This day in history

[September 24, 2012]  (AP)  Today is Monday, Sept. 24, the 268th day of 2012. There are 98 days left in the year.

Today's highlight in history:

On Sept. 24, 1890, the president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, Wilford Woodruff, wrote a manifesto renouncing the practice of polygamy, or plural marriage (the manifesto was formally accepted by the Mormon Church the following month).

On this date:

In 1789, Congress passed a Judiciary Act providing for an Attorney General and a Supreme Court.

In 1869, thousands of businessmen were ruined in a Wall Street panic known as "Black Friday" after financiers Jay Gould and James Fisk attempted to corner the gold market.

In 1929, Lt. James H. Doolittle guided a Consolidated NY-2 Biplane over Mitchel Field in New York in the first all-instrument flight.

In 1934, Babe Ruth made his farewell appearance as a player with the New York Yankees in a game against the Boston Red Sox. (The Sox won, 5-0.)

In 1948, Mildred Gillars, accused of being Nazi wartime radio propagandist "Axis Sally," pleaded not guilty in Washington, D.C. to charges of treason. (Gillars, later convicted, ended up serving 12 years in prison.)

In 1955, President Dwight D. Eisenhower suffered a heart attack while on vacation in Denver.

In 1957, the Los Angeles-bound Brooklyn Dodgers played their last game at Ebbets Field, defeating the Pittsburgh Pirates 2-0.

In 1960, the USS Enterprise, the first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, was launched at Newport News, Va. "The Howdy Doody Show" ended a nearly 13-year run with its final telecast on NBC.

In 1963, the U.S. Senate ratified a treaty with Britain and the Soviet Union limiting nuclear testing.

In 1976, former hostage Patricia Hearst was sentenced to seven years in prison for her part in a 1974 bank robbery in San Francisco carried out by the Symbionese Liberation Army. (Hearst was released after 22 months after receiving clemency from President Jimmy Carter.)

In 1981, four Armenian gunmen seized the Turkish consulate in Paris, killing a guard and holding 56 hostages for 15 hours before surrendering.

In 1991, kidnappers in Lebanon freed British hostage Jack Mann after holding him captive for more than two years. Children's author Theodor Seuss Geisel (GY'-zul), better known as "Dr. Seuss," died in La Jolla, Calif., at age 87.

Ten years ago: British Prime Minister Tony Blair asserted that Iraq had a growing arsenal of chemical and biological weapons and planned to use them, as he unveiled an intelligence dossier to a special session of Parliament. Gunmen stormed a Hindu temple in the western Indian state of Gujarat, killing some 30 worshippers.

Five years ago: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (ah-muh-DEE'-neh-zhahd) questioned the official version of the September 11 attacks and defended the right to cast doubt on the Holocaust in a tense appearance at Columbia University in New York. United Auto Workers walked off the job at GM plants in the first nationwide strike during auto contract negotiations since 1976; a tentative pact ended the walkout two days later. Two kidnapped Italian intelligence operatives were rescued in a NATO-led combat operation in western Afghanistan, two days after they went missing. As many as 100,000 anti-government protesters led by Buddhist monks marched in Yangon, Myanmar.

One year ago: Russian President Dmitry Medvedev proposed Vladimir Putin as a presidential candidate for 2012, paving the way for Putin's return to office four years after he was legally forced to step aside. NASA's dead six-ton Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite fell to Earth, 20 years after being deployed from the space shuttle Discovery.

Today's birthdays: Actor-singer Herb Jeffries is 101. Actress Sheila MacRae is 88. Rhythm-and-blues singer Sonny Turner (The Platters) is 73. Singer Barbara Allbut (The Angels) is 72. Singer Phyllis "Jiggs" Allbut (The Angels) is 70. Singer Gerry Marsden (Gerry and the Pacemakers) is 70. News anchor Lou Dobbs is 67. Pro and College Football Hall of Famer Joe Greene is 66. Actor Gordon Clapp is 64. Former U.S. Rep. Joseph Kennedy II, D-Mass., is 60. Actor Kevin Sorbo is 54. Christian/jazz singer Cedric Dent (Take 6) is 50. Actress-writer Nia Vardalos is 50. Country musician Marty Mitchell is 43. Actress Megan Ward is 43. Singer-musician Marty Cintron (No Mercy) is 41. Contemporary Christian musician Juan DeVevo (Casting Crowns) is 37. Actor Justin Bruening is 33. Olympic gold medal gymnast Paul Hamm (hahm) is 30. Actor Kyle Sullivan is 24.

Thought for today: "The easiest way to get a reputation is go outside the fold, shout around for a few years as a violent atheist or a dangerous radical, and then crawl back to the shelter." -- F. Scott Fitzgerald (born this date in 1896, died 1940)

[Associated Press]

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