Today in History

1618		Sir Walter Raleigh is executed. After the death of Queen Elizabeth, Raleigh’s enemies spread rumors that he was opposed to the accession of King James.
1787		Mozart’s opera Don Giovanni opens in Prague.
1814		The Demologos, the first steam-powered warship, is launched in New York City.
1901		Leon Czolgosz is electrocuted for the assassination of US President William McKinley. Czolgosz, an anarchist, shot McKinley on September 6 during a public reception at the Temple of Music in Buffalo, N.Y. Despite early hopes of recovery, McKinley died September 14, in Buffalo, NY.
1927		Russian archaeologist Peter Kozloff apparently uncovers the tomb of Genghis Khan in the Gobi Desert, a claim still in dispute.
1929		Black Tuesday takes place–the most catastrophic day in stock market history, the herald of the Great Depression. 16 million shares are sold at declining prices. By mid-November $30 billion of the $80 billion worth of stocks listed in September will have been wiped out.
1945		The first ball-point pen is sold by Gimbell’s department store in New York for a price of $12.
1949		Alonzo G. Moron of the Virgin Islands becomes the first African-American president of Hampton Institute, Hampton, Virginia.
1952		French forces launch Operation Lorraine against a Viet Minh supply bases in Indochina.
1964		Thieves steal a jewel collection–including the world’s largest sapphire, the 565-carat “Star of India,” and the 100-carat DeLong ruby–from the Museum of Natural History in New York. The thieves are caught and most of the jewels recovered.
1969		The U.S. Supreme Court orders immediate desegregation, superseding the previous “with all deliberate speed” ruling.
1969		The first computer-to-computer link is established; the link is accomplished through ARPANET, forerunner of the Internet.
1972		Palestinian guerrillas kill an airport employee and hijack a plane, carrying 27 passengers, to Cuba. They force West Germany to release 3 terrorists who were involved in the Munich Massacre.
1983		More than 500,000 people protest in The Hague, The Netherlands, against cruise missiles.
1986		The last stretch of Britain’s M25 motorway opens.
1998		South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission reports condemn both sides on the Apartheid issue for committing atrocities.
1998		John Glenn, at age 77, becomes the oldest person to go into outer space. He is part of the crew of Space Shuttle Discovery, STS-95.
1998		The deadliest Atlantic hurricane on record up to that time, Hurricane Mitch, makes landfall in Honduras (in 2005 Hurricane Wilma surpassed it); nearly 11,000 people die and approximately the same number go missing.
2004		For the first time, Osama bin Laden admits direct responsibility for the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in the US; his comments are part of a video broadcast by the Al Jazeera network.
2008		Delta and Northwest airlines merge, forming the world’s largest airline.
2012		Hurricane Sandy devastates much of the East Coast of the US; nearly 300 die directly or indirectly from the storm.