Today in History - September 20
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480 BC Sep 20, Themistocles and his
Greek fleet won one of history's first decisive naval victories over
Xerxes' Persian force off Salamis. Persia under Xerxes attacked Greece.
Athens got burned but the Athenian fleet under Themistocles trapped and
destroyed the Persian navy at Salamis. Phoenician squadrons were at the
heart of Xerxes’ fleet; the king of Sidon was among his admirals.
(V.D.-H.K.p.49)(NG, Aug., 1974, p.174)(HN, 9/20/98)
19BC Sep 20, The Roman poet Virgil
(Publius Vergilius Maro, b.70BC) died. His epic "The Aeneid" became one
of the great classics of Western literature. The story it tells runs
from the end of the Trojan War to the start of the Roman Empire.
(WUD, 1994 p.1587)(MC 9/20/01)
451AD Sep 20, General Aetius
defeated Attila the Hun at Chalons-sur-Marne.
(MC, 9/20/01)
622 Sep 20, Prophet Mohammed Abu
Bakr arrived in Jathrib (Medina).
(MC, 9/20/01)
1168 Sep 20, Paschal III, [Guido
di Crema], Italian anti-Pope, died.
(MC, 9/20/01)
1258 Sep 20, The Cathedral of
Salisbury, begun in 1220, was inaugurated.
(MC, 9/20/01)(Econ, 12/20/03, p.29)
1378 Sep 20, The election of
Robert of Geneva as anti-pope by discontented cardinals created a great
schism in the Catholic church.
(HN, 9/20/98)
1519 Sep 20, Portuguese navigator
Ferdinand Magellan set out from Spain with 270 men and 5 ships on a
voyage to find a western passage to the Spice Islands in Indonesia.
Magellan was killed en route, but one of his ships eventually
circumnavigated the world. He was first European explorer to reach the
Pacific Ocean from the Atlantic by sailing through the dangerous
straits below South America that now bear his name.
(V.D.-H.K.p.182)(DD-EVTT, p.41)(AP, 9/20/97)(HN,
9/20/98)
1530 Sep 20, Luther advised the
Protestant monarch compromise.
(MC, 9/20/01)
1561 Sep 20, Queen Elizabeth of
England signed a treaty at Hamptan Court with French Huguenot leader
Louis de Bourbon, the Prince of Conde. The English would occupy Le
Harve in return for aiding Bourbon against the Catholics of France.
(HN, 9/20/98)
1565 Sep 20, A Spanish fleet under
Pedro Menendez de Aviles wiped out some 350 Frenchmen at Fort Caroline,
in Florida. Spanish forces under Pedro Menendez massacred a band of
French Huguenots that posed a potential threat to Spanish hegemony in
the area. They also took advantage of the local Timucuan Indian tribe.
Artist Jacques Le Moyne de Morgues managed to escape and return to
France, where he painted watercolors depicting the local botany. His
alleged paintings of Indians living nearby were later thrown into
question.
(WSJ, 8/3/95, p.A-8)(Arch, 1/05, p.47)(WSJ, 7/18/08,
p.W8)(Arch, 5/05, p.31)(Arch, 1/06, p.25)
1586 Sep 20, Anthony Babington,
page and conspirator to Mary Stuart, was executed at 24.
(MC, 9/20/01)
1593 Sep 20, Gottfried Scheidt,
composer, was born.
(MC, 9/20/01)
1604 Sep 20, After a two-year
siege, the Spanish retook Ostend [NW Belgium], the Netherlands, from
the Dutch.
(WUD, 1994, p.1019)(HN, 9/20/98)
1645 Sep 20, Louis Joliet,
French-Canadian explorer in the New World, was born.
(MC, 9/20/01)
1664 Sep 20, Maryland passed the
1st anti-amalgamation law to stop intermarriage of English women and
black men.
(MC, 9/20/01)
1697 Sep 20, The Treaty of Ryswick
was signed in Holland. It ended the War of the Grand Alliance (aka War
of the League of Augsburg,1688-1697) between France and the Grand
Alliance. Under the Treaty France’s King Louis XIV (1638-1715)
recognized William III (1650-1702) as King of England. The Dutch
received trade concessions, and France and the Grand Alliance members
(Holland and the Austrian Hapsburgs) gave up most of the land they had
conquered since 1679. The signees included France, England, Spain and
Holland. By the Treaty of Ryswick, a portion of Hispaniola was formally
ceded to France and became known as Saint-Domingue. The remaining
Spanish section was called Santo Domingo.
(www.caribbeanguides.net/hispaniola.htm)(www.jacobite.ca/documents/1697ryswick.htm)
1746 Sep 20, Bonnie Prince Charlie
fled to France from Scotland. [see Oct 1]
(MC, 9/20/01)
1776 Sep 20, American soldiers,
some of them members of Nathan Hale’s regiment, filtered into
British-held New York City and stashed resin soaked logs into numerous
buildings and a roaring inferno was started. A fourth of the city was
destroyed including Trinity Church. The events are documented in the
1997 book "Liberty by Thomas Fleming."
(SFEC,11/23/97, Par p.14)(WSJ, 9/14/01, p.W13)
1777 Sep 20, British Dragoons
massacred sleeping Continental troops at Paoli, Pa. Prior to
launching a surprise night attack on Anthony Wayne’s Continental
division at Paoli, General Charles Grey ordered his troops to rely
entirely on their bayonets. To ensure that his troops obeyed, he had
his men remove the flints from their weapons so they could not be fired.
(MC, 9/20/01)(HNQ, 8/19/02)
1784 Sep 20, Packet and Daily, the
first daily publication in America, appeared on the streets.
(HN, 9/20/98)
1797 Sep 20, The US frigate
Constitution (Old Ironsides) was launched in Boston. [see Oct 21]
(MC, 9/20/01)
1803 Sep 20, Robert Emmet, Irish
nationalist, was executed.
(MC, 9/20/01)
1806 Sep 20, Explorers Meriwether
Lewis and William Clark passed the French village of La Charette, the
first white settlement they had seen in over two years.
(HN, 9/20/98)
1820 Sep 20, John Fulton Reynolds,
Major General (Union volunteers), was born. He died in 1863 on first
day at Gettysburg.
(MC, 9/20/01)
1828 Sep 20, Gioacchino Rossini’s
opera "Le Comte Ory," premiered in Paris.
(MC, 9/20/01)
1830 Sep 20, The National Negro
Convention convened in Philadelphia with the purpose of abolishing
slavery.
(HN, 9/20/98)
1833 Sep 20, Petroleum V. Nasby
(David Ross Locke), humorist, was born. His work was enjoyed by Abraham
Lincoln.
(HN, 9/20/00)
1833 Sep 20, Charles Darwin rode a
horse to Buenos Aires.
(MC, 9/20/01)
1842 Sep 20, Lord James Dewar,
physician who invented the vacuum flask and cordite, the first
smokeless powder, was born.
(HN, 9/20/98)
1850 Sep 20, The slave trade in
Washington, D.C., was abolished as a provision of Henry Clay's
Compromise of 1850. Because each state had its own slavery code when
the District of Columbia was founded in 1800, Washington had adopted
Maryland's laws. Although the 1850 legislation made the slave trade
illegal, slavery itself was still legal. Nevertheless, Washington
became a haven for free blacks. By 1860, free blacks outnumbered slaves
almost four-to-one. President Abraham Lincoln put an end to
Washington's slavery altogether in 1862, freeing about 2,989 African
Americans who were then slaves according to the slavery code.
(HNPD, 9/20/98)(HN, 9/20/98)
1853 Sep 20, The Allies defeated
the Russians at the battle of Alma on the Crimean Peninsula.
(HN, 9/20/98)
1857 Sep 20, Delhi, India, fell to
British forces.
(AP, 9/20/07)
1859 Sep 20, George Simpson
patented the electric range.
(MC, 9/20/01)
1861 Sep 20, Lexington, Missouri,
was captured by Union forces.
(MC, 9/20/01)
1863 Sep 20, Union troops under
George Thomas prevented the Union defeat at Chickamauga from becoming a
rout, earning him the nickname "the Rock of Chickamauga." Thomas stayed
and fought even after his commander, William Rosecrans, retreated to
Chattanooga. President Abraham Lincoln later appointed Thomas as
Rosecrans‘ successor. Armed with their new, lethal seven-shot Spencer
rifles, Wilder’s Lightning Brigade was all that stood between the Union
Army and the looming disaster at Chickamauga Creek. The bloody battle
of Chickamauga was the costliest two-day battle of the entire war.
(HN, 9/20/98)(HN, 11/4/98)(HNQ, 9/29/00)
1863 Sep 20, Jakob Grimm, writer,
died at 78.
(MC, 9/20/01)
1870 Sep 20, Mayor William Tweed
was accused of robbing the NY treasury.
