Today in History - September 8
Return to home
394 Sep 8,
Arbogast, French general, committed suicide.
(MC, 9/8/01)
701 Sep 8, Sergius I, Syrian
and Italian Pope (687-701), died.
(MC, 9/8/01)
1141 Sep 8, Battle of
Samarkand: Yelutashi defeated Islams.
(MC, 9/8/01)
1157 Sep 8, Richard I, [Richard
the Lion Hearted], King of England (1189-99), was born.
(MC, 9/8/01)
1207 Sep 8, Sancho II, king of
Portugal, was born.
(MC, 9/8/01)
1303 Sep 8, Anagni: French king
Philip IV captured Pope Boniface VIII.
(MC, 9/8/01)
1380 Sep 8, Bernardinus of
Siena, Italian saint, was born.
(MC, 9/8/01)
1380 Sep 8, Prince Dmitrii of
Moscow defeated the Mongols at Kulikovo Field. This marked the
beginning of the decline of Mongol control over Russian lands.
(DVD, Criterion,
1998)(http://fanaticus.org/dba/battles/Kulikovo/index.html)
1474 Sep 8, Ludovico Ariosto,
Italy, poet (Orlando Furioso), was born.
(MC, 9/8/01)
1504 Sep 8, Michelangelo’s
13-foot marble statue of David was unveiled in Florence, Italy.
(HN, 9/8/00)
1522 Sep 8, Spanish navigator
Juan de Elcano returned to Spain. He completed the 1st
circumnavigation of globe, expedition begun under Ferdinand
Magellan. [see Sep 6]
(MC, 9/8/01)
1529 Sep 8, The Ottoman Sultan
Suleiman re-entered Buda and established John Zapolyai as the puppet
king of Hungary.
(HN, 9/8/98)
1555 Sep 8, Thomas Villanova,
Spanish saint and archbishop of Valencia, died.
(MC, 9/8/01)
1565 Sep 8, A Spanish
expedition under Pedro Menendez de Aviles established the first
permanent European colony in the present day St. Augustine, Fla.
Aviles founded St. Augustine on the site of the Timucuan Indian
village of Seloy, 42 years before the English settled at Jamestown
and 55 years before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock. St.
Augustine, Florida is the oldest permanent European settlement in
the US. Castillo de San Marco fortress was built by the Spanish to
defend St. Augustine.
(AP, 9/8/97)(NG, March 1990, p.117)(WSJ, 8/3/95,
p.A-8)(WSJ, 5/21/98, p.A1)
1565 Sep 8, The siege of Malta
was broken. The Turkish army of 40,000 men of Suleyman the
Magnificent besieged the Knights of Malta, led by Jean de la
Valette, at their garrison, St. Elmo. The defenders numbered 540
knights, 400 Spanish troops, and Maltese gentry. In the initial
attack 200 of 260 defenders lay dead at the end of the day but the
garrison held out. The Turks continued their efforts for four months
when reinforcements arrived and saved them. St. Elmo was later
transformed into Valletta, the capital of Malta. The Order of St.
John continues to thrive to today. From a Review of The Knights of
Malta by H.J.A. Sire.
(HFA, '96, p.38)(WSJ, 12/30/94, p.A-6)(AM,
Jul/Aug ‘97 p.40)
1590 Oct 16, Carlo Gesualdo
(~1566-1613), prince of Venosa, murdered his bride and her lover
after catching them in flagrante delicto. In 2010 Glenn Watkins
authored “The Gesualdo Hex: Music, Myth, and Memory.”
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlo_Gesualdo)(Econ, 1/23/10, p.79)
1613 Sep 8, Carlo Gesualdo
(b.~1566), prince of Venosa, died. He was an Italian music composer,
lutenist and nobleman of the late Renaissance and became famous for
his intensely expressive madrigals. In 1590 he murdered his bride
and her lover after catching them in flagrante delicto. In 2010
Glenn Watkins authored “The Gesualdo Hex: Music, Myth, and Memory.”
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlo_Gesualdo)(Econ, 1/23/10, p.79)
1628 Sep 8, John Endecott
arrived with colonists at Salem, Massachusetts, where he would
become the governor.
(HN, 9/8/98)
1636 Sep 8, Harvard College,
the first college in America, was founded as Cambridge College. It
changed its name two years later in honor of the Reverend John
Harvard, who gave the institution three hundred books and a large
sum of money for the day. [see Oct 28]
(MC, 9/8/01)
1664 Sep 8, The Dutch formally
surrendered New Amsterdam to 300 English soldiers. The British soon
renamed it New York.
(AP, 9/8/97)(ON, 4/00, p.3)
1755 Sep 8, British forces
under William Johnson and 250 Indians defeated the French and their
allied Indians at the Battle of Lake George, NY.
(HN, 9/8/98)(SSFC, 4/23/06, p.G6)
1760 Sep 8, The French
surrendered the city of Montreal to British Gen. Jeffrey Amherst.
[see Sep 18, 1759]
(HN, 9/8/98)(MC, 9/8/01)
1771 Sep 8, Mission San Gabriel
Archangel formed in California.
(MC, 9/8/01)
1781 Sep 8, Gen. Nathanael
Greene engaged British forces at Eutaw Springs, South Carolina and
was forced to retreat.
(ON, 12/01, p.10)
1803 Sep 8, A high pressure
steam boiler, made by Richard Trevithick, exploded at a corn mill in
Greenwich, England, and 3 men were killed. A worker had left a heavy
wrench on the safety valve and gone fishing.
(ON, 4/04, p.5)
1815 Sep 8, Alexander Ramsey
(d.1903), territorial governor of Minnesota (1849-1853), was born
near Harrisburg, Pa.
(www.bioguide.congress.gov)
1828 Sep 8, Joshua Lawrence
Chamberlain, Bvt. Major General (Union volunteers), hero of Little
Round Top at Gettysburg, was born.
(MC, 9/8/01)
1829 Sep 8, George Crook
(d.1890), Major General (Union volunteers), was born.
(MC, 9/8/01)
1833 Sep 8, Charles Darwin
departed to Buenos Aires.
(MC, 9/8/01)
1841 Sep 8, Antonin Dvorak
(d.1904), Czech composer and violinist, was born in Nelahozeves. His
work included the “New World Symphony.”
(WUD, 1994 p.444)(HN, 9/8/00)(MC, 9/8/01)
1845 Sep 8, A French column
surrendered at Sidi Brahim in the Algerian War.
(HN, 9/8/98)
1847 Sep 8, The US under Gen.
Scott defeated Mexicans at Battle of Molino del Rey.
(MC, 9/8/01)
1858 Sep 8, Lincoln made a
speech about when you can fool people.
(MC, 9/8/01)
1863 Sep 8, Federal troops
reconquered the Cumberland Gap, Tennessee.
(MC, 9/8/01)
1863 Sep 8, Battle of Telford's
Depot, Ten.
(MC, 9/8/01)
1863 Sep 8, Confederate
Lieutenant Dick Dowling thwarted a Union naval landing at Sabine
Pass, northeast of Galveston, Texas.
(HN, 9/8/98)
1866 Sep 8, Siegfried Sassoon,
British author and poet famous for his anti-war writing about World
War I, was born. His work included “Counterattack.”
(HN, 9/8/98)(MC, 9/8/01)
1868 Sep 8, The NY Athletic
Club formed.
(MC, 9/8/01)
1875 Sep 8, An explosion
destroyed the Newark, NJ, factory of the Celluloid Manufacturing Co.
The Hyatt brothers rebuilt the factory and it turned profitable in
1877.
(ON, 11/03, p.4)
1883 Sep 8, The Northern
Pacific Railway celebrated the completion of its east-west line with
a Gold Spike at Gold Creek in central Montana. Guests included
Frederick Billings, Ulysses S. Grant, and the family of abolitionist
William Lloyd Garrison.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Pacific_Railway)
1889 Sep 8, Robert A. Taft,
U.S. Republican Senator from Ohio, was born. He unsuccessfully
sought the presidential nomination in 1952 and helped pass the 1947
Taft-Hartley Act. He was the son of the 27th president of the U.S.
