Highlights in history
• In 1776, during the Revolutionary War, Capt. Nathan Hale, 21, was hanged as a spy by the British in New York.
• In 1862, President Abraham Lincoln issued the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, declaring all slaves in rebel states should be free as of Jan. 1, 1863.
• In 1949, the Soviet Union exploded its first atomic bomb.
• In 1964, the musical “Fiddler on the Roof,” starring Zero Mostel, opened on Broadway, beginning a run of 3,242 performances.
• In 1964, the secret agent TV series “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.,” starring
Robert Vaughn and David Mccallum, premiered on NBC.
• In 1975, Sara Jane Moore attempted to shoot President Gerald R. Ford outside a San Francisco hotel, but missed.
• In 1989, famed songwriter Irving Berlin died in New York City at age 101.
• In 1993, 47 people were killed when an Amtrak passenger train fell off a bridge and crashed into Big Bayou Canot near Mobile, Alabama. (A tugboat pilot lost in fog pushed a barge into the railroad bridge, knocking the tracks 38 inches out of line just minutes before the train arrived.)
• In 2014, the United States and five Arab nations launched airstrikes against Islamic State in Syria.
• In 2015, Baseball Hall of Famer Yogi Berra, 90, died in West Caldwell, New Jersey. The longtime Yankees catcher was as much beloved for his oxymoronic quotes that contained grains of truth (“It ain’t over ’til it’s over,” “The future ain’t what is used to be”) than for his baseball talents.
• Singer Debby Boone is 64
• Singer Nick Cave is 63
• Rock singer/guitarist Joan Jett is 62
• Actor Scott Baio is 60
• Actor Catherine Oxenberg is 59
• Actor Bonnie Hunt is 59
• Rapper Mystikal is 50
• Actor Ukweli Roach (“Blindspot”) is 34
• Actor Tom Felton is 33
• Actor Teyonah Parris is 33
• Blue Jackets center Alexander Wennberg is 26
• Actor Juliette Goglia is 25
• Actor Dalya Knapp is 10
Source: Associated Press