Friday, September 18, 2009

Today In History

1759 The French surrendered Quebec to the British.


1793 President George Washington laid the cornerstone of the U.S. Capitol.


1810 Chile declared its independence from Spain.


1850 Congress passed the Fugitive Slave Act, which allowed slaveowners to reclaim slaves who had escaped to other states.


1851 The first edition of The New York Times was published.


1905 Actress Greta Garbo was born in Stockholm, Sweden.


1927 The Columbia Phonograph Broadcasting System (later CBS) debuted with a network of 16 radio stations.


1961 United Nations Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjold was killed in a plane crash in northern Rhodesia.


1970 Rock musician Jimi Hendrix died of a drug overdose at age 27.


1975 Newspaper heiress Patricia Hearst was captured by the FBI in San Francisco, 19 months after being kidnapped by the Symbionese Liberation Army.


1997 Coopers & Lybrand and Price Waterhouse agreed to merge to create the world's biggest accounting firm.


1997 Media mogul Ted Turner pledged $1 billion to the United Nations.


1998 The House Judiciary Committee voted to release a videotape of President Bill Clinton's grand jury testimony.


1999 Sammy Sosa of the Chicago Cubs became the first player in major league baseball history to hit 60 home runs in a season twice.


2003 Hurricane Isabel plowed into North Carolina's Outer Banks with 100-mph winds and pushed its way up the Eastern Seaboard; the storm claimed 40 lives.


2004 Pop singer Britney Spears married dancer Kevin Federline. (The couple divorced in 2007.)

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