William Howard Taft. Robert was known as “Mr. Republican” because of
his steadfast espousal of traditional conservative values. Taft was
a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination three times
and served in the Senate from 1938 until his death in 1953. Taft
consistently opposed the New Deal program, led the Congressional
isolationist bloc and fought the Lend-Lease bill.
(HN, 9/8/98)(HNQ, 7/8/99)(MC, 9/8/01)
1899 Sep 8, The British
government sent an additional 10,000 troops to Natal South Africa.
(MC, 9/8/01)
1892 Sep 8, An early version of
"The Pledge of Allegiance" appeared in "The Youth’s Companion,"
published in Boston and edited by Francis Bellamy, a Christian
socialist, and cousin of writer Edward Bellamy. James Upham
(d.1906), Bellamy’s supervisor, collaborated on the pledge. Frank E.
Bellamy (1876-1915) of Cherryvale High School in Kansas had authored
a 500-word patriotic essay which included the words of the Pledge of
Allegiance and instructions on saluting the American Flag. His
teacher entered the "Salute to the Flag" in a contest sponsored by
the popular scholastic publication The Youth's Companion. His essay
won first place in this national school contest. [see Oct 12]
(AP, 9/8/97)(SSFC, 6/30/02,
p.A3)(www.leatherockhotel.com/FrankBellamy.htm)(WSJ, 7/6/04, p.A23)
1895 Sep 8, Adam Opel (58),
German manufacturer of sewing machines and bicycles, died. In 1899
the firm acquired a car factory.
(MC, 9/8/01)(www.histomobile.com)
1900 Sep 8, Claude Pepper,
Democratic senator and congressman from Florida, champion of senior
citizens rights, was born.
(HN, 9/8/98)
1900 Sep 8, Some 6,000-8,000
people were killed in Galveston by flying debris, collapsing
buildings and drowning. The storm let up around midnight, leaving in
its wake $30 million in damage and thousands of bodies. Many of the
dead had to be hastily dumped in the ocean for fear of spreading
disease. Bishop's Palace in Galveston, Texas, remained standing amid
piles of rubble after the island city suffered the greatest natural
disaster in U.S. history. By nightfall, winds reached 125 mph and
the city was under 15 feet of water. The storm battered Galveston
for 18 hours and some 3,600 buildings were destroyed. Reports of the
storm failed to reach Galveston because the US Weather Service had
temporarily banned the cable transmission of Cuban weather reports.
In 1999 Erik Larson published "Isaac's Storm."
(AP, 9/8/97)(HNPD, 9/8/98)(SFC, 11/30/98,
p.A2)(WSJ, 9/3/99, p.W8)(SFC, 9/22/05, p.A17)
1903 Sep 8, Between 30,000 and
50,000 Bulgarian men, women and children were massacred in Monastir
by Turkish troops seeking to check a threatened Macedonian uprising.
(HN, 9/8/98)
1906 Sep 8, Robert Turner
invented the automatic typewriter return carriage.
(HN, 9/8/98)
1907 Sep 8, Pius X published
his anti-modernism encyclical Pasceni dominici gregis.
(MC, 9/8/01)
1910 Sep 8, Jean-Louis
Barrault, director and actor (Les Enfants du Paradis), was born in
Vesinet, France.
(MC, 9/8/01)
1914 Sep 8, Pvt. Thomas
Highgate (18) was the first British soldier in the war to be shot
for desertion. He had become separated from his unit, but said he
was trying to rejoin it when he was detained. In 2006 the British
government prepared to pardon 305 men who were hauled before firing
squads in World War I for desertion or cowardice after summary
trials.
(AP, 8/16/06)
1915 Sep 8, Germany began a new
offensive in Argonne on the Western Front.
(HN, 9/8/98)
1917 Sep 8, Eugene Bullard,
aviator, was born in Columbus, Georgia. He emigrated to France and
became the first African-American combat aviator when he flew a
reconnaissance mission over the city of Metz, France. He was
credited with one confirmed "kill," a German Pfalz he shot down over
Verdun.
(MC, 9/8/01)
1920 Sep 8, New York-to-San
Francisco air mail service was inaugurated. US postal planes began
flying across the country, but these flights took place only in
daylight because pilots relied on visual landmarks to navigate.
(www.centennialofflight.gov/essay/Government_Role/1918-1924/POL3.htm)(AP,
9/8/00)
1921 Sep 8, Margaret Gorman of
Washington, D.C., was crowned the first Miss America in Atlantic
City, N.J.
(AP, 9/8/97)(HN, 9/8/98)
1922 Sep 8, Sid Caesar,
comedian and television star, best known for "Your Show of Shows,"
and "The Sid Caesar Show,” was born in Yonkers, NY.
(HN, 9/8/98)(MC, 9/8/01)
1923 Sep 8, Seven of the 15
ships of Destroyer Squadron 11 were wrecked on a rocky point on the
California Santa Barbara County coast. 23 sailors were killed.
(SFC, 9/9/98, p.D2)
1925 Sep 8, Peter Sellers,
English comic actor, was born in Southsea, Hampshire, England. He
became famous for his role as Inspector Clouseau.
(HN, 9/8/00)
1925 Sep 8, Germany was
admitted into the League of Nations. Joseph Avenol,
secretary-general of the League of Nations, sold out the
organization he had sworn to uphold.
(HN, 9/8/98)
1926 Sep 8, The League of
Nations Assembly voted unanimously to admit Germany.
(MC, 9/8/01)
1927 Sep 8, A woman arrived in
SF from China and claimed to be Gen. Chiang Kai-shek’s wife, who
declared that he had divorced his legal wife in 1921 and freed 2
concubines this year.
(SFC, 9/20/02, p.E6)
1929 Sep 8, Christoph von
Dohnanyi, conductor and pianist (Cleve Orchestra), was born in
Berlin, Germany.
(MC, 9/8/01)
1930 Sep 8, Cartoonist Murat
"Chic" Young (d.1973) introduced the cartoon strip "Blondie." In
2005 it was written seven days a week by his son, Dean, who took
over when his father died, and artist Denis Lebrun.
(AP, 9/8/99)(AP, 7/17/05)
1930 Sep 8, NYC public schools
began teaching Hebrew.
(MC, 9/8/01)
1930 Sep 8, Richard Drew
created Scotch tape.
(MC, 9/8/01)
1932 Sep 8, Patsy Cline
(d.1963), country singer, was born in Winchester, Va. Her hits
included “Crazy” and “I Fall to Pieces.”
(HN, 9/8/00)(MC, 9/8/01)
1933 Sep 8, Michael Frayn,
playwright, was born. His work included “A Very Private Life” and
“Noises Off.”
(HN, 9/8/00)
1934 Sep 8, Peter Maxwell
Davies, composer (Prolation, Taverner), was born in Manchester,
England.
(MC, 9/8/01)
1934 Sep 8, 134 people lost
their lives in a fire aboard the liner Morro Castle off the New
Jersey coast. The crew of the cruise ship let a small blaze get out
of control and commandeered most of the spots in the lifeboats. Only
15 passengers survived as compared to 119 crew. 124 people died. The
event was part of a 1999 TV documentary "Escape, Because Accident
Happen" for a NOVA miniseries. [see Sep 7]
(AP, 9/8/97)(WSJ, 2/8/99, p.A21)
1935 Sep 8, The Hoboken Four,
featuring Frank Sinatra as lead singer, appeared on "Major Bowes
Amateur Hour" on WOR radio.
