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 Today's highlight in history:
On Sept. 18, 1793, President George Washington laid the cornerstone of the U.S. Capitol.
On this date:
In 1759, the French formally surrendered Quebec to the British.
In 1810, Chile made its initial declaration of independence from Spain.
In 1850, Congress passed the Fugitive Slave Act, which created a force of federal commissioners charged with returning escaped slaves to their owners.
In 1851, the first edition of The New York Times was published.
In 1927, the Columbia Phonograph Broadcasting System (later CBS) made its on-air debut with a basic network of 16 radio stations.
In 1947, the National Security Act, which created a National Military Establishment, went into effect.
In 1961, United Nations Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjold was killed in a plane crash in northern Rhodesia.
In 1970, rock star Jimi Hendrix died in London at age 27.
In 1975, newspaper heiress Patricia Hearst was captured by the FBI in San Francisco, 19 months after being kidnapped by the Symbionese Liberation Army.
In 1987, the movie "Fatal Attraction," starring Michael Douglas and Glenn Close, opened in U.S. theaters.
Ten years ago: Two gunmen opened fire on a group of German tourists in front of the Egyptian Museum in downtown Cairo, killing nine of the tourists and a bus driver. Voters in Wales narrowly approved a British government offer to set up a Welsh assembly. Media mogul Ted Turner pledged to spend $1 billion on United Nations causes.
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 Five years ago: The Bush administration pressed Congress to take the lead in authorizing force against Iraq, with Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld asserting, "It serves no U.S. or U.N. purpose to give Saddam Hussein excuses for further delay." In Paris, wartime collaborator Maurice Papon, 92, walked out of prison after judges ruled him too old and sick to finish his 10-year sentence for helping send Jews to Nazi death camps.
One year ago: An Iranian-American telecommunications entrepreneur, Anousheh Ansari, took off on a Russian rocket bound for the international space station, becoming the the world's first paying female space tourist. Aboard the space station, an oxygen generator overheated and spilled a toxic irritant, forcing the crew to don masks and gloves in the first emergency ever declared aboard the 8-year-old orbiting outpost.
Today's birthdays: Singer Jimmie Rodgers is 74. Actor Robert Blake is 74. Sen. Robert Bennett, R-Utah, is 74. Actor Fred Willard is 68. Singer Frankie Avalon is 67. Rock musician Kerry Livgren is 58. Actress Anna Deavere Smith is 57. Movie director Mark Romanek is 48. Actor James Gandolfini is 46. Singer Joanne Catherall (Human League) is 45. Actress Holly Robinson Peete is 43. Rhythm-and-blues singer Ricky Bell (Bell Biv Devoe and New Edition) is 40. Actress Aisha Tyler is 37. Actress Jada Pinkett Smith is 36. Actor James Marsden is 34. Rapper Xzibit is 33. Actress Alison Lohman is 28. Actors Brandon and Taylor Porter are 14. Actor C.J. Sanders ("Ray") is 11.
Thought for Today: "If you are patient in one moment of anger, you will escape a hundred days of sorrow."
-- Chinese proverb.
[Associated
Press]
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
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