DAILY ALMANAC
Today is Wednesday, Sept. 1, the 244th day of 2021. There are 121 days left in the year.
On this date:
1159: Pope Adrian IV, the only English pope, died.
1807: Former Vice President Aaron Burr was found not guilty of treason. (Burr was then tried on a misdemeanor charge, but was again acquitted.)
1923: The Japanese cities of Tokyo and Yokohama were devastated by an earthquake that claimed some 140,000 lives.
1939: World War II began as Nazi Germany invaded Poland.
1942: U.S. District Court Judge Martin I. Welsh, ruling from Sacramento, Calif., on a lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of Fred Korematsu, upheld the wartime detention of Japanese-americans as well as Japanese nationals.
1945: Americans received word of Japan’s formal surrender that ended World War II. (Because of the time difference, it was Sept. 2 in Tokyo Bay, where the ceremony took place.)
1969: A coup in Libya brought Moammar Gadhafi to power.
1972: American Bobby Fischer won the international chess crown in Reykjavik, Iceland, as Boris Spassky of the Soviet Union resigned before the resumption of Game 21. An arson fire at the Blue Bird Cafe in Montreal, Canada, claimed 37 lives.
1983: 269 people were killed when a Korean Air Lines Boeing 747 was shot down by a Soviet jet fighter after the airliner entered Soviet airspace.
1985: A U.s.-french expedition located the wreckage of the Titanic on the floor of the Atlantic Ocean roughly 400 miles off Newfoundland.
2005: New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin issued a “desperate SOS” as his city descended into anarchy amid the flooding left by Hurricane Katrina.
2009: Vermont’s law allowing samesex marriage went into effect.
2015: Invoking “God’s authority,” Rowan County, Kentucky, Clerk Kim Davis denied marriage licenses to gay couples again in direct defiance of the federal courts, and vowed not to resign, even under the pressure of steep fines or jail. (Davis would spend five days in jail; she was released only after her staff issued the licenses on her behalf but removed her name from the form.)
Actor George Maharis (“Route 66”) is 93. Comedian-actor Lily Tomlin is 82. Actor Don Stroud is 78. Singer Archie Bell of Archie Bell and the Drells is 77.
Singer Barry Gibb of the Bee Gees is 75. Drummer Greg Errico of Sly and the Family Stone is 73. Singer Gloria Estefan is 64. Jazz saxophonist Boney James is 60. Singer-guitarist Grant Lee Phillips (“Gilmore Girls”) is 58. Country singersongwriter Charlie Robison is 57. DJ Spigg Nice
of Lost Boyz is 51. Actor
Ricardo Antonio Chavira (“Desperate Housewives”) is 50. Actor Maury Sterling (“Homeland”) is 50. Actor Scott Speedman
(“Felicity”) is 46. Singer Angaleena Presley of Pistol Annies is 45. Actor
Boyd Holbrook (“Narcos”) is 40. Actor
Zoe Lister-jones (“Life in Pieces,” “New Girl”) is 39. Guitarist Joe Trohman of Fall Out Boy is 37. Actor Aisling Loftus
(“Mr. Selfridge”) is 31.