(MC, 9/8/01)
1935 Sep 8, Sen. Huey P. Long,
"The Kingfish" of Louisiana politics, was shot and mortally wounded
in Baton Rouge allegedly by Dr. Carl Austin Weiss, Jr.; he died two
days later ending what might have been a prominent national career.
It was suspected that Dr. Weiss was acting in revenge against Long's
public slandering of his father. The 1996 documentary film “Huey
Long” by Ken Burns was about the Louisiana politician who wanted to
redistribute wealth and make every man a king.
(TMC, 1994, p.1935)(AP, 9/8/97)(SFEC, 3/8/98, DB
p.47)(HN, 9/8/98)
1935 Sep 8, Carl Austin Weiss,
murderer of Sen Huey Long, was shot down.
(MC, 9/8/01)
1937 Sep 8, The Pan Arab
conference about Palestine opened.
(MC, 9/8/01)
1939 Sep 8, President Franklin
D. Roosevelt declared a "limited national emergency" in response to
the outbreak of war in Europe.
(AP, 9/8/99)
1939 Sep 8, Gen. Von
Reichenau's panzer division reached the suburbs of Warsaw.
(MC, 9/8/01)
1941 Sep 8, The 900-day Siege
of Leningrad by German forces began during World War II. The Siege
of Leningrad, 400 miles northwest of Moscow, took place with Germany
spread along a 2,000 mile front. It led to the death of at least one
million Russians from starvation and disease. Leningrad was renamed
back to St. Petersburg in 1991. In 2011 Anna Reid authored
“Leningrad: The Epic Siege of World War II.”
(WSJ, 2/21/96, p.A-15)(AP, 9/8/06)(Econ, 8/27/11,
p.73)
1941 Sep 8, The entire Jewish
community of Meretsch, Lithuania, was exterminated.
(MC, 9/8/01)
1943 Sep 8, Italy surrendered
to the Allies in WW II.
(www.naval-history.net/WW2CampaignsItaly.htm)
1944 Sep 8, Germany's V-2
offensive against England began. The 1st V-2 rockets landed in
London & Antwerp.
(HN, 9/8/98)(MC, 9/8/01)
1944 Sep 8, Erwin von Witzleben
(62), German field marshal, was hanged.
(MC, 9/8/01)
1945 Sep 8, Jose Feliciano,
blind singer, was born in Lares, Puerto Rico.
(www.fact-index.com)
1945 Sep 8, Bess Myerson of New
York was crowned Miss America, the first Jewish contestant to win
the title.
(AP, 9/8/99)
1945 Sep 8, Hideki Tojo,
Japanese PM during most of WW II, failed in his attempted suicide
rather than face war crimes tribunal attempt. He was later hanged.
(MC, 9/8/01)
1945 Sep 8, Korea was
partitioned by the Soviet Union and the United States. The US
invaded Japanese-held Korea.
(HN, 9/8/98)(MC, 9/8/01)
1946 Sep 8, In San Francisco
four boys playing near the Paramount Theater found a package
containing body parts of Ramon Lopez (52), a flower dealer from San
Leandro. Police found 14 pairs of nylons at his room in the Mint
Hotel. His skull was found 18 years later at Hunters Point.
(SFC, 2/17/09, p.A11)
1946 Sep 8, Bulgaria ended its
monarchy. The monarchy was abolished in a referendum called by
communists installed by the Soviet Army. Georgi Dimitrov became the
1st premier of communist Bulgaria. In 2003 Ivo Banac edited "The
Diary of Georgi Dimitrov."
(SFC, 2/29/00, p.A19)(MC, 9/8/01)(WSJ, 6/6/03,
p.W9)
1947 Sep 8, Ann Beattie,
writer, was born. Her work included “Chilly Scenes of Winter” and
“Picturing Will.”
(HN, 9/8/00)
1947 Sep 8, British government
sailed the "Exodus" with fugitives from Nazis.
(MC, 9/8/01)
1949 Sep 8, Richard Strauss,
German composer (Also Sprach Zarathustra), died at 85.
(MC, 9/8/01)
1951 Sep 8, A formal Treaty of
Peace was signed by 48 nations of the United Nations and Japan at
the War Memorial Opera House in San Francisco. On the same day the
US and Japan signed a Joint Security Pact at the Presidio. The
Soviet delegation refused to sign and said the deal provided for the
exclusive existence of American military bases in Japan.
(Park, Spring/95, p.2)(AP, 9/8/97)(Ind, 9/8/01,
5A)
1951 Sep 8, Jurgen Stroop, Nazi
exterminator of Warsaw Ghetto, was hanged on site of the ghetto.
(MC, 9/8/01)
1952 Sep 8, The Ernest
Hemingway novel "The Old Man and the Sea" was published. Hemingway
won the Pulitzer Prize for the work in 1953.
(TL, 1988, p.114)(SFEC, 7/18/99, p.D5) (AP,
9/8/99)
1954 Sep 8, SEATO (Southeast
Asia Treaty Organization), a sister organization to NATO, was
created under the Manila Pact by the Southeast Asia Collective
Defense Treaty, to stop communist spread in Southeast Asia (Vietnam,
Cambodia and Laos). The United States, Australia, France, Great
Britain, New Zealand, the Philippines, Pakistan, and Thailand signed
the mutual defense treaty. SEATO dissolved in 1977.
(HNQ, 4/2/01)(http://tinyurl.com/hpawj)
1955 Sep 8, The Brooklyn
Dodgers won the National League pennant, the earliest a team had
achieved this.
(MC, 9/8/01)
1956 Sep 8, Harry Belafonte's
album "Calypso," went to #1 and stayed #1 for 31 weeks.
(MC, 9/8/01)
1957 Sep 8, Pope Pius XII
posted his encyclical On motion pictures, radio, TV.
(MC, 9/8/01)
1960 Sep 8, NASA’s Marshall
Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., was dedicated by President
Dwight D. Eisenhower. This followed the activation of the facility
in July of that year, when a key element of the U.S. Army’s
Ballistic Missile Agency was transferred from the Department of
Defense to NASA. The Marshall Center is named in honor of
General George C. Marshall, who was the Army Chief of Staff during
World War II, U.S. Secretary of State, and a Nobel Prize winner for
his post-World War II “Marshall Plan.”
(NASA PR, 8/22/00)
1960 Sep 8, Penguin Books in
Britain was charged with obscenity for trying to publish the D.H.
Lawrence novel “Lady Chatterly’s Lover.”
(HN, 9/8/00)
1960 Sep 8, German DR limited
access to East-Berlin for West Berliners.
(MC, 9/8/01)
1960 Sep 8, Jussi Bjorling,
Swedish epic tenor (Manrico, Cavaradossi, Faust, Rodolfo, Riccardo,
Romeo), died of heart failure at 49.
(MC, 9/8/01)
1961 Sep 8, Frank Rosenthal
(1929-2008), friend of Chicago mobsters, appeared before a Senate
hearing on gambling and organized crime. He invoked the Fifth
Amendment 38 times.
(SFC, 10/17/08, p.B8)
1965 Sep 8, An AFL-CIO
affiliated Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee (AWOC), a union
of mostly Filipino workers, voted to go on strike in Delano, Ca.
They were joined after eleven days by Cesar Chavez and the National
Farm Workers Assoc. In 1967 John Gregory Dunne (1932-2003) authored
"Delano," an account of the California grape strike.
(SFEC,10/19/97, p.C3)(SFC, 1/1/04, p.A23)
1965 Sep 8, Dorothy Danridge,
actress (Island in the Sun), died at 41 in Hollywood.
(MC, 9/8/01)
1966 Sep 8, The television
series “Star Trek” premiered on NBC with the episode "The Man Trap".
(AP, 9/8/01)
1966 Sep 8, The situation
comedy "That Girl" starring Marlo Thomas premiered on ABC-TV.
(AP, 9/8/06)
1968 Sep 8, In Poland Ryszard
Siwiec (b.1909), accountant, teacher and anti-communist protester,
self immolated in front of some 10,000 spectators during the
national harvest festival at the Dziesieciolecia football stadium.
