TODAY IN HISTORY

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT 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.

ON THIS DATE 1761

Britain’s King George III and his wife, Charlotte, were crowned in Westminster Abbey.

1862

President Abraham Lincoln issued the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, declaring all slaves in rebel states should be free as of January 1, 1863.

1927

Gene Tunney successfully defended his heavyweight boxing title against Jack Dempsey in the famous “long-count” fight in Chicago.

1950

Omar N. Bradley was promoted to the rank of fivestar general, joining an elite group that included Dwight D. Eisenhower, Douglas MacArthur, George C. Marshall and Henry H. “Hap” Arnold.

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 full-scale 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 38inches out of line just minutes before the train arrived.)

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.