(MC, 9/20/01)
1870 Sep 20, Italian troops under
Victor Emmanuel II took control of the Papal States from France,
leading to the unification of Italy. Pope Pius IX surrendered.
(WSJ, 9/13/96, p.A6)(SFEM, 1/19/96, p.10)(AP,
9/20/97)(MC, 9/20/01)
1873 Sep 20, A financial panic hit
the NY Stock Exchange when the high-flying bond dealer, Jay Cooke,
granted too many loans to the railroads. Panic spread to Europe as
London and Paris markets crashed and the New York Stock Exchange closed
for the first time for 10 days. The economy went into a 6 year
depression. Philadelphia banker and newspaperman Anthony Drexel teamed
up with J.P. Morgan to depose a rival bank run by Jay Cooke. They
published allegations to undermine confidence and cause a run that led
to a panic.
(WSJ, 2/27/95, p.A-10)(WSJ, 7/8/96, p.C1)(WSJ,
10/7/98, p.A22)(SSFC, 7/14/02, p.G2)
1874 Sep 20, Gustav Holst,
composer of "The Planets," was born.
(MC, 9/20/01)
1878 Sep 20, Upton Beall Sinclair
(d.1968), muckraking author, was born. His work included "The Jungle,"
which exposed the horrible conditions in the meat packing industry and
calling for reforms.
(WUD, 1994 p.1330)(HN, 9/20/98)(MC, 9/20/01)
1881 Sep 20, Chester A. Arthur was
sworn in as the 21st president of the United States, succeeding James
A. Garfield, who had been assassinated.
(AP, 9/20/97)
1884 Sep 20, Maxwell Perkins,
editor, was born. He was the first to publish F. Scott Fitzgerald,
Ernest Hemingway and Thomas Wolfe.
(HN, 9/20/00)
1884 Sep 20, The Equal Rights
Party was formed during a convention of suffragists in San Francisco.
The convention nominated Belva Ann Bennett Lockwood of Washington,
D.C., for president and Marietta Snow as her running mate.
(AP, 9/20/97)(MC, 9/20/01)
1885 Sep 20, Ferdinand Lamenthe,
aka Jelly Roll Morton (d,1941), jazz pianist, composer and singer, was
born in New Orleans. He was one of the first to orchestrate jazz music
and disputed W.C. Handy's claim to be the originator of jazz and blues.
He became famous at an early age for his classically informed
improvisational piano playing often in brothels and other
nontraditional settings. With his Red Hot Peppers in the 1920s, he
pioneered the early jazz practice of reorchestrating and improvising
upon well-known standards. He also wrote many enduring jazz tunes
including the ‘London Rag’ and the ‘Jelly Roll Blues’.
(HN, 9/20/98)(MC, 9/20/01)
1891 Sep 20, Lamine Gueye,
Senegalese political leader, was born.
(HN, 9/20/98)
1897 Sep 20, Alberto Santos-Dumont
successfully flew his repaired motorized dirigible around the
Zoological Gardens in Paris.
(ON, 3/03, p.10)
1898 Sep 20, Theodore Fontane
(b.1819), German novelist and poet, died. He is regarded by many to be
the most important 19th-century German-language realist writer.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodor_Fontane)
1904 Sep 20, Orville and Wilbur
Wright flew a circle in their Flyer II.
(MC, 9/20/01)
1908 Sep 20, Alexander
Mitscherlich, German psychotherapist, was born.
(MC, 9/20/01)
1908 Sep 20, Pablo Martin Melitou
de Sarasate y Navascuez, composer, died at 64.
(MC, 9/20/01)
1914 Sep 20, Kenneth More, English
actor (39 Steps, Doctor in the House), was born.
(MC, 9/20/01)
1917 Sep 20, Arnold "Red"
Auerbach, second winningest basketball coach in history with 1,037
victories for the Boston Celtics, was born.
(HN, 9/20/98)
1927 Sep 20, NY Yankee Babe Ruth
hit his record 60th HR of season off Tom Zachry. [see Sep 30]
(MC, 9/20/01)
1928 Sep 20, Joyce Brothers, pop
psychiatrist ($64,000 question winner), was born in NYC.
(MC, 9/20/01)
1932 Sep 20, Gandhi began a hunger
strike against the treatment of untouchables.
(MC, 9/20/01)
1934 Sep 20, Sophia Loren, actress
(Desire Under the Elms, Black Orchid), was born in Rome.
(MC, 9/20/01)
1934 Sep 20, Bruno Hauptmann was
arrested for the kidnapping and murder of the Lindbergh baby. [see Sep
19]
(HN, 9/20/98)
1938 Sep 20, Emlyn Williams’ "Corn
is Green," premiered in London.
(MC, 9/20/01)
1939 Sep 20, After sinking
trawlers off the northern Hebrides, German U-27 was located and sunk by
destroyers "Fortune" and "Forester."
(www.naval-history.net/WW2CampaignsUboats.htm)
1945 Sep 20, German rocket
engineers began work in US.
(MC, 9/20/01)
1946 Sep 20, The first Cannes Film
Festival was held.
(MC, 9/20/01)
1946 Sep 20, President Harry S
Truman asked Sec. of Commerce Henry A. Wallace to resign, due to
Wallace’s comments about Russia on September 12.
(MC, 9/20/01)
1946 Sep 20, Churchill argued for
a "US of Europe." [see Sep 19]
(MC, 9/20/01)
1947 Sep 20, Former Republican New
York City Mayor Fiorello La Guardia (1933-45) died.
(AP, 9/20/97)(MC, 9/20/01)
1951 Sep 20, Swiss males voted
against female suffrage.
(MC, 9/20/01)
1952 Sep 20, Scientists confirmed
that DNA holds hereditary data.
(HN, 9/20/98)
1953 Sep 20, Jimmy Stewart debuted
in "The Six Shooter" on NBC.
(MC, 9/20/01)
1953 Sep 20, The "Loretta Young
Show" (A Letter to Loretta) premiered on NBC TV and ran for 8 years.
(SFEC, 8/13/00, p.B10)
1954 Sep 20, The live TV drama
"Twelve Angry Men" was presented as an episode of CBS' "Studio One"
anthology series.
(AP, 9/21/04)
1954 Sep 20, The 1st FORTRAN
computer program was executed.
(MC, 9/20/01)
1954 Sep 20, Roger Bannister
awarded Britain’s Silver Pears Trophy for cracking the 4-minute mile.
(MC, 9/20/01)
1957 Sep 20, "M Squad," starring
Lee Marvin, premiered on NBC-TV.
(AP, 9/20/07)
1957 Sep 20, Jean Julius Christian
Sibelius (b.1865), Finnish composer (Finlandia), died.
(SFC, 10/14/97, p.B3)(WUD, 1994, p.1323)(AP, 9/20/07)
1958 Sep 20, Rev. Martin Luther
King was stabbed by Izola Curry, a deranged woman, during a book
signing on 125th St. in Harlem. Dr. Aubre De Lambert Maynard (d.1999 at
97) performed a successful operation on King who had a knife embedded
in his sternum. Curry was later found mentally incompetent.
(SFC, 3/25/99, p.C3)(AP, 9/20/08)
1960 Sep 20, David Park (b.1911),
a SF Bay Area figurative painter, died at 49. His work included: "Man
in a T-Shirt" and "Untitled" (1958), "Torso" (1959). He made the
1st serious break with Abstract Expressionism in his 1950
painting "Kids of Bikes."
(SFEC, 12/1/96, DB p.21)(SFC, 8/23/97, p.A20)(SFEM,
9/21/97, p.31)(WSJ, 12/3/01, p.A17)
1961 Sep 20, James Meredith was
refused access as a student in Mississippi. [see Sep 20 1962]
(MC, 9/20/01)
1962 Sep 20, Black student James
Meredith was blocked from enrolling at the University of Mississippi by
Governor Ross R. Barnett. Meredith was later admitted. A Life Magazine
photograph around this time showed 7 sheriffs gathered at Ole Miss to
keep Meredith out. In 2003 Paul Hendrickson authored "Sons of
Mississippi: A Story of Race and Its Legacy," in which he uncovered the
lives of the 7 sheriffs.
(AP, 9/20/97)(SSFC, 4/6/03, p.M1)
1963 Sep 20, In a speech to the
U.N. General Assembly, President Kennedy proposed a joint U.S.-Soviet
expedition to the moon. Pres. Kennedy stayed at New York’s Carlyle
Hotel and received a "leggy babe" under Secret Service escort.
(AP, 9/20/97)(WSJ, 10/22/01, p.A17)
1965 Sep 20, Seven U.S. planes
were downed in one day over Vietnam.