He died 4 days later at a hospital.
(Econ, 10/10/09,
p.55)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryszard_Siwiec)
1971 Sep 8, The Kennedy Center,
begun in 1964, officially opened in Washington, DC. A performance of
Leonard Bernstein’s Mass was held there three days earlier. The $71
million structure was designed by Edward Durell. The cultural center
was promoted at Kennedy’s request by Roger L. Stevens (1910-1998).
Congress had designated it a national monument to Pres. Kennedy
following his assassination.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kennedy_Center_for_the_Performing_Arts)(SFC,
8/27/01, p.E4)
1971 Sep 8, Pres. Nixon told
John Ehrlichman to investigate the tax returns of rich Jews
contributing to the democratic campaigns of Humphrey and Muskie.
(SFEC, 12/8/96, p.A14)
1972 Sep 8, The Int’l. Olympic
Committee banned Vince Matthews and Wayne Collett from further
competition for talking to each other on the victory stand in Munich
during the playing of the "Star-Spangled Banner" after winning the
gold and silver medals in the 400-meter run.
(AP, 9/8/02)
1973 Sep 8, The first Whitbread
Round the World Race for yachts began at Portsmouth, England.
(WSJ, 9/19/97,
p.A20)(www.solarnavigator.net/history/whitbread_round_the_world_race.htm)
1974 Sep 8, President Gerald
Ford pardoned former President Richard M. Nixon for any crimes
arising from the Watergate scandal he may have committed while in
office.
(AP, 9/8/97)(HN, 9/8/98)
1974 Sep 8, Evel Knievel
(b.1938) attempted to jump the Snake River Canyon in Idaho on his
rocket-powered motorcycle. He failed and parachuted down.
(WSJ, 8/22/01,
p.A1)(www.evelknievel.com/bio.html)
1974 Sep 8, In Italy Renato
Curcio and another Red Brigades leader were arrested.
(WSJ, 12/13/07, p.A18)
1975 Sep 8, Leonard Matlovich
(b.1943) appeared in his Air Force uniform on the cover of Time
magazine. He challenged the ban against homosexuals in the US
military and was given a "general" discharge by the Air Force after
publicly declaring his homosexuality. NBC subsequently made a TV
movie of his story. His suit dragged on until 1980 when a federal
judge ordered Matlovich reinstated. Instead of re-entering the Air
Force, Matlovich accepted a settlement of $160,000. Matlovich became
a gay rights activist and dies of AIDS in 1988."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard_Matlovich)(www.glinn.com/news/tline5.htm)
1975 Sep 8, Boston's public
schools began their court-ordered citywide busing program amid
scattered incidents of violence.
(AP, 9/8/97)
1976 Sep 8, Joaquin Zamacois
Soler (b,1894), Spanish composer, died.
(http://ca.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joaquim_Zamacois_i_Soler)
1977 Sep 8, Zero Mostel
(b.1915), Brooklyn-born stage and film comedian, died of a heart
attack.
(SFC, 12/30/99,
p.E3)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero_Mostel)
1978 Sep 8, The Shah's troops
opened fire on protesters in Tehran, killing several hundred
demonstrators.
(http://tinyurl.com/hc3fc)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iranian_Revolution)
1979 Sep 8, Jean Seberg
(b.1939), actress (Breathless, Airport), committed suicide at 40.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Seberg)
1981 Sep 8, Civil rights
activist Roy Wilkins (80), former head of the NAACP, died in NYC.
(AP, 9/8/01)
1985 Sep 8, Pete Rose of the
Cincinnati Reds tied Ty Cobb's career record for hits with a single
for No. 4,191 during a game against the Cubs in Chicago.
(AP, 9/8/99)
1986 Sep 8, Oprah Winfrey began
her syndicated TV talk show.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Oprah_Winfrey_Show)(SSFC, 2/11/01,
BR p.1)
1986 Sep 8, Westinghouse sold
Muzak.
(http://tinyurl.com/y3thhl)
1987 Sep 8, Former Democratic
presidential candidate Gary Hart admitted during an interview on
ABC's "Nightline" that he had committed adultery and said he had no
plans to resume his White House bid.
(AP, 9/8/97)
1988 Sep 8, A. Bartlett
Giamatti, the National League president, was named to succeed Peter
Ueberroth as baseball’s 7th commissioner.
(AP, 9/8/98)
1988 Sep 8, Two nuclear-missile
rocket motors were destroyed at an army ammunition plant in Karnack,
Texas; they were the first US weapons to be eliminated under an arms
reduction treaty with the Soviet Union.
(AP, 9/8/08)
1989 Sep 8, Former President
Reagan underwent surgery at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota to relieve
fluid build-up on his brain after a horse-riding accident.
(AP, 9/8/99)
1990 Sep 8, Gabriela Sabatini
won the US Open women’s championship and her first grand slam title
as she defeated Steffi Graf.
(AP, 9/8/00)
1990 Sep 8, Marjorie Judith
Vincent of Illinois was crowned Miss America.
(AP, 9/8/00)
1990 Sep 8, President Bush and
Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev arrived in Helsinki, Finland,
for a one-day summit sparked by the Persian Gulf crisis.
(AP, 9/8/00)
1991 Sep 8, Stefan Edberg won
the U.S. Open in New York, defeating Jim Courier in straight sets,
6-2, 6-4, 6-0.
(AP, 9/8/01)
1991 Sep 8, A 55 ton concrete
beam fell in Montreal's Olympic Stadium.
(http://experts.about.com/e/s/st/Stade_Olympique.htm)
1991 Sep 8, More than 40 people
were reported killed in factional fighting around Johannesburg,
South Africa.
(AP, 9/8/01)
1992 Sep 8, President Bush
asked Congress to provide more than $7.6 billion to help Hurricane
Andrew recovery efforts.
(AP, 9/8/97)
1992 Sep 8, Sen. Quentin
Burdick, D-N.D., died at age 84.
(AP, 9/8/97)
1992 Sep 8, In a case that
prompted federal laws against carjacking, Pam Basu of Savage, Md.,
was dragged to her death after being forced from her car.
(AP, 9/8/97)
1993 Sep 8, German tourist
Uwe-Wilhelm Rakebrand was killed by a woman firing from a van as he
and his wife drove away from the Miami airport. The gunwoman and an
accomplice received life prison sentences; the van's driver received
87 years.
(AP, 9/8/98)
1993 Sep 8, Christopher Simmons
(17), a Missouri high school student, kidnapped, bound and killed
Shirley Crooks by throwing her into a river from a railroad trestle.
He was arrested the next day, confessed and 9 months later was
sentenced to death. In 2003 the Missouri supreme Court changed the
sentence to life in prison due to Simmons’ age. In 2005 the Supreme
Court ruled against the execution of minors.
(SFC, 11/4/04, p.B3)(Econ, 3/5/05, p.31)
1993 Sep 8, Black gunmen in
South Africa launched a series of attacks on black commuters,
claiming two dozen lives.
(AP, 9/8/98)
1994 Sep 8, A US Air Boeing 737
from Chicago crashed near Pittsburgh Int’l. Airport and killed all
132 people onboard. USAir Flight 427 crashed 6 minutes before it was
due to land. In 2002 Bill Adair authored “The Mystery of Flight
427.”
(SFC, 5/12/96, p.A-14)(AP, 9/8/97)(SFC, 11/13/01,
p.A12)(WSJ, 5/23/02, p.D7)
1994 Sep 8, The last US,
British & French troops left West-Berlin.
(MC, 9/8/01)
1995 Sep 8, It was reported
that a lifeless zone in the Gulf of Mexico has grown to more than
7,000 sq. miles, nearly the size of New Jersey. It was caused by
chemical and fertilizer runoff from US agriculture into the
Mississippi River. "An analysis of data from six major farm states
showed a significant correlation between (farm) subsidies and
increased chemical and fertilizer use." The subsidies encouraged
farmers to increase yield on less acreage.
