Peter Kassig, a former U.S. soldier-turned-aid worker in Syria; President Barack Obama denounced the killing as one of “pure evil.”
2018: A U.S. official said intelligence officials had concluded that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman had ordered the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. A federal judge ordered the Trump administration to immediately return the White House press credentials of CNN reporter Jim Acosta.