TODAY IN HISTORY

Today is Thursday, Sept. 15, the 258th day of 2022. There are 107 days left in the year. On this date in:

1776: British forces occupied New York

City during the American Revolution. 1789: The U.S. Department of Foreign Affairs was renamed the Department of State.

1857: William Howard Taft – who served as president of the United States and as U.S. chief justice – was born in Cincinnati. 1935: The Nuremberg Laws deprived

German Jews of their citizenship.

1940: During the World War II Battle of Britain, the tide turned as the Royal Air Force inflicted heavy losses upon the Luftwaffe.

1955: The novel “Lolita,” by Vladimir Nabokov, was published in Paris.

1959: Nikita Khrushchev became the first Soviet head of state to visit the United States as he arrived at Andrews Air Force Base outside Washington.

1963: Four Black girls were killed when a

bomb went off during Sunday services at the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama. (Three Ku Klux Klansmen were eventually convicted for their roles in the blast.)

1972: A federal grand jury in Washington indicted seven men in connection with the Watergate break-in.

1981: The Senate Judiciary Committee voted unanimously to approve the Supreme Court nomination of Sandra Day O’connor.

1985: Nike began selling its “Air Jordan 1” sneaker.

2001: President George W. Bush ordered U.S. troops to get ready for war and braced Americans for a long, difficult assault against terrorists to avenge the Sept. 11 attack. Beleaguered Afghans streamed out of Kabul, fearing a U.S. military strike against Taliban rulers harboring Osama bin Laden.

2006: Ford Motor Co. took drastic steps to remold itself into a smaller, more competitive company, slashing thousands of jobs and shuttering two plants.