(WSJ, 9/8/95, p.A-10)
1995 Sep 8, Bosnia’s warring
sides reached a compromise in Geneva, agreeing to divide the nation
into two states: one for the rebel Serbs and another for the Muslims
and Croats.
(AP, 9/8/00)
1996 Sep 8, NBC's "Frasier" won
its third consecutive Emmy for best TV comedy; "ER" was named best
drama. In the 48th Emmy Awards the winners included Dennis Franz
& Kathy Baker.
(AP, 9/8/97)(MC, 9/8/01)
1996 Sep 8, At the U.S. Open,
Pete Sampras defeated Michael Chang and Steffi Graf beat Monica
Seles to win the top prizes.
(AP, 9/8/97)
1996 Sep 8, Okinawans voted
more than 10-to-1 in favor of a reduction of U.S. military bases on
their islands, in a referendum aimed at pressuring Washington to
pull out its troops.
(AP, 9/8/97)
1996 Sep 8, In Tanzania bandits
ambushed, clubbed and robbed 25 tourists in the Serengeti National
Park.
(SFC, 9/13/96, p.A14)
1997 Sep 8, The TV series “Ally
McBeal” starred Calista Flockhart as a working girl who was part
successful attorney and part angst-ridden woman. The show continued
to 2002.
(LSA, Spring, 2009,
p.45)(www.imdb.com/title/tt0118254/)
1997 Sep 8, Lawyers in the
Paula Jones case against Pres. Clinton decided to quit the suit
after Jones refused to accept a financial settlement.
(SFC, 9/9/97, p.A3)
1997 Sep 8, Monday commuters in
and around San Francisco faced huge traffic jams a day after workers
for the Bay Area's commuter rail system went on strike. An agreement
ending the walkout was reached five days later.
(AP, 9/8/98)
1997 Sep 8, Forbes Mag. listed
Steven Spielberg as the best paid figure, $313 Mil, in the
entertainment business in 1997.
(SFC, 9/9/97, p.E2)
1997 Sep 8, It was announced
the America Online Inc. (AOL) would take over Compuserve in a 3-way
deal that involved WorldCom.
(SFC, 9/8/97, p.A3)(AP, 9/8/98)
1997 Sep 8, John Liebeskind
(62) died in LA. He was a leading researcher in the study of pain
and found that the brain controls pain by creating a chemical now
known as an endorphin.
(SFC, 9/22/97, p.A10)
1997 Sep 8, In France a
passenger train collided with a gasoline truck in Perigord town and
killed at least 12 people and injured 39.
(WSJ, 9/9/97, p.A1)
1997 Sep 8, From Guatemala it
was reported that a new rebel group emerged in the Chajul region
calling itself the Guerrilla Command Force ‘97.
(SFC, 9/8/97, p.A8)
1997 Sep 8, In Haiti the ferry,
Pride of Gonave, sank in the Saint Marc Channel off Montrouis. The
60-foot vessel was chartered for only 80 passengers. The recovered
bodies numbered 170. A Haitian ferry, the Pride of Gonave, capsized,
killing about three-quarters of the 200 people aboard.
(SFC, 9/9/97, p.A10)(SFC, 9/10/97, p.A10)(WSJ,
9/17/97, p.A1)(AP, 9/8/98)
1997 Sep 8, In Japan Prime
Minister Hashimoto won re-election as head of the Liberal Democrats.
(WSJ, 9/9/97, p.A1)
1997 Sep 8, In Liberia some
200,000 refugees from Sierra Leone had spilled over from escalating
violence.
(WSJ, 9/9/97, p.A1)
1997 Sep 8, In Mexico the Fox
and Jaguar SWAT police in Mexico City engaged in a gun fight with a
neighborhood gang. One young man and one police officer died. Police
seized 6 youths and 3 were found dead the next day with gunshot
wounds to the head. Three more were found dead on Sep 29. On Oct 3
nineteen members of the police force were arraigned for the
executions. Three ranking officers were later arrested due to
contradictory and misleading statements.
(SFC, 10/4/97, p.A8)(SFC,11/19/97, p.A14)
1998 Sep 8, Mark McGwire his
62nd home run off Chicago Cubs pitcher Steve Trachsel in St. Louis
and broke the 1961 record set by Roger Maris.
(SFC, 9/9/98, p.A1)(AP, 9/8/99)
1998 Sep 8, In Fayetteville,
North Carolina 2 women’s clinics that performed abortions were
attacked with firebombs.
(SFC, 9/9/98, p.A2)
1998 Sep 8, David Logie (37),
an Army major from North Carolina was beaten, robbed and killed by 2
couples on their way to Mexico. In 2010 Billy Galloway and Kevin
Varga were executed for their role in the murder of Logie.
(http://off2dr.com/smf/index.php?topic=7221.0)(SFC, 5/14/10, p.A6)
1998 Sep 8, In Brazil 110 miles
northwest of Sao Paulo at least 53 people were killed when a truck
carrying flammable liquid exploded on a highway and engulfed 2
chartered buses. 38 people were hospitalized.
(WSJ, 9/9/98, p.A1)
1998 Sep 8, In Phnom Penh,
Cambodia, police scattered demonstrators and ended a 2-week protest
against alleged fraud in the national elections. Protestors called
their tent city Democracy Square and thousands participated with
hopes of launching a people-power revolution.
(SFC, 9/9/98, p.A8)
1998 Sep 8, The Congo rebel
delegation stormed out of the peace talks in Zimbabwe.
(SFC, 9/9/98, p.A9)
1998 Sep 8, In Malaysia the
market index fell a record 21.5%, 95.5 points to 349.56. A
regulatory reprieve gave foreigners their first chance to sell since
capital controls were imposed on Sep 1.
(WSJ, 9/8/98, p.A14)
1998 Sep 8, In Mexico a flood
in Chiapas left 25 people dead and Gov. Roberto Albores Guillen
declared a disaster zone along the Pacific Coast. 6 other people
were confirmed dead from flooding in Veracruz and Jalisco.
(SFC, 9/9/98, p.A9)
1998 Sep 8, Serb forces opened
an offensive on Kosovo’s border with Albania and 2 people were
reported killed in Prilep.
(WSJ, 9/9/98, p.A1)
1999 Sep 8, Former New Jersey
Senator Bill Bradley officially kicked off his campaign for the
Democratic presidential nomination with a rally in his hometown of
Crystal City, Missouri.
(AP, 9/8/00)
1999 Sep 8, Economist Herbert
Stein, who served as chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers in
the Nixon administration, died in Washington DC at age 83.
(AP, 9/8/00)
1999 Sep 8, The Bank of England
raised short-term interest rates to 5.25%.
(WSJ, 9/9/99, p.A18)
1999 Sep 8, In East Timor the
UN delayed a pull out over concern for some 2,000 people gathered in
its compound in Dili. Officials estimated that some 200,000 people
had fled East Timor.
(SFC, 9/9/99, p.A1)(WSJ, 9/9/99, p.A1)
1999 Sep 8, In Israel the
parliament approved the amended Wye River accord.
(WSJ, 9/9/99, p.A1)
1999 Sep 8, In Serbia mortar
rounds in eastern Kosovo left 2 Serbs dead and 4 wounded.
(WSJ, 9/9/99, p.A1)
2000 Sep 8, The US Bureau of
Indian Affairs marked its 175th birthday and Kevin Grover, head of
the bureau, offered a formal apology to American Indians for the
misdeeds of the agency that included massacres, forced relocations
of tribes and attempts to wipe out Indian cultures.
(SFC, 9/9/00, p.A3)(AP, 9/8/01)
2000 Sep 8, The space shuttle
Atlantis blasted into orbit to deliver supplies to the new int’l.
space station.
