DAILY ALMANAC
Today is Wednesday, Sept. 22, the 265th day of 2021. There are 100 days left in the year. Autumn arrives at 3:20 p.m. EDT.
On this date in:
1761: Britain’s King George III and his wife, Charlotte, were crowned in Westminster Abbey.
1776: During the Revolutionary War, Capt. Nathan Hale, 21, was hanged as a spy by the British in New York.
1862: President Abraham Lincoln issued the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, declaring all enslaved people in rebel states should be free as of Jan. 1, 1863.
1927: Gene Tunney successfully defended his heavyweight boxing title against Jack Dempsey in the famous “long-count” fight in Chicago.
1949: The Soviet Union exploded its first atomic bomb.
1950: Omar N. Bradley was promoted to the rank of five-star general, joining an elite group that included Dwight D. Eisenhower, Douglas Macarthur, George C. Marshall and Henry H. “Hap” Arnold.
1961: The Interstate Commerce Commission issued rules prohibiting racial discrimination on interstate buses.
1975: Sara Jane Moore attempted to shoot President Gerald R. Ford outside a San Francisco hotel, but missed.
1980: The Persian Gulf conflict between Iran and Iraq erupted into fullscale war.
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.)
1995: An AWACS plane carrying U.S. and Canadian military personnel crashed on takeoff from Elmendorf Air Force Base near Anchorage, Alaska, killing all 24 people aboard.
2014: The United States and five Arab nations launched airstrikes against the Islamic State group in Syria, sending waves of planes and Tomahawk cruise missiles against an array of targets.
2017: Sen. John Mccain declared his opposition to the GOP’S last-ditch effort to repeal and replace “Obamacare,” the second time in three months Mccain had emerged as the destroyer of his party’s signature promise to voters.
Singer-dancer Toni Basil is 78. Actor Paul Le Mat (“American Graffiti”) is 76. Singer David Coverdale (Whitesnake, Deep Purple) is 70. Actor Shari Belafonte is 67. Singer Debby Boone is 65. Country singer June Forester of The Forester Sisters is 65. Singer Nick Cave is 64. Actor Lynn Herring (“General Hospital”) is 64. Singer Johnette Napolitano of Concrete Blonde is 64. Singer Joan Jett is 63. Opera singer
Andrea Bocelli is 63. Actor Scott Baio is 61. Actor
Catherine Oxenberg (“Dynasty”) is 60. Actor
Bonnie Hunt is 60. Actor
Dan Bucatinsky (“24: Legacy”) is 56. Bassist-guitarist Dave Hernandez (The Shins) is 51. Rapper Mystikal is 51. Singer Big Rube of Society of Soul is 50. Actor James Hillier (“The Crown”) is 48. Actor Mireille Enos (“World War Z”) is 46. Actor Daniella Alonso (“Revolution,” “Friday Night Lights”) is 43.