(HN, 9/20/98)
1965 Sep 20, The India-Pakistani
war was at the point of stalemate when the UN Security Council
unanimously passed a resolution that called for a cease-fire. New Delhi
accepted the cease-fire resolution on September 21 and Islamabad on
September 22, and the war ended on September 23. The Indian side lost
3,000 while the Pakistani side suffered 3,800 battlefield deaths.
(http://www.onwar.com/aced/chrono/c1900s/yr65/fkashmir1965)
1966 Sep 20, Allen Cohen
(1940-2004), published the 1st edition of the SF Oracle underground
newspaper. The San Francisco Oracle featured visionary art by such
renown artists as: Rick Griffin, Victor Moscoso, David Singer, Stanley
Mouse, alongside writing firmly steeped in the past with such Beat era
writers as: Allen Ginsberg, Gary Snyder, and Lawrence Ferlinghetti.
Cohen was arrested earlier in 1966 for selling a collection of erotic
poetry called "The Love Book" by Lenore Kandel. Cohen was convicted and
fined $50. The SF Oracle folded in 1968 following the publication of
issue #12.
(SFC, 5/1/04, p.B7)(www.sfheart.com/cohen_bio.html)
1967 Sep 20, The 963-foot
passenger ship Queen Elizabeth II was launched. The RMS Queen Elizabeth
2 was christened by Britain's Queen Elizabeth II in Clydebank, Scotland.
(www.cunard.co.uk)(AP, 9/20/07)
1968 Sep 20, The TV show "Name of
the Game" premiered with Gene Barry and Tony Franciosa. It was
written and produced by Leslie Stevens (d.1998) and ran to 1971.
(SFC, 4/29/98, p.C2)(www.imdb.com/title/tt0062591/)
1970 Sep 20, Pres. Nixon’s aide,
Charles W. Colson, stated in a memo to Chief of staff H.R. Haldeman:
"(the networks) are very much afraid of us and are trying hard to prove
they are ‘good guys.’"
(SFC, 12/1/97, p.A7)
1970 Sep 20, The Soviet Luna 16
landed on Moon’s Mare Fecunditatis and drilled a core sample.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luna_16)
1971 Sep 20, The American League
Ok'd the Washington Senator move to Arlington, where they became the
Texas Rangers.
(WSJ, 4/7/99,
p.B1)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1971_Washington_Senators_season)
1971 Sep 20, George Seferis
(b.1900), Nobel Prize-winning (1963) Greek poet, died. In 2003 Roderick
Beaton authored "George Seferis - Waiting for the Angel: A Biography."
(HN, 3/13/01)(Econ, 11/22/03,
p.83)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giorgos_Seferis)
1972 Sep 20, The NBC TV series
“Madigan” premiered with Richard Widmark (1914-2008).
(SFC, 3/27/08, p.A2)
1973 Sep 20, In their so-called
"battle of the sexes," tennis star Billie Jean King defeated Bobby
Riggs in straight sets, 6-4, 6-3, 6-3, at the Houston Astrodome.
(AP, 9/20/97)
1973 Sep 20, Jim Croce (b.1943),
American singer-songwriter, died in an airplane crash near
Natchitoches, La., just as he was beginning to capitalize on his
success. Maury Muehleisen and four others also died as their plane
crashed into a tree while taking off for a concert in Sherman, Texas.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Croce)(AP, 9/20/98)
1974 Sep 20, Gail A. Cobb (24), a
member of the Metropolitan Police Force of Washington, D.C., became the
first female police officer to be killed in the line of duty. Cobb was
murdered by a robbery suspect in an underground garage in downtown
Washington.
(http://mpdc.dc.gov/mpdc/cwp/view,a,1231,q,538639.asp)
1975 Sep 20, The Kansas City Lyric
Opera premiered Jack Beeson’s "Captain Jinks of the Horse Marines." It
was commissioned to celebrate founder and director Russell Patterson’s
40th and final year with the company.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captain_Jinks_of_the_Horse_Marines)
1976 Sep 20, Playboy magazine
released an interview in which Democratic presidential nominee Jimmy
Carter admitted he'd "looked on a lot of women with lust." Carter was
interviewed for the November issue of Playboy and he admitted that he
had committed "lust in my heart."
(AP, 9/20/01)(SFEC, 9/28/97, p.A11)
1977 Sep 20, The first wave of
Southeast Asian "boat people" arrived in San Francisco under a new U.S.
resettlement program.
(AP, 9/20/97)
1978 Jul 24, The Beatles’ animated
film "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" premiered in the US.
(www.imdb.com/title/tt0078239/)
1978 Sep 20, John Vorster, prime
minister of white-ruled South Africa since 1966, announced his
resignation.
(AP, 9/20/03)
1979 Sep 20, John Riccardo stepped
down as Chrysler’s chairman and was succeeded by Lee Iacocca.
(WSJ, 5/15/07,
p.A14)(www.scripophily.net/chcoca19.html)
1979 Sep 20, In the Central
African Republic Jean-Bedel Bokassa was toppled in a French-backed
coup. 700 French paratroopers took control of Bangui while Bokassa was
away on a state visit to Libya.
(SFC, 5/22/96, p.A9)(SFC, 11/4/96, p.A22)(AP,
9/20/99)
1980 Sep 20, "Spectacular Bid,"
ridden by Bill Shoemaker, ran as the only entry in the Woodward Stakes
at Belmont Park in New York after three potential challengers dropped
out in horse racing's first walkover since 1949.
(AP, 9/20/05)
1984 Sep 20, The TV sitcom "Cosby
Show" with Bill Cosby premiered on NBC-TV.
{TV, USA}
(SSFC, 2/11/01, BR
p.1)(www.imdb.com/title/tt0086687/)
1984 Sep 20, A suicide car bomber
attacked the US Embassy annex in north Beirut. 24 people were killed
including 2 US soldiers.
(AP, 9/20/97)(SFC, 9/12/01,
p.A7)(http://beirut.usembassy.gov/lebanon/beirut_memorial.html)
1987 Sep 20, "Big River: The
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" closed at the Eugene O’Neill Theater in
NYC after 1005 performances.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_River_(musical))
1987 Sep 20, The 39th Emmy Awards
winners included: LA Law, Bruce Willis & Sharon Gless.
(www.popculturemadness.com/Trivia/Emmies/Top-1987-E.html)
1987 Sep 20, Pope John Paul II
concluded an 11-day visit to North America as he celebrated Mass for
thousands of Indians at Fort Simpson in Canada's Northwest Territories.
(AP, 9/20/97)
1988 Sep 20, Greg Louganis of the
United States won the gold medal in springboard diving at the Summer
Olympics in Seoul, South Korea, a day after he injured his head on the
board in the preliminary round.
(AP, 9/20/98)
1988 Sep 20, The 43rd General
Assembly opened at the United Nations.
(AP, 9/20/98)
1989 Sep 20, The musical "Miss
Saigon," premiered in London.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alain_Boublil)
1989 Sep 20, Soviet leader Mikhail
S. Gorbachev pulled off a major shake-up of the Soviet Communist Party,
dropping three Politburo members.
(AP, 9/20/99)
1989 Sep 20, F.W. de Klerk
(b.1936) was sworn in as president of South Africa. Frederik Willem de
Klerk was the last president (1989-1994) of Apartheid-era South Africa.
(AP,
9/20/99)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederik_Willem_de_Klerk)
1990 Sep 20, Demanding equal time,
Iraq asked US networks to broadcast a message by President Saddam
Hussein in response to President Bush’s videotaped address to the Iraqi
people.
(AP, 9/20/00)
1991 Sep 20, On Capitol Hill, the
Senate concluded hearings on the nomination of Clarence Thomas to the
U.S. Supreme Court.
(AP, 9/20/01)
1991 Sep 20, U.N. weapons
inspectors left Bahrain for Iraq to renew their search for Iraqi
weapons of mass destruction.
(AP, 9/20/01)
1992 Sep 20, The space shuttle
Endeavour landed at the Kennedy Space Center.
(AP, 9/20/97)
1992 Sep 20, Leanza Cornett of
Florida was crowned "Miss America" in Atlantic City, N.J.
(AP, 9/20/97)
1992 Sep 20, French voters
narrowly approved the Maastricht Treaty on European union.
(AP, 9/20/97)
1993 Sep 20, QVC Network Inc.
proposed a $9.5 billion stock and cash merger with Paramount
Communications Inc.; however, Viacom eventually won the battle to
acquire Paramount.
(AP, 9/20/98)
1994 Sep 20, Space shuttle
Discovery and its six astronauts landed at Edwards Air Force Base in
California after an 11-day mission.
(AP, 9/20/99)
1994 Sep 20, Jule Styne (88),
Broadway composer (Gypsy, Funny Girl), died in New York.
(AP, 9/20/99)
1995 Sep 20, The US House voted to
drop the national speed limit and let states decide how fast people
should drive.