(SFC, 9/9/00, p.A3)
2000 Sep 8, In China the
government of Shaanxi province appropriated 123 Zhong Gong
properties and land worth $36.5 million.
(SFC, 9/9/00, p.A12)
2000 Sep 8, In China a truck
carrying explosives blew up in Urumqi. 100 casualties were reported.
(SFC, 9/9/00, p.A12)
2000 Sep 8, In Ecuador the
dollar became the official currency for business transactions.
Sucres would still be exchangeable at banks for 6 months. Inflation
for the year was projected to be at least 85.4%.
(SFC, 9/8/00, p.D2)
2000 Sep 8, In the Philippines
Abu Sayyaf rebels freed 4 more hostages held since April 23. Libya
paid a reported $1 million per hostage. The hostages later reported
that rebels had raped female hostages.
(SFC, 9/9/00, p.A10)(SFEC, 9/10/00, p.C15)(SFC,
9/11/00, p.A14)
2000 Sep 8, In Russia Defense
Minister Igor Sergeyev confirmed that a troop reduction of
350,000 was to be completed by 2003.
(SFC, 9/9/00, p.A10)
2000 Sep 8, In Russia alleged
crime boss Gocha Tsagarenshvili was gunned down in St. Petersburg.
(SFC, 9/9/00, p.A12)
2000 Sep 8, In Rwanda 51
civilians were killed by government troops retreating from Dongo.
Ugandan-backed Congolese rebels later discovered the bodies.
(SFC, 9/16/00, p.A12)
2000 Sep 8, Tuvalu was reported
to have become the 189th member of the United Nations. The country
consisted of 10 square miles on 9 atolls with a population of 9,000.
(SFC, 9/8/00, p.A12)
2000 Sep 8, The UN Millennium
Summit ended in NYC with the adoption of an 8-page plan, the
Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) to cure the world’s direst
problems. Pledges were made to halve the proportion of people in
poverty, to reverse the spread of AIDS, and to strengthen the UN’s
ability to keep peace. The plan under Jeffrey Sachs proposed 7 basic
reforms to improve lives and provide livelihoods.
(SFC, 9/9/00, p.A1)(AP, 9/8/01)(Econ, 1/22/05,
p.69)(Econ, 4/29/06, p.52)
2001 Sep 8, Venus Williams won
her second consecutive U.S. Open title by beating her sister Serena
6-2, 6-4 in the first prime-time women's Grand Slam final.
(AP, 9/8/02)
2001 Sep 8, In San Francisco a
ceremony marked the 50th anniversary of the Treaty of Peace with
Japan.
(SSFC, 9/9/01, p.A1)
2001 Sep 8, In Afghanistan 8
foreigners arrested for preaching Christianity appeared in an
Islamic court for the 1st time.
(SSFC, 9/9/01, p.A14)
2001 Sep 8, In Colombia police
arrested 4 FARC guerrillas who allegedly planned to kill
presidential candidate Alvaro Uribe.
(SSFC, 9/9/01, p.A17)
2001 Sep 8, In Kanpur, India,
some 6,000 Dalits, converted to Buddhism.
(SFC, 9/10/01, p.B2)
2001 Sep 8, In Indonesia Pres.
Megawati Sukarnoputri visited Banda Aceh and apologized for past
government mistakes. She urged residents to welcome new laws
granting the region its own legal system and a greater share of the
oil income.
(SSFC, 9/9/01, p.A14)
2001 Sep 8, Israeli helicopters
fired missiles at offices of the Fatah in Ramallah. Palestinian
police said a 13-year-old boy was killed by Israeli gunfire n Rafah.
(SSFC, 9/9/01, p.A18)
2001 Sep 8, In Serbia 26
unidentified bodies were exhumed from a site near Lake Perucac. They
were believed to be bodies of ethnic Albanians from the 1999
crackdown in Kosovo.
(SFC, 9/10/01, p.B2)
2001 Sep 8, In South Africa the
UN World Conference on Racism ended and agreed to condemn the
“barbarism” of the slave trade, proposed an aid package for Africa,
recognized Palestinian rights and Israeli security concerns, opposed
bias against ethnic minorities, refugees, indigenous peoples and
women.
(SSFC, 9/9/01, p.A1)
2001 Sep 8, In Zimbabwe
militants seized the Logan Lee farm in Beatrice.
(SSFC, 9/9/01, p.A18)
2002 Sep 8, Pete Sampras beat
Andre Agassi (news) 6-3, 6-4, 5-7, 6-4 to win his 14th Grand Slam
title and the U.S. Open for the fifth time.
(AP, 9/8/03)
2002 Sep 8, The US government
reported that violent crime rate had dropped by 10 percent the
previous year, reaching lowest level since 1973.
(AP, 9/8/03)
2002 Sep 8, In San Francisco
Ray D. Jimmerson Jr. (25), a key witness in a case against the Big
Block gang, was shot to death on Buchanon St. In 2005 Dennis Cyrus
Jr., a leader of the Page Street Mob, was indicted for the slaying.
In May, 2009, Cyrus was convicted of murdering 3 men. In 2010 he was
sentenced to 3 life terms in prison without parole.
(SFC, 9/10/02, p.A1)(SFC, 5/27/05, p.B4)(SFC,
6/27/09, p.B1)(SFC, 11/20/10, p.C2)
2002 Sep 8, Authorities closed
Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET)
indefinitely following weeks of student unrest.
(Reuters, 9/8/02)
2002 Sep 8, In southeast China
typhoon Sinlaku was weakening as it churned inland after triggering
fierce winds and heavy rain that killed 23 people, toppled homes and
uprooted trees.
(Reuters, 9/8/02)
2002 Sep 8, In Guatemala local
media reported that anthropologists digging under a school in
Rabinal, in Guatemala's northern highlands, had unearthed the
remains of 47 people killed during the country's 1960-1996 civil
war.
(AP, 9/8/02)
2002 Sep 8, The leaders of the
two main Kurdish factions, KDP and PUK, that control northern Iraq
signed a reconciliation agreement as the United States tries to
forge a united front against Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.
(AP, 9/9/02)
2002 Sep 8, In eastern Pakistan
4 suspected militants, including two linked to a bloody attack on a
church last year, were killed in a shootout with the police.
(Reuters, 9/8/02)
2002 Sep 8, Philippine troops
shelled retreating Muslim guerrillas after capturing two rebel camps
in fighting on southern Jolo island that left at least 22 dead.
(Reuters, 9/8/02)
2002 Sep 8, A Russian
prosecutor said that the bodies of seven Chechen residents who
disappeared several months ago were found in a common grave near
Goragorsk.
(AP, 9/8/02)
2002 Sep 8, Georges-Andre
Chevallaz (87), a former Swiss president (1980) and member of the
ruling cabinet for 10 years, died in Lausanne.
(AP, 9/9/02)
2003 Sep 8, The Recording
Industry Association of America (RIAA), the music industry's largest
trade group, filed 261 copyright lawsuits across the country against
Internet users for trading songs online.
(SFC, 9/9/03, p.A1)(AP, 9/8/08)
2003 Sep 8, In NYC Harvey Milk
High School for gay, bisexual and transgender kids opened in
Greenwich Village. It was named after the San Francisco
supervisor killed in 1978.
(SFC, 9/9/03, p.A1)
2003 Sep 8, NASA presented a
"return to flight" plan for the shuttle fleet.
(WSJ, 9/8/03, p.A1)
2003 Sep 8, In Afghanistan
suspected Taliban rebels stopped a car carrying Afghans working for
a Danish aid organization, tied them up, then shot four of them to
death.
(AP, 9/10/03)
2003 Sep 8, In Ecuador
spokesman Marcelo Cevallos said Pres. Lucio Gutierrez will set a
national example and start showing up on time for meetings and
appointments in an effort to combat a national lack of punctuality.
