TODAY IN HISTORY

WEDNESDAY SEP 22, 2021 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.

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 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.

1949

The Soviet Union exploded its first atomic bomb.

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.

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 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.

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.