Today is Wednesday, September 30, the 273rd day of 2015. There are 92 days left in the year.
Today’s Highlight in History:
On September 30, 1955, actor James Dean, 24, was killed in a two-car collision near Cholame, California.
On this date:
In 1399, England’s King Richard II was deposed by Parliament; he was succeeded by his cousin, Henry of Bolingbroke, who was crowned as King Henry IV.
In 1777, the Continental Congress — forced to flee in the face of advancing British forces — moved to York, Pennsylvania.
In 1791, Mozart’s opera “The Magic Flute” premiered in Vienna, Austria.
In 1846, Boston dentist William Morton used ether as an anesthetic for the first time as he extracted an ulcerated tooth from merchant Eben Frost.
In 1915, the D.H. Lawrence novel “The Rainbow” was published in London by Methuen & Co.
In 1938, after co-signing the Munich Agreement allowing Nazi annexation of Czechoslovakia’s Sudetenland, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain said, “I believe it is peace for our time.”
In 1939, the first college football game to be televised was shown on experimental station W2XBS in New York as Fordham University defeated Waynesburg College, 34-7.
In 1949, the Berlin Airlift came to an end.
In 1954, the first nuclear-powered submarine, the USS Nautilus, was commissioned by the U.S. Navy.
In 1962, James Meredith, a black student, was escorted by federal marshals to the campus of the University of Mississippi, where he enrolled for classes the next day; Meredith’s presence sparked rioting that claimed two lives. The National Farm Workers Association, founded by Cesar Chavez and a forerunner of the United Farm Workers, held its first meeting in Fresno, California.
In 1988, Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev retired President Andrei A. Gromyko from the Politburo and fired other old-guard leaders in a Kremlin shake-up.
In 1997, France’s Roman Catholic Church apologized for its silence during the systematic persecution and deportation of Jews by the pro-Nazi Vichy regime.
Ten years ago: Out of jail after 85 days, New York Times reporter Judith Miller testified before a grand jury investigating the leak of CIA operative Valerie Plame’s identity. Six Mexicans were killed in a string of robberies targeting Hispanic immigrants at trailer parks in and around Tifton, Georgia. (Stacey Bernard Sims and Jamie Underwood received long prison sentences for the killings.)
Five years ago: Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton called Guatemalan leaders to apologize for 1940s U.S.-led experiments that infected occupants of a Guatemala mental hospital with syphilis, apparently to test the effectiveness of penicillin against some sexually transmitted diseases. The government of Ecuador declared a state of siege after rebellious police angered by a law that cut their benefits plunged the small South American nation into chaos.
One year ago: Under withering criticism from Congress, Secret Service Director Julia Pierson admitted failures in her agency’s critical mission of protecting the president but repeatedly sidestepped key questions about how a knife-carrying intruder penetrated ring after ring of security before finally being tackled deep inside the White House. U.S. and Afghan officials signed a long-delayed security pact to keep nearly 10,000 American forces in Afghanistan beyond the planned final withdrawal of U.S. and international combat forces at the end of the year. The first case of Ebola diagnosed in the U.S. was confirmed in a patient who had recently traveled from Liberia to Dallas. President Barack Obama showered praise on India’s new prime minister, Narendra Modi, in an Oval Office meeting. California Gov. Jerry Brown signed the nation’s first statewide ban on single-use plastic bags at grocery and convenience stores. Geraldine “Jerrie” Mock, 88, an Ohio homemaker who’d made aviation history by becoming the first female to fly solo around the world in 1964, died in Quincy, Florida.
Today’s Birthdays: Nobel Peace Laureate Elie Wiesel (EL’-ee vee-ZEHL’) is 87. Actress Angie Dickinson is 84. Singer Cissy Houston is 82. Singer Johnny Mathis is 80. Actor Len Cariou is 76. Singer Marilyn McCoo is 72. Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is 70. Pop singer Sylvia Peterson (The Chiffons) is 69. Actor Vondie Curtis-Hall is 65. Actress Victoria Tennant is 65. Actor John Finn is 63. Rock musician John Lombardo is 63. Singer Deborah Allen is 62. Actor Calvin Levels is 61. Actor Barry Williams is 61. Singer Patrice Rushen is 61. Actress Fran Drescher is 58. Country singer Marty Stuart is 57. Actress Debrah Farentino is 56. Rock musician Bill Rieflin (R.E.M.) is 55. Former Sen. Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark., is 55. Actress Crystal Bernard is 54. Actor Eric Stoltz is 54. Rapper-producer Marley Marl is 53. Country singer Eddie Montgomery (Montgomery-Gentry) is 52. Rock singer Trey Anastasio is 51. Actress Monica Bellucci is 51. Rock musician Robby Takac (TAY’-kak) (Goo Goo Dolls) is 51. Actress Lisa Thornhill is 49. Actress Andrea Roth is 48. Actor Silas Weir Mitchell is 46. Actor Tony Hale is 45. Actress Jenna Elfman is 44. Actor Ashley Hamilton is 41. Actress Marion Cotillard (koh-tee-YAHR’) is 40. Actor Stark Sands is 37. Actor Mike Damus is 36. Tennis player Martina Hingis is 35. Olympic gold medal gymnast Dominique Moceanu (moh-chee-AH’-noo) is 34. Actress Lacey Chabert (shuh-BEHR’) is 33. Actor Kieran Culkin is 33. Singer-rapper T-Pain is 31.
Thought for Today: “The idea is to die young as late as possible.” — Ashley Montagu, Anglo-American anthropologist (1905-1999).