(AP, 9/20/05)
1995 Sep 20, In a move that
stunned Wall Street, AT&T Corporation announced it was splitting
into three companies.
(WSJ, 9/21/95, p.B-2)(AP, 9/19/00)
1995 Sep 20, Rene Anselmo
(b.1926), founder of PanAmSat (1984), died. “Truth and technology will
triumph over bullshit and bureaucracy.”
(http://ftvdb.bfi.org.uk/sift/individual/629772)(Econ, 10/04/08, p.86)
1995 Sep 20, Bosnian Serb rebels
pulled back enough heavy weapons from around Sarajevo to keep NATO
airstrikes at bay.
(AP, 9/19/00)
1996 Sep 20, President Clinton
announced his signing of a bill outlawing homosexual marriages, but
said it should not be used as an excuse for discrimination, violence or
intimidation against gays and lesbians. The actual signing came a
little after midnight.
(AP, 9/20/97)
1996 Sep 20, Paul Weston,
bandleader, died at 84.
(www.spaceagepop.com/weston.htm)
1996 Sep 20, Paul Erdos,
Hungarian-born mathematician, died. He founded the field of discreet
mathematics and had more than 1500 papers to his name. He lived devoted
to his subject and had no home or job.
(SFC, 9/24/96, p.B2)
1996 Sep 20, In Columbia leftist
guerrillas unleashed a wave of bombings that included 4 against banks
and electricity lines in Cartagena. 18 coal trucks were torched in
northern Cesar province and a truck with 31 tons of ammonium nitrate,
base material for explosives, was hijacked.
(SFC, 9/21/96, p.A10)
1996 Sep 20, In Columbia more than
8 lbs. of heroin were found on Pres. Samper’s presidential jet as it
was preparing for a flight to New York. Eleven Air Force personnel were
later arrested.
(SFC, 9/23/96, A12)
1996 Sep 20, In Estonia Pres.
Lennart Meri was re-elected to a second term in the largely ceremonial
post.
(SFC, 9/21/96, p.A10)
1996 Sep 20, Murtazza Bhutto,
brother of Benazir Bhutto, and 6 followers were killed in a clash with
police in Karachi, Pakistan. He led the Shaheed Bhutto faction of the
Pakistan People's Party.
(SFC, 9/21/96, p.A10)
1997 Sep 20, President Clinton's
attorneys insisted no laws were broken as it was disclosed that
Attorney General Janet Reno had taken a first step toward seeking a
special prosecutor to investigate the president's 1996 fund-raising
activities.
(AP, 9/20/98)
1997 Sep 20, Nicholas Traina (19),
the son of novelist Danielle Steel, died in SF of a drug overdose.
(SFEC, 9/21/97, p.A1)
1997 Sep 20, Jimmy Witherspoon
(b.8/23/23 in Gurdon, Ark.), blues singer, died at age 74 in LA.
(SFEC, 9/21/97, p.C7)
1997 Sep 20, In Niger it was
reported that about 71,000 villagers were threatened by famine in the
southwestern areas around Oualam.
(SFC, 9/20/97, p.A19)
1997 Sep 20, In the Philippines
Pres. Ramos announced that he would not run for re-election. A mass
protest was staged the next day anyway to prevent a change in the
constitution that would allow a 2nd term.
(SFEC, 9/21/97, p.A1)
1998 Sep 20, Mark McGwire his 65th
home run against the Milwaukee Brewers.
(WSJ, 9/21/98, p.A1)
1998 Sep 20, In Baltimore Cal
Ripken sat out a game against the New York Yankees after playing 2,632
consecutive games, a record that began May 30, 1982.
(SFC, 9/20/98, p.A1)(AP, 9/20/99)
1998 Sep 20, In Palo Alto, Ca.,
the 2nd annual Sand Hill Challenge, a soapbox derby for the Peninsula
Community Foundation, was held. The world’s largest accordion band was
scheduled to set a Guinness record. The band of over 500 played "Lady
of Spain."
(SFC, 9/19/98, p.A18)(SFC, 9/21/98, p.A21)
1998 Sep 20, Muriel Humphrey
Brown, widow of Vice President Hubert Humphrey and his brief successor
in the U.S. Senate, died in Minneapolis at age 86.
(AP, 9/20/99)
1998 Sep 20, Rosh Hashana, the
Jewish new year began at sundown.
(SFEC, 9/20/98, p.C1)
1998 Sep 20, In Afghanistan
Russian-made opposition missiles were shot into Kabul and 180 people
were killed or wounded.
(SFC, 9/20/98, p.A14)
1998 Sep 20, In Malaysia Anwar
Ibrahim (51) was jailed following charges of sexual hijinks. His arrest
coincided with protests calling for the resignation of the prime
minister and with the end of the competition of the Commonwealth Games
and a state visit by Queen Elizabeth II.
(SFEC, 9/20/98, p.A12)
1998 Sep 20, In Sweden the Social
Democrats led by Prime Minister Goran Persson won the elections with
36.5% of the vote vs. 22.7% for the opposition Moderates led by Carl
Bildt.
(SFC, 9/20/98, p.A12)
1999 Sep 20, Lawrence Russell
Brewer became the second white supremacist to be convicted in the
dragging death of James Byrd Junior in Jasper, Texas. Brewer was later
sentenced to death.
(AP, 9/19/00)
1999 Sep 20, Factories in Beijing
were closed down to clear the air as part of the $13 billion
preparations for the 50th anniversary of Communist rule.
(SFC, 9/29/99, p.A10)
1999 Sep 20, In East Timor the
first wave of int'l. peacekeepers, known as Interfet, landed and
established control over Dili. They cleared the way for the rest of a
UN-approved force charged with restoring order.
(SFC, 9/20/99, p.A1)(SFC, 9/21/99, p.A10)(SFEC,
9/26/99, p.A12)(AP, 9/19/00)
1999 Sep 20, In Kosovo NATO and
the KLA agreed on a transformation of the KLA into a civil defense
group named the Kosovo Protection Corps.
(SFC, 9/21/99, p.A10)
1999 Sep 20, In Russia Raisa
Gorbachev, wife of last Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, died at age
67 after a battle with leukemia.
(SFC, 9/21/99, p.A11)(AP, 9/19/00)
1999 Sep 20, In Taiwan a 7.6
earthquake killed an estimated 2,161 people and injured over 3,500.
2,600 people were believed to be buried alive. Aftershocks the next day
registered at 6.8 and 100,000 people were homeless.
(SFC, 9/21/99, p.A1)(SFC, 9/22/99, p.A1)(WSJ,
9/22/99, p.A1)(WSJ, 9/22/99, p.A1) (http://nisee.berkeley.edu/taiwan/)
2000 Sep 20, Robert Ray, the
independent counsel who succeeded Kenneth Starr, ended the $52 million
Whitewater probe ended without charges against the Clintons.
(WSJ, 9/21/00, p.A1)
2000 Sep 20, Prosecutors charged a
Manhattan immigration lawyer with helping run a smuggling ring for
Chinese immigrants. Robert Porges (61) collected as much as $13 million
in fees for helping transport as many as 7,000 illegal immigrants from
China to the US.
(SFC, 9/21/00, p.A3)
2000 Sep 20, The space shuttle
Atlantis returned after hauling in 3 tons of equipment for the int’l.
space station.
(WSJ, 9/21/00, p.A1)
2000 Sep 20, A report by the UN
Population Fund said the discrimination and violence against women
"remain firmly rooted in cultures around the world."
(SFC, 9/21/00, p.C4)
2000 The euro hit a 20-month low
of 84.44 to the dollar.
(SFC, 9/21/00, p.C2)
2000 Sep 20, In London a small
missile hit the M16 intelligence agency at Vauxhall Cross and exploded
on the 8th floor with minor damage. A rocket-propelled grenade launcher
was later found near the scene.
(SFC, 9/21/00, p.A12)(SFC, 9/22/00, p.A18)
2000 Sep 20, In Colombia ELN
rebels released 12 of 55 hostages seized near Cali. They still held 43.
(SFC, 9/21/00, p.A13)
2000 Sep 20, In Indonesia Pres.
Wahid fired Gen. Fachrul Razi, the deputy commander of the armed
forces, due to the slow pace of reform in West Timor. Some 120,000
refugees in West Timor faced hunger due to the withdrawal of aid groups.
(SFC, 9/21/00, p.C3)
2000 Sep 20, In the Philippines 2
French television journalists were rescued from Abu Sayyaf rebels. 7
rebels were reported killed and 20 captured after 5 days of fighting.
(SFC, 9/20/00, p.A14)
2000 Sep 20, In Russia gunmen
seized at least 4 hostages in the southern town of Lazarevskoye. They
demanded $30 million and a helicopter. The gunmen surrendered after 2
days and the incident was believed to have been faked and started on a
drunken whim.