Cevallos apologized to the audience for showing up late for the
interview.
(AP, 9/9/03)
2003 Sep 8, Leni Riefenstahl
(101), filmmaker, died in Bavaria. Her depiction of Hitler's
Nuremberg rally, "Triumph of the Will," was renowned and despised as
the best propaganda film ever made. In 2007 Steven Bach authored
“Leni: The Life and Work of Leni Riefenstahl” and Jurgen Trimborn
authored “Leni Riefenstahl: A Life.”
(AP, 9/9/03)(SFC, 9/10/03, p.A19)(Econ, 3/10/07,
p.82)
2003 Sep 8, Ariel Sharon flew
to New Delhi for the first-ever visit to India by an Israeli prime
minister, hoping to cement blossoming defense and trade ties.
(AP, 9/8/03)
2003 Sep 8, In eastern India
suspected communist rebels detonated a land mine under a passing
police vehicle, killing 12 officers.
(AP, 9/8/03)
2003 Sep 8, In Mali
authorities said torrential rains have killed scores and caused
heavy property damage, warning of worse to come if the Niger River
spills its banks.
(AP, 9/8/03)
2003 Sep 8, In central Nigeria
3 buses and a truck collided, killing more than 100 people in the
impact and the fiery explosion that followed.
(AP, 9/8/03)
2003 Sep 8, Palestinian
parliament speaker Ahmed Qureia said he will accept the prime
minister's job only if Washington guarantees Israeli compliance with
a US-backed peace plan, including a halt to military strikes.
(AP, 9/8/03)
2003 Sep 8, Singapore health
officials confirmed that a local patient tested positive for severe
acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, the 1st new case of the disease
in over 5 months.
(AP, 9/8/03)(WSJ, 9/10/03, p.A1)
2004 Sep 8, Dan Rather
featured a story on 60 Minutes with documents that raised questions
on Pres. Bush’s National Guard Service in 1972-73. On Sep 20 Dan
Rather and CBS apologized for using what appeared to be forged
documents.
(SFC, 9/21/04, p.A1)
2004 Sep 8, Delta Air Lines
said it will cut up to 7,000 jobs, reduce wages and pull back at its
Dallas-Fort Worth airport hub as part of a sweeping restructuring
plan that could still leave it vulnerable to bankruptcy.
(AP, 9/8/04)
2004 Sep 8, NASA’s $260 million
Genesis space capsule crashed in the Utah desert after its parachute
failed to open. It carried a cargo of solar wind particles.
(SFC, 9/9/04, p.A1)
2004 Sep 8, Richard G. Butler
(86), founder of the Aryan Nations, was found dead in his bed in
Hayden, Idaho.
(AP, 9/8/05)
2004 Sep 8, Hurricane Ivan made
a direct hit on Grenada, killing at least three people. The most
powerful storm to hit the Caribbean in 10 years also damaged homes
in Barbados, St. Lucia and St. Vincent, just days after Hurricane
Frances rampaged through.
(AP, 9/8/04)
2004 Sep 8, India and Pakistan
opened up their countries to cross-border group tourism for the
first time and announced a series of high-level contacts to push
forward the peace process.
(AP, 9/8/04)
2004 Sep 8, US warplanes
launched strikes in the insurgent-held city of Fallujah, hitting at
suspected militant hideouts used to plan attacks on American forces.
At least 2 people were killed.
(AP, 9/8/04)
2004 Sep 8, Insurgents
kidnapped the family of an Iraqi National Guard officer and set fire
to his home northeast of the capital.
(AP, 9/11/04)
2004 Sep 8, Japan's coast guard
found five more bodies from an Indonesian cargo ship that ran
aground during a powerful typhoon that has hammered Japan, raising
the death toll from the storm to at least 28.
(AP, 9/8/04)
2004 Sep 8, Police in Suriname
arrested six people and seized a large stash of weapons, uncovering
what they said was an arms-for-cocaine smuggling operation.
(AP, 9/9/04)
2004 Sep 8, In Thailand a young
man died from bird flu and increased fears of a avian influenza
pandemic. Asian deaths from bird flu for the year totaled 28.
(WSJ, 9/10/04, p.A2)
2004 Sep 8, In Turkey rescue
workers started to evacuate dozens of workers trapped inside a
copper mine engulfed in fire. Eight miners were rescued so far.
Between 25 and 30 miners were trapped inside the mine in the town of
Kure in Kastamonu province, some 185 miles north of the capital,
Ankara.
(AP, 9/8/04)
2004 Sep 8, It was reported
that some 60 hippos had died of unknown causes over the last 2
months in Uganda’s Queen Elizabeth National Park.
(SFC, 9/8/04, p.A6)
2005 Sep 8, US Congress
hastened to provide an additional $51.8 billion for relief and
recovery from Hurricane Katrina; President Bush pledged to make it
"easy and simple as possible" for uncounted, uprooted storm victims
to collect food stamps and other government benefits. Tropical Storm
Ophelia strengthened into a hurricane as it stalled 70 miles off the
northeast Florida coast. New Orleans was still 60% flooded.
(AP, 9/8/06) (WSJ, 9/9/05, p.A1)
2005 Sep 8, A German military
plane carrying 15 tons of military rations for survivors of
Hurricane Katrina was sent back by US authorities because it did not
have the required authorization.
(AP, 9/10/05)
2005 Sep 8, US grain prices
were reported down as grain elevators along the Mississippi filled
to capacity and grain handling due to Katrina fell to 63%. Early
harvests from Arkansas were particularly hit.
(WSJ, 9/8/05, p.A10)(WSJ, 9/9/05, p.A1)
2005 Sep 8, A symposium at
Western Kentucky University in Bowling Green, Ky., brought together
scholars from 17 states and three countries to discuss bluegrass
music.
(AP, 9/9/05)
2005 Sep 8, News Corp. said it
has signed a $650 million deal to buy IGN Entertainment, a Brisbane,
Ca., network of Web sites for video gaming and other digital
entertainment.
(SFC, 9/9/05, p.C1)
2005 Sep 8, Lewis Platt
(b.1941), former CEO of Hewlett-Packard (1992-1999) and director at
Boeing Corp., died.
(SFC, 9/10/05, p.C1)
2005 Sep 8, Bangladesh police
seized about 200 small bombs, some explosives, dozens of detonators
and leaflets on jihad, or holy war, during a raid on a house in
Dhaka.
(AP, 9/9/05)
2005 Sep 8, Chinese President
Hu Jintao arrived in Canada for his first state visit, celebrating
35 years of diplomatic ties and rapidly expanding trade and energy
agreements with Canada.
(AP, 9/8/05)
2005 Sep 8, El Salvador said
that “Operation International” simultaneous raids this week in El
Salvador, the US, Honduras, Guatemala, and Mexico netted 660
dangerous gang members.
(AP, 9/9/05)
2005 Sep 8, In Egypt President
Hosni Mubarak took an overwhelming early lead in his country's
first-ever contested presidential race in a ballot marred by low
turnout and widespread reports of voter intimidation.
(AP, 9/8/05)
2005 Sep 8, German Chancellor
Gerhard Schroeder and Russian President Vladimir Putin sealed an
agreement to build a Baltic Sea gas pipeline aimed at boosting
Russia's gas sales to Europe and securing uninterrupted energy
supplies for Germany.
(AP, 9/8/05)
2005 Sep 8, Indonesian militant
Abdul Fatah, alias Heri Segu, received a seven-year prison sentence
for his role in plotting last year's suicide bombing at the
Australian Embassy, blamed on a regional terror group linked to
al-Qaida.
(AP, 9/8/05)
2005 Sep 8, In Iraq US jets
dropped 500-pound J-Dam bombs on the insurgent-controlled
neighborhood of Sarai in Tal Afar, where most of the 200,000
population had fled. Iraqi police reported finding 17 bullet-riddled
bodies near Baghdad.
