TODAY IN HISTORY

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT ALSO ON THIS DATE

Sept. 30, 1777

The Continental Congress _ forced to flee in the face of advancing British forces _ moved to York, Pennsylvania.

1846

Boston dentist William Morton used ether as an anesthetic for the first time as he extracted an ulcerated tooth from merchant Eben Frost.

1938

After co-signing the Munich Agreement allowing Nazi annexation of Czechoslovakia’s Sudetenland, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain said, “I believe it is peace for our time.”

1952

The motion picture “This Is Cinerama,” which introduced the triple-camera, triple-projector Cinerama widescreen process, premiered at the Broadway Theatre in New York.

1954

The first nuclear-powered submarine, the USS Nautilus, was commissioned by the U.S. Navy.

1955

Actor James Dean, 24, was killed in a two-car collision near Cholame, California.

1962

James Meredith, a black student, was escorted by federal marshals to the campus of the University of Mississippi, where he enrolled for classes the next day; Meredith’s presence sparked rioting that claimed two lives.

1972

Roberto Clemente hit a double against Jon Matlack of the New York Mets during Pittsburgh’s 5-0victory at Three Rivers Stadium; the hit was the 3,000th and last for the Pirates star.

1988

Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev retired President Andrei A. Gromyko from the Politburo and fired other old-guard leaders in a Kremlin shake-up.

2001

Under threat of U.S. military strikes, Afghanistan’s hard-line Taliban rulers said explicitly for the first time that Osama bin Laden was still in the country and that they knew where his hideout was located.