(SFC, 9/22/00, p.A17)(SFC, 9/23/00, p.A11)
2000 Sep 20, Former Soviet
cosmonaut Gherman Titov died at age 65.
(AP, 9/20/01)
2001 Sep 20, Pres. Bush addressed
Congress and the nation and promised that "justice will be done." The
NYC death toll was raised to 6,333 missing to include citizens missing
from foreign countries. The total Sep 11 death toll reached 6,807. On
Nov 20 the official count was reduced to just below 3,900.
(SFC, 9/21/01, p.A1,3)(SFC, 11/21/01, p.A2)
2001 Sep 20, Pres. Bush named Gov.
Tom Ridge (56) of Pennsylvania to direct the new office of Homeland
Security.
(SFC, 9/21/01, p.A16)
2001 Sep 20, Pictures of most of
the Sep 11 hijackers were published along with some personal data.
(SFC, 9/20/01, p.A3)
2001 Sep 20, The FBI arrested
Nabil Al-Marabh (34), a suspected bin laden associate, in the Chicago
area.
(SFC, 9/21/01, p.A3)
2001 Sep 20, A chartered flight
left the US with members of the sprawling bin Laden family. The FBI
interviewed 22 of the 26 people aboard.
(WSJ, 6/1/04, p.A4)
2001 Sep 20, The DJIA fell 382 to
8,386. The Nasdaq fell 56 to 1,470.
(SFC, 9/21/01, p.A1)
2001 Sep 20, In Afghanistan Muslim
clerics issued an edict that suggested Osama bin Laden be persuaded to
leave the country.
(SFC, 9/21/01, p.A5)
2001 Sep 20, An Israeli woman,
Sarit Amrani (25), was killed in a drive-by shooting by the Al Aqsa
Martyrs Brigades. A Palestinian man was killed in Gaza following a
grenade assault. Another Palestinian police officer was killed,
possibly by militants he was trying to restrain near Hebron. The
violence threatened the recent truce.
(SFC, 9/21/01, p.D2)
2001 Sep 20, In Macedonia NATO
troops began the 3rd stage of Essential Harvest.
(SFC, 9/21/01, p.D3)
2001 Sep 20, In Russia the State
Duma approved private ownership of urban and industrial land, about 2%
of the country.
(SFC, 9/21/01, p.D3)
2002 Sep 20, President Bush
appealed to a reluctant Russian President Vladimir Putin to back a new
U.N. resolution that would threaten Iraq with war if it did not disarm;
Russian officials indicated there might be room for compromise.
(AP, 9/20/03)
2002 Sep 20, It was reported that
cancer in Melanoma patients went into remission following injections of
their own T-cells.
(WSJ, 9/20/02, p.A1)
2002 Sep 20, Scientists urged
stronger warning labels for aspirin, ibuprofen and similar painkillers
due to the risk of ulcers.
(SFC, 9/20/02, p.A3)
2002 Sep 20, William Rosenberg
(86), founder of the Dunkin' Donuts chain, died in Mashpee, Mass.
(AP, 9/20/03)
2002 Sep 20, A riot in an
overcrowded Dominican prison left at least 27 inmates dead and 48
others injured, 12 critically. Most of the deaths were by smoke
inhalation.
(AP, 9/20/02)
2002 Sep 20, In India one man was
killed and 5 others injured when police opened fire to disperse groups
of Hindus and Muslims fighting in western Gujarat state.
(Reuters, 9/20/02)
2002 Sep 20, Israel tightened its
siege on Yasser Arafat, using tanks to destroy a stairwell in his
compound, digging a deep trench and running coils of barbed wire around
his offices.
(AP, 9/20/02)
2002 Sep 20, Rebel soldiers dug in
at two Ivory Coast cities, reinforcing positions with heavy weapons and
handing out uniforms and guns to recruits, a day after the government
said it had crushed a bloody coup attempt.
(AP, 9/20/02)
2002 Sep 20, In southern Russia a
collapsing glacier triggered an avalanche of ice and mud, burying the
village of Nizhny Karmadon in the southern republic of North Ossetia,
and killing as many as 100 people.
(AP, 9/21/02)
2002 Sep 20, Necdet Kent (91),
Turkish diplomat in France (1941-1944), died in Istanbul. He gave
Turkish citizenship to dozens of Turkish Jews living in France who did
not have proper identity papers to save them from deportation to the
Nazi gas chambers.
(AP, 9/20/02)
2002 Sep 20, In Yemen 2 suspected
members of al-Qaida were killed in a gunbattle and three others were
arrested after security forces raided several homes looking for members
of the terrorist network.
(AP, 9/20/02)
2003 Sep 20, In Atlantic City, NJ,
Miss Florida Ericka Dunlap beat out 50 rivals to be crowned Miss
America.
(AP, 9/21/03)
2003 Sep 20, A Grand Canyon
sightseeing helicopter crashed and all 7 aboard were killed.
(WSJ, 9/23/03, p.A1)
2003 Sep 20, In Oakland, Ca., Cha
Cha Hill (3) died of multiple injuries following numerous beatings by
his father, Chazarus Hill Sr. In 2007 the father (27) was sentenced to
26 years to life in prison following a conviction of assault causing
death.
(SFC, 3/9/07, p.B4)
2003 Sep 19, Five of six children
riding on an all-terrain vehicle in Coffee County, Ga., were killed
when they were hit by a motorist.
(AP, 9/21/04)
2003 Sep 20, In central Iraq 3
American soldiers were killed and 13 injured in a mortar attack and a
bombing.
(AP, 9/21/03)
2003 Sep 20, In Iraq gunmen
attacked and wounded Aquila al-Hashimi, one of three women on Iraq's
Governing Council and a leading candidate to become the country's
representative at the United Nations.
(AP, 9/20/03)
2003 Sep 20, Japan's ruling party
entered the final phase of voting to choose its leader. PM Junichiro
Koizumi easily won re-election as head of Japan's ruling Liberal
Democratic Party.
(AP, 9/20/03)
2003 Sep 20, The Indian army said
it killed six suspected separatist guerrillas from a Pakistan-based
group after a fierce battle in Indian-controlled Kashmir.
(AP, 9/20/03)
2003 Sep 20, Latvians endorsed
membership in the EU.
(AP, 9/21/03)
2003 Sep 20, In central Pakistan a
train slammed into a bus, killing 27 people and injuring 6.
(AP, 9/20/03)
2003 Sep 20, The semi-annual
meetings of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund began in
Dubai, UAR.
(AP, 9/21/03)
2003 Sep 20, Zimbabwe Vice
President Simon Muzenda (81), a long time loyal aide of Zimbabwe's
autocratic leader Robert Mugabe, died.
(AP, 9/20/03)
2004 Sep 20, CBS News apologized
for a "mistake in judgment" in its story questioning President Bush's
National Guard service, saying it could not vouch for the authenticity
of documents featured in the report.
(AP, 9/20/05)
2004 Sep 20, The diocese of
Tucson, Arizona, filed for bankruptcy protection in seeking relief from
debt due to sex-abuse settlements.
(WSJ, 9/21/04, p.A1)
2004 Sep 20, A small plane with 5
aboard crashed in Montana’s Glacier National Park. 2 survivors were
found 2 days later.
(SFC, 9/24/04, p.A2)
2004 Sep 20, In southeastern
Afghan province 2 US soldiers were killed in a firefight with
insurgents.
(AP, 9/20/04)
2004 Sep 20, India's space agency
said it successfully launched the nation's first satellite for
educational services.
(AP, 9/20/04)
2004 Sep 20, In Indonesia Susilo
Bambang Yudhoyono held a commanding lead over Incumbent President
Megawati Sukarnoputri in partial official results.
(AP, 9/20/04)
2004 Sep 20, A car bomb exploded
in the northern Iraq city of Mosul, killing three people. Gunmen killed
a Sunni Muslim cleric as he entered a mosque in Baghdad to perform noon
prayers. At least two people were killed and three wounded in
explosions that rocked the rebel-held city of Fallujah. An Islamic
group posted a video showing the beheading of US contract employee
Eugene Armstrong.
(AP, 9/20/04)(SFC, 9/21/04, p.A1)
2004 Sep 20, An Israeli helicopter
blew up a car in Gaza City, killing Khaled Abu Shamiyeh (30), a Hamas
militant who was involved in making and firing rockets at Israeli towns.
(AP, 9/20/04)
2004 Sep 20, Russia's embattled
Yukos oil giant raised the stakes in its bitter standoff with the
Kremlin as the company slashed supplies to China in a move analysts
said was designed to cause maximum embarrassment in Moscow.
(AP, 9/20/04)
2005 Sep 20, Pres. Bush made his
5th visit to Katrina’s disaster zone on the Gulf Coast.
(WSJ, 9/21/05, p.A1)
2005 Sep 20, The White House said
Pres George W. Bush has named his homeland security adviser, Fran
Townsend, to lead an internal inquiry into the much-criticized federal
response to Hurricane Katrina.
(AP, 9/20/05)
2005 Sep 20, The US Federal
Reserve raised its short-term interest-rate target for the 11th
consecutive time a quarter point to 3.75%. The DJIA fell 76.11 to
10481.52.
(WSJ, 9/21/05, p.A1)
2005 Sep 20, The Sacramento
Monarchs won their first championship with a 62-59 victory over the
Connecticut Sun in Game 4 of the WNBA Finals.
(www.wnba.com/about_us/greatest_moments_020508.html)
2005 Sep 20, Rita strengthened
into a growing hurricane as it lashed the Florida Keys with heavy rain
and strong wind, threatening the island chain with a storm surge of up
to 6 feet and sparking fears the storm could eventually bring new
misery to the Gulf Coast.
(AP, 9/20/05)
2005 Sep 20, Federated Department
Stores announced that it would convert all of its 62 Field’s stores to
the Macy’s name. Federated acquired May Dept. stores, the parent of
Marshall Field’s, earlier in the year.
(WSJ, 9/21/05, p.A15)
2005 Sep 20, A new study said an
ingredient in green tea that researchers think might fight cancer may
also protect the brain from the memory-destroying Alzheimer's disease.
(Reuters, 9/20/05)
2005 Sep 20, President Hamid
Karzai challenged the need for major foreign military operations in
Afghanistan, saying air strikes are no longer effective and that
U.S.-led coalition forces should focus on rooting out terror bases and
support networks.
(AP, 9/20/05)
2005 Sep 20, Simon Wiesenthal
(96), the Holocaust survivor who helped track down Nazi war criminals
following World War II, then spent the later decades of his life
fighting anti-Semitism and prejudice against all people, died in
Austria.
(AP, 9/20/05)(Econ, 9/24/05, p.102)
2005 Sep 20, In Bolivia a fire
that has devoured more than 247,000 acres of Amazon forest burned out
of control near the Brazilian border.
(AP, 9/20/05)
2005 Sep 20, Canada’s Federal
Fisheries Minister Geoff Regan said Canada is trying to build
international momentum to combat overfishing.
(CP, 9/20/05)
2005 Sep 20, In Chechnya gunmen
launched two separate attacks, killing one police officer and wounding
four others.
(AP, 9/21/05)
2005 Sep 20, Croatia issued an
international arrest warrant for Milivoj Aschner (92), a former police
chief in eastern Croatia and requested that Austria extradite him.
Aschner allegedly enforced racist laws in 1941-1942 under Croatia's
World War II Nazi puppet regime, which persecuted tens of thousands of
Jews, Gypsies and Serbs.
(AP, 9/22/05)
2005 Sep 20, Carla Del Ponte,
chief prosecutor of the UN International Criminal Tribunal for the
former Yugoslavia (ICTY), told the Daily Telegraph that she believed
General Ante Gotovina was being sheltered in a Franciscan monastery in
Croatia. The Vatican denied any knowledge.
(AP, 9/20/05)
2005 Sep 20, Egyptian police
stopped Palestinians from returning to Gaza, causing a crowd of more
than 1,000 people to gather near the crossing here, as officials from
the two sides met to discuss the border situation.
(AP, 9/20/05)
2005 Sep 20, A US Air Force
officer taking part in a military exercise was killed in a road
accident in northern Egypt.
(AP, 9/20/05)
2005 Sep 20, Hundreds of
Ethiopians who claim their ancestors were forced to convert from
Judaism began a three-day hunger strike at a prayer house to press the
Israeli government to let them migrate to the Jewish state.
(AP, 9/21/05)
2005 Sep 20, Top politicians on
both sides of Germany's political standoff agreed a bipartisan "grand
coalition" linking Gerhard Schroeder's Social Democrats and challenger
Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats would be the best way out of the
post election muddle.
(AP, 9/20/05)
2005 Sep 20, A Guyana jury
convicted Patricia Alves (43) of manslaughter for killing a friend
during an exorcism ritual. Alves was found guilty of killing Kamille
Seenauth (34) on Feb. 15, 2002. She allegedly beat Seenauth in an
attempt to drive evil spirits out of her. On Sep 28 Alves was sentenced
to 10 years in prison.
(AP, 9/21/05)(AP, 9/29/05)
2005 Sep 20, In Iraq a child died
and another was injured when terrorists used them as human shields
during Coalition raids of three terrorist safe houses in Mosul. The
bureau chief of an Iraqi daily newspaper and a woman working for Iraq's
state-run television were shot and killed by assailants in separate
attacks in Mosul. An angry mob of insurgents attacked a convoy of
American contractors when they got lost in Duluiyah, a town north of
Baghdad, killing four and wounding two. A US soldier died in a roadside
blast north of Baghdad. Total US troop deaths reached 1,904.
(AP, 9/20/05)(AP, 9/21/05)(AP, 10/23/05)
2005 Sep 20, Fiat of Italy struck
a deal with Zastava of Kragujevac, Serbia, to make up to 16,000 cars a
year. Zastava’s arms plant made a recent $3.8 million contract with
Iraq.
(Econ, 10/1/05, p.47)
2005 Sep 20, Nepalese police
arrested more than 400 people in protests against King Gyanendra's rule.
(AFP, 9/20/05)
2005 Sep 20, In Nigeria dozens of
soldiers and police arrested Moujahid Dokubo-Asari, the main militia
leader in Nigeria's south, at his office in the oil city of Port
Harcourt. A militia with a history of violence in Nigeria's oil-rich
south threatened to blow up oil installations if the government did not
release its arrested leader.
(AP, 9/20/05)
2005 Sep 20, North Korea insisted
it won't dismantle its nuclear weapons program until the US gives it
civilian nuclear reactors, casting doubt on a disarmament agreement
reached a day earlier during international talks.
(AP, 9/20/05)
2005 Sep 20, Sudanese soldiers
inflicted "heavy casualties" in driving off rebels who overran a town
in the troubled Darfur region.
(AP, 9/21/05)
2005 Sep 20, Ukraine’s Pres.
Viktor Yushchenko failed to win support for his candidate as premier.
Yuri Yekhanurov, a middle-of-the-road technocrat and ally of the
president, won 223 votes, three short of the required majority in the
450-seat assembly.
(AP, 9/20/05)
2005 Sep 20, In Tashkent 15 men
pleaded guilty to participating in an uprising in eastern Uzbekistan in
May that led to what human rights groups say was a government crackdown
that left more than 700 dead.
(AP, 9/20/05)
2006 Sep 20, Pres. Bush met with
Palestinian leader Abbas in a bid to restart Mideast peace efforts.
(WSJ, 9/21/06, p.A1)
2006 Sep 20, A US federal judge
overturned a Bush administration rule that would have allowed roads to
be built through nearly 60 million acres of national forest land.
(SFC, 9/21/06, p.A1)
2006 Sep 20, California sued 6
major auto makers for greenhouse-gas inaction.
(WSJ, 9/21/06, p.A1)
2006 Sep 20, The second annual
Clinton Global Initiative, on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly,
kicked off in Manhattan and collected over $2 billion in pledges in
funds and programs on its 1st day to combat global ills. A day later
British mogul Richard Branson pledged to spend $3 billion in the next
decade on projects to combat global warming and reduce dependence on
fossil fuels. The 3-day summit raised $7.3 billion in pledges.
(SFC, 9/21/06, p.A3)(AFP, 9/21/06)(SFC, 9/23/06,
p.A2)
2006 Sep 20, In Florida Clarence
Hill was executed for the 1982 murder of a Pensacola police officer. He
had argued that Florida’s use of lethal injections amounted to cruel
and unusual punishment, but the US Supreme Court denied him another
stay of execution.
(SFC, 9/21/06, p.A3)
2006 Sep 20, Dean Everett
Wooldridge (93), scientist and co-founder of Ramo-Wooldridge (1953),
died. In 1958 Ramo-Wooldridge merged with Thomas Products to become TRW
Corp. Wooldridge helped develop the US intercontinental ballistic
missile program. He also authored 4 books on neuroscience and predicted
the rise of artificial intelligence.
(WSJ, 9/23/06, p.A4)
2006 Sep 20, In Salt Lake City a
2-year-old boy died from kidney failure due to an E. coli infection
attributed to spinach.
(SFC, 10/6/06, p.A3)
2006 Sep 20, In southern
Afghanistan police clashed with militants who tried to set fire to an
oil tanker, killing four suspected members of the Taliban. Authorities
found the body of a Turkish national who was kidnapped last month along
with another Turk whose body was already recovered.
(AP, 9/21/06)
2006 Sep 20, The African Union
(AU) agreed to extend the mandate of its peacekeepers in Sudan's
troubled Darfur region for three months until December 31 after
receiving promises of financial and logistical support from the United
Nations and Arab states.
(AP, 9/20/06)
2006 Sep 20, In Australia arrested
5 Canadian men after cocaine worth A$35 million ($26 million) was found
hidden inside computer monitors. This was believed to be Australia's
fifth-largest illegal drugs seizure.
(Reuters, 9/21/06)
2006 Sep 20, EU regulators fined
30 companies a total of $399.1 million for fixing prices for
copper-pipe fittings.
(WSJ, 9/21/06, p.A8)
2006 Sep 20, Henri Jayer (84), a
master of balanced pinot noir, died in Dijon, France. He was viewed by
many connoisseurs to be the finest Burgundy winemaker of his generation.
(AP, 9/21/06)
2006 Sep 20, Hungarian PM Ferenc
Gyurcsany vowed to crack down on rioters. Police blaming the violence
on football hooligans and extreme right-wing groups. Thousands of
protesters demonstrated for a 4th day demanding that PM Gyurcsany
resign.
(AFP, 9/20/06)(SFC, 9/21/06, p.A3)
2006 Sep 20, An Iraqi police
headquarters in Baghdad was hit by a suicide truck bomb, killing at
least 7 people. Rebels killed at least 16 people in Iraq in a series of
bombings and shootings.
(AFP, 9/20/06)
2006 Sep 20, Israeli forces raided
the West Bank cities of Nablus and Jenin, destroying five foreign
exchange depots and a bank and taking funds the army said were
earmarked for terrorism. Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip fired
two rockets at an Israeli town, wounding a 15-year-old boy and another
person.
(AP, 9/20/06)
2006 Sep 20, Nationalist candidate
Shinzo Abe won the race for Japan's ruling party leader, all but
clinching next week's election as prime minister and pledging to make
his country a more robust force on the world stage.
(AP, 9/20/06)
2006 Sep 20, In northern
Kazakhstan a methane explosion tore through a coal mine, killing 41
miners. Seven miners were pulled out alive and hospitalized after it
ripped through the Lenin mine in the town of Shakhtinsk.
(AP, 9/20/06)(AP, 9/21/06)
2006 Sep 20, The UN's
International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) acquitted former
Rwandan education minister Andre Rwamakuba of murder and incitement
charges related to the country's 1994 genocide.
(AP, 9/20/06)
2006 Sep 20, Gen. Sondhi
Boonyaratkalin, the army commander who seized Thailand's government in
a quick, bloodless coup, pledged to hold elections by October 2007. He
received a ringing endorsement from the country's revered king.
(AP, 9/20/06)
2006 Sep 20, In South Africa a
judge dismissed corruption charges against Jacob Zuma after the
prosecution said it was not ready to proceed against a powerful,
populist politician who could be South Africa's next president.
(AP, 9/20/06)
2006 Sep 20, Sven Nykvist
(b.1922), Swedish cinematographer, died. He began working with Ingmar
Bergman in 1953, eventually became his full-time cinematographer,
pushing the director's work in a new direction. Nykvist won the Academy
Award for Best Cinematography for two Bergman movies, Cries and
Whispers (1973), and Fanny and Alexander (1982).
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sven_Nykvist)
2006 Sep 20, In eastern Ukraine a
methane blast ripped through a coal mine, killing 13 miners and
injuring 36 others.
(AP, 9/20/06)
2006 Sep 20, Venezuelan President
Hugo Chavez took his verbal battle with the US to the floor of the UN
General Assembly, calling President Bush "the devil." "The devil came
here yesterday," Chavez said. "He came here talking as if he were the
owner of the world."
(AP, 9/20/06)
2006 Sep 20, In Vietnam Pham Xuan
An (79), journalist and spy, died. He led a remarkable and perilous
double life as a communist spy and a respected reporter for Western
news organizations during the Vietnam War.
(AP, 9/20/06)
2006 Sep 20, Yemen's President Ali
Abdullah Saleh faced a serious challenger at the polls for the first
time. Roughly 5 million of the 9.2 million eligible Yemenis cast
ballots. Saleh has ruled since 1978, first as president of North Yemen
and then as head of the unified state after the 1990 merger of the
North and South.
(AP, 9/20/06)
2007 Sep 20, President Bush cited
"some unsettling times" in the US housing and credit markets as he
sought to assure jittery Americans that the economy basically is in
good shape despite worries about a recession.
(AP, 9/20/07)
2007 Sep 20, A new US five-dollar
bill with high-tech security features and new colors made a digital
debut, the first time the US government has exclusively used the
Internet to unveil its paper money.
(AFP, 9/20/07)
2007 Sep 20, Some 20,000 people
gathered in Jena, Louisiana, to protest what they considered to be the
overzealous prosecution of 6 black high school students charged with
beating a white schoolmate last December.
(SFC, 9/21/07, p.A3)(Econ, 9/29/07, p.33)
2007 Sep 20, The SF Giants told
Barry Bonds, a 15-year baseball star with the Giants, that his career
with the Giants would end with the conclusion of the 2007 season. The
decision was made public the next day.
(SFC, 9/21/07, p.A8)(SSFC, 9/23/07, p.A1)
2007 Sep 20, In SF Supervisor Ed
Jew (47) was charged with one count of mail fraud in an extortion
scheme against immigrant operators of tapioca drink shops.
(SFC, 9/21/07, p.A1)
2007 Sep 20, Borse Dubai and
Nasdaq, rivals to take over Nordic market operator OMX, said they had
joined forces to acquire it together in a deal that gives Borse Dubai
19.99 percent of US-based Nasdaq and 28 percent of the London Stock
Exchange.
(AP, 9/20/07)
2007 Sep 20, It was reported that
Arizona Prof. Piere Balthazard planned to use data from brain scans of
visionary leaders to plot a map of a “leader’s” brain. He then planned
to use the map to help train others use their brains similarly.
(WSJ, 9/20/07, p.B1)
2007 Sep 20, Univ. of California
regents voted substantial pay raises to faculty and sharply increased
fees students pay at the university’s law, medical and other
professional schools.
(SFC, 9/21/07, p.B1)
2007 Sep 20, NASA released
satellite data that showed sea ice in the Arctic had shrunk one million
square miles more this summer that the average melt over 24 years. This
represented an area larger that Alaska and Texas combined. Arctic sea
ice shrunk to a record 1.59 million square miles since NASA started
recording satellite data in 1979.
(SFC, 9/21/07, p.A1)(SFC, 9/17/08, p.A2)
2007 Sep 20, In Oakland, Ca.,
police Sgt. Pat Gonzales shot and killed Gary King Jr. (20). Officers
found a loaded gun on King after the shooting. King was shot in the
back. In 2009 Oakland was expected to pay $1.5 million to settle a
federal civil rights suit filed by King’s family.
(SFC, 9/12/09, p.C2)
2007 Sep 20, A gunbattle between
Afghan police and insurgents left 20 suspected militants and four
officers dead in Badghis province bordering Iran and Turkmenistan. A
suicide bomber on a bicycle detonated his explosives near Afghan army
soldiers in Ghazni province, wounding two soldiers.
(AP, 9/20/07)
2007 Sep 20, The British
competition watchdog accused British supermarkets and dairies on of
colluding to fix prices, resulting in customers being overcharged 270
million pounds (386 million euros, 542 million dollars) for dairy
products.
(AP, 9/20/07)
2007 Sep 20, The Canadian dollar
rose above parity with the US dollar for the first time in 31 years.
The Canadian currency's commodity-fueled rise was helped by a sharply
falling dollar.
(Reuters, 9/20/07)
2007 Sep 20, Typhoon Wipha
weakened as it slammed China with strong winds and torrential rains. At
least nine people were reported killed as the storm destroyed thousands
of homes and triggered landslides.
(AP, 9/20/07)
2007 Sep 20, Estonia decided it
will not allow a German-Russian consortium to conduct a survey of its
exclusive economic zone in the Baltic Sea for a planned underwater gas
pipeline.
(AP, 9/20/07)
2007 Sep 20, In a nationally
televised interview, Pres. Sarkozy went further, saying he wants France
to adopt immigration quotas by regions of the world and by occupation.
With three months left in the year, police have caught at least 11,800
immigrants, less than half the 25,000 target, ordered by Pres. Sarkozy,
who has ordered officials to pick up the pace.
(AP, 9/22/07)
2007 Sep 20, Floyd Landis lost his
expensive and explosive case when two of three arbitrators upheld the
results of a test that showed the 2006 Tour de France champion had used
synthetic testosterone to fuel his spectacular comeback victory. Landis
forfeited his Tour title and was subject to a two-year ban, retroactive
to Jan. 30, 2007.
(AP, 9/20/08)
2007 Sep 20, A clash between
Georgian and separatist Abkhazian forces too place some 330 yards
inside Abkhaz-held territory. Several Abkhaz soldiers were wounded and
2 former Russian military officers were killed.
(SFC, 10/30/07, p.A6)
2007 Sep 20, German low-cost
carrier Air Berlin said it would buy the carrier Condor from travel
giant Thomas Cook, after swallowing two national rivals in less than a
year.
(AP, 9/20/07)
2007 Sep 20, A UN decision awarded
Guyana, rather than Suriname, most of a disputed area of coastal
Atlantic Ocean, which may hold a large amount of undiscovered oil.
(Econ, 9/29/07, p.44)
2007 Sep 20, Officials in India
said torrential rains and thunderstorms over the last 4 days have
killed at least 63 people in southern India, and flooded dozens of
villages.
(AP, 9/20/07)
2007 Sep 20, Iranian air force
pilots made successful test flights in two of Iran's new domestically
manufactured fighter jet. The Saegheh jet is a new generation of the
Azarakhsh class of fighter planes. Both Azarakhsh and Saegheh mean
lightening in Farsi.
(AP, 9/21/07)
2007 Sep 20, Iraqi soldiers
arrested Col. Thamir Mohammed Ismail Husseini (Abu Turab), a
high-ranking federal police official on suspicion of targeting Sunni
Arabs in Baghdad for arrest and torture on behalf of radical Shiite
militias. An Iranian officer accused of smuggling powerful
roadside bombs into Iraq was arrested. The suspect, a member of the
Quds Force, an elite unit of Iran's Revolutionary Guards, was detained
in the Kurdish city of Sulaimaniyah. A car bombing at an Iraqi
checkpoint in Baghdad's Sadr City neighborhood killed two Iraqi
soldiers and a civilian, and wounded seven others. A roadside bomb
struck an Iraqi police patrol near a stadium in eastern Baghdad,
killing one officer and wounding 5 people. The chief judge of the
mostly Shiite Karrada district court and his driver were shot by masked
gunmen in eastern Baghdad. Both died of their wounds later in a
hospital. The US military said 7 Shiite extremists were detained
following a pre-dawn raid by Iraqi special forces and US troops in Sadr
City. Residents claimed a civilian and a 5-year-old boy were killed in
the raid. An American soldier was killed in an explosion in Diyala
province.
(AP, 9/20/07)(AP, 9/21/07)(SFC, 9/20/07, p.A11)
2007 Sep 20, Japan's Sharp Corp.
said it had agreed to become the top shareholder in its financially
troubled rival Pioneer Corp. as part of a broad business tie-up in
response to growing competition.
(AP, 9/20/07)
2007 Sep 20, Almost 1,000 Buddhist
monks, protected by onlookers, marched through Myanmar's biggest city
for a third straight day and pledged to keep alive the most sustained
protests against the military government in at least a decade.
(AP, 9/20/07)
2007 Sep 20, In Niger Moussa Kaka,
a reporter for Radio France International and director of a private
radio station that has reported heavily on the Tuareg rebellion, was
taken into custody for "conniving with the enemy" in his conversations
with members of the Tuareg rebel group, the Niger Movement for Justice.
(AP, 9/22/07)
2007 Sep 20, A Nigerian government
spokesman said Governor Adebayo Alao-Akala has sacked the entire
34,000-strong workforce in his Oyo state for refusing to heed a call to
suspend their one-month-old strike over pay.
(AFP, 9/20/07)
2007 Sep 20, Al-Qaida chief Osama
bin Laden called on Pakistanis to rebel against President Pervez
Musharraf in a new recording, saying his military's siege of a militant
mosque stronghold this year makes him an infidel.
(AP, 9/20/07)
2007 Sep 20, Spain’s Interior
Ministry said Spanish police and the FBI had arrested two Pakistani
nationals in a joint operation in Madrid and Barcelona on suspicion of
being involved in financing international terrorism. The men,
identified as Anar Muhammad Shan and Preces Mehmood Sandhu, were also
held on suspicion of belonging to a terrorist organization.
(AP, 9/21/07)
2007 Sep 20, Uganda declared a
state of emergency in the worst flood-affected areas of the country as
humanitarian workers tried to reach villages that have been cut off by
water.
(AP, 9/20/07)
2007 Sep 20, Zimbabwe lawmakers
voted unanimously in favor of a constitutional amendment that critics
say further consolidates ruling party power, but is hailed by the
government and opposition as a breakthrough in easing the political and
economic crisis.
(AP, 9/20/07)
2008 Sep 20, Arkansas State Police
troopers raided the 15-acre complex of evangelist Tony Alamo (74),
searching for evidence of child pornography. FBI Agents arrested Alamo
five days later in Flagstaff, Ariz. Alamo later pleaded not guilty to a
10-count federal indictment.
(AP, 7/10/09)
2008 Sep 20, The California
Coastal Commission sponsored its annual coastal cleanup. Some 55,634
volunteers collected over 742 thousand pounds of debris.
(SSFC, 9/21/08, p.B1)
2008 Sep 20, In Washington state
Shawn Roe (36) killed police officer Kristine Fairbanks (51)
during a traffic stop. He has also killed Richard Ziegler (59), a
retired California corrections employee, whose pickup he was driving.
Roe was killed in a shootout with sheriff’s deputies.
(SFC, 9/22/08, p.A3)
2008 Sep 20, A soldier from the
US-led coalition and two Afghan civilians were killed when a bomb hit
their vehicle in southern Afghanistan.
(AFP, 9/20/08)
2008 Sep 20, Belarus President
Alexander Lukashenko said he will cease all dialogue with Western
countries if they fail to recognize the ex-Soviet state's parliamentary
election.
(AP, 9/20/08)
2008 Sep 20, In southern China a
fire and subsequent stampede at the Dance King nightclub in Shenzhen
killed 43 people and left 88 injured. In Hubei province a migrant
worker stabbed 12 people, seriously inuring 2 of them in Shiyan city.
(AFP, 9/21/08)(SFC, 9/22/08, p.A3)
2008 Sep 20, It was reported that
Muslims in France, about 8% of the population, were estimated to make
up over half the prison population.
(Econ, 9/20/08, p.69)
2008 Sep 20, German police
cancelled an anti-Islamic congress planned for today in Cologne after
leftist opponents of the rally clashed with its right-wing backers.
(AP, 9/20/08)
2008 Sep 20, Indian officials said
thousands of people have been evacuated and at least were 7 swept away
in eastern Orissa state after 4 rivers burst their banks and inundated
scores of villages. Uttar Pradesh state, meanwhile, reeled under
torrential rains which killed at least 16 people and toppled trees and
houses.
(AFP, 9/20/08)
2008 Sep 20, It was reported that
Mexican officers and prison guards in Michoacan state can now get
special deals on houses and financing through a pilot program designed
to keep them out of the pockets of organized crime.
(AP, 9/20/08)
2008 Sep 20, President Asif Ali
Zardari said Pakistan will not tolerate any infringement of its
territory in the name of the fight against militants. He also called
for an end to the president's powers to dissolve the assembly and
dismiss the government, and pledged to tackle Pakistan's economic
problems. A suicide bomber and a roadside bomb struck two military
convoys in Pakistani tribal areas bordering Afghanistan killing four
soldiers and four civilians.
(Reuters, 9/20/08)(AFP, 9/20/08)
2008 Sep 20, A suspected car bomb
caused a huge explosion at the heavily guarded Marriott Hotel in
Islamabad. The death toll soon grew to 54 with some 270 injured,
including the Czech ambassador and 3 Americans. The next day Pakistan
blamed Al-Qaeda linked Taliban militants for the massive suicide truck
bombing.
(AP, 9/20/08)(AFP, 9/21/08)(AP, 9/21/08)(AP, 9/28/08)
2008 Sep 20, A Palestinian was
shot and killed by Israeli soldiers who said they saw him light a
firebomb near a Jewish settlement. Suhayeb Saleh was later identified
by his parents, who said he was 14 years old. Egypt opened its Gaza
border terminal to allow passage of students and medical patients for 2
days.
(AP, 9/20/08)
2008 Sep 20, South African
President Thabo Mbeki agreed to resign after the ruling party ordered
him to step down, a move that could heighten turmoil in Africa's
economic powerhouse. A Sep 19 ruling threw out corruption charges
against Zuma it appeared Mbeki and his justice minister had colluded
with prosecutors against Zuma as part of the "titanic power struggle"
within the ANC. Mbeki indignantly denied this.
(AP, 9/20/08)
2008 Sep 20, The Thai government
said floods have killed 14 people and sickened more than 53,000 others,
including many who contracted waterborne ailments. The 14 people were
swept away by flash floods that hit 36 of Thailand's 76 provinces over
the past nine days.
(AP, 9/20/08)
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