(SFC, 9/9/05, p.A3)
2005 Sep 8, A suicide car
bomber detonated his explosives-laden BMW in the center of Baghdad
targeting a passing convoy of private American security agents.
(AP, 9/8/05)
2005 Sep 8, The UN raised the
alarm about mounting violence in Iraq blamed on pro-government
militias and urged the authorities to look into reports of
systematic torture in police stations.
(Reuters, 9/8/05)
2005 Sep 8, Wyeth Co.
officially opened a $2 billion Irish production facility, a move
that will make the US company the biggest pharmaceutical employer in
Ireland.
(AP, 9/8/05)
2005 Sep 8, A Mexican army
convoy began crossing into the US to bring aid to victims of
Hurricane Katrina.
(AP, 9/8/05)
2005 Sep 8, A UN agency said a
plague of rats caused by snake hunting is threatening thousands of
Miskito Indians with famine in a remote corner of Nicaragua's
jungle, while vampire bats are raising concerns about rabies. The
rat population has boomed in Miskito territories as people hunt more
snakes, the rats' natural predator, for food and for their skins.
(AP, 9/8/05)
2005 Sep 8, In Pakistan Mufti
Mohammed Sabir, a suspected Islamic militant, was arrested in
Karachi after a shootout. He was wanted in connection with making a
car bomb used in a suicide attack May 8, 2002, that killed 15
people, including 11 French engineers.
(AP, 9/8/05)
2005 Sep 8, The Saudi Interior
Ministry said security forces killed five of Saudi Arabia's
most-wanted al-Qaida militants in a three-day battle in an eastern
city earlier this week and arrested 11 other suspects.
(AP, 9/8/05)
2005 Sep 8, Sri Lanka's Tamil
Tiger guerrillas ambushed a police patrol in the island's restive
northeast, killing two constables and wounding six.
(AFP, 9/8/05)
2005 Sep 8, In northeastern
Syria security forces clashed with Islamic militants, killing one
and arresting three others in the country's latest move against a
group accused of planning bomb attacks.
(AP, 9/8/05)
2005 Sep 8, Ukraine President
Viktor Yushchenko dismissed his Cabinet amid swirling allegations of
corruption, saying members of the fragile coalition formed after
last year's Orange Revolution had turned on one another.
(AP, 9/8/05)
2005 Sep 8, In the Virgin
Islands Elena Lin Yee was arrested and charged with impersonating a
US government official and misuse of official documents. Yee used
fake credentials to pose as a US ambassador to Grenada, the wife of
a former US ambassador to the UN and a US ambassador-at-large.
(AP, 9/9/05)
2006 Sep 8, The Bush
administration said it has blocked access to the US financial system
by Iran’s Bank Saderat. The bank was alleged to have helped transfer
hundreds of millions of dollars to terrorist organizations including
Hezbollah and Hamas.
(WSJ, 9/9/06, p.A4)
2006 Sep 8, The United States
Naval Air Station Keflavik (NASKEF) closed at Iceland’s Keflavik
Int’l. Airport.
(Econ, 10/11/08,
p.70)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naval_Air_Station_Keflavik)
2006 Sep 8, A Senate report
faulted intelligence gathering in the lead-up to the 2003 US
invasion of Iraq, and said Saddam Hussein regarded al-Qaida as a
threat rather than a possible ally, contradicting assertions
President Bush had used to build support for the war.
(AP, 9/8/07)
2006 Sep 8, Walter C. Anderson
(52), US telecom mogul, pleaded guilty to evading over $200 million
in federal and local taxes in an offshore scheme from the sale of
Mid-Atlantic Telecom. His plea agreement only covered transactions
from 1998-1999.
(WSJ, 9/9/06, p.A3)
2006 Sep 8, The Miami Herald
reported that 10 South Florida journalists, including three with the
Herald's Spanish-language sister paper, received thousands of
dollars from the federal government for their work on radio and TV
programming aimed at undermining Fidel Castro's communist regime.
The Herald fired 3 of the journalists.
(AP, 9/9/06)
2006 Sep 8, SF Mayor Gavin
Newsom said 50 new security cameras will be installed in public
housing projects around San Francisco over the next 18 months.
(SFC, 9/9/06, p.B1)
2006 Sep 8, In Minneapolis
ground was broken for the new Masjid An-Nur mosque, the 1st mosque
in Minnesota.
(Econ, 9/23/06, p.32)
2006 Sep 8, The Day fire in
California’s Los Padres National Forest burned out of control for a
5th day and blackened over 11,500 acres (18 square miles).
(SFC, 9/9/06, p.B2)
2006 Sep 8, In Florida Melinda
Duckett (21) shot herself to death one day after taping a TV
interview with Nancy Grace for CNN. Duckett had reported that her
2-year-old son had been kidnapped on Aug 27.
(SFC, 9/14/06, p.A13)
2006 Sep 8, A suicide car
bomber struck a convoy of US military vehicles in downtown Kabul,
killing at least 16 people, including two American soldiers, and
wounding 29 others. It was the Afghan capital's deadliest suicide
attack since the Taliban's 2001 ouster.
(AP, 9/8/06)
2006 Sep 8, Opponents of
President Evo Morales stayed home from work and blocked key streets
in four cities to protest the governing party's handling of an
assembly that is rewriting the Bolivian constitution.
(AP, 9/9/06)
2006 Sep 8, The Toronto
International Film Festival got off to a multi-cultural start night
with the premiere of "The Journals of Knud Rasmussen," a drama about
Canada's Inuit people being stripped of their traditions by
Christianity.
(Reuters, 9/8/06)
2006 Sep 8, In southern China
crowds angered by alleged police mishandling of a school teacher's
death attacked government offices in Rui'an City, sparking arrests
and beatings by riot troops. Students and local residents claimed
police falsified a report and colluded with the wealthy husband of
high school English teacher Dai Haijing, 30, to have her Aug 18
death classified as a suicide.
(AP, 9/11/06)
2006 Sep 8, The UN's
humanitarian chief called for an end to the rapes plaguing women in
war-battered Congo and said the perpetrators, including those
wearing military uniforms, must be severely punished.
(AP, 9/8/06)
2006 Sep 8, In western India 2
bombs rigged to bicycles struck in the crowded streets of the city
of Malegaon, Maharashtra state, as Muslim worshippers were returning
from afternoon prayers At least 37 people were killed and 100
wounded. 8 suspects later arrested for allegedly planting the bombs
were all members of the Students' Islamic Movement of India, or
SIMI.
(AP, 9/8/06)(AP, 11/27/06)(SFC, 11/28/08, p.A6)
2006 Sep 8, A roadside bomb in
Baghdad and a mortar attack on Shiite pilgrims south of the capital
killed five people. A roadside bomb also struck an Iraqi army convoy
in a village near Karmah, 50 miles west of Baghdad, killing four
Iraqi soldiers. An American soldier died after being wounded in a
roadside bomb explosion south of Baghdad. 3 mortar rounds landed on
a procession of pilgrims heading to Karbala for a ceremony, killing
at least three and wounding 22. A roadside bomb targeting a police
patrol In Baghdad killed two people and wounded six.
(AP, 9/8/06)
2006 Sep 8, Israel lifted its
nearly two-month naval blockade of Lebanon after European warships
began patrolling to keep out weapons shipments for Hezbollah
guerrillas.
(AP, 9/8/06)
2006 Sep 8, In Mexico a small
plane crash near Ensenada on the US-Mexico border killed three
American medical volunteers.
(AP, 9/10/06)
2006 Sep 8, In Pakistan a bomb
killed at least five people in restive Baluchistan province. 21
other people were wounded in the explosion near a bus station in the
town of Barkhan.
(AP, 9/8/06)
2006 Sep 8, Engineers covered
in head-to-toe protective gear inserted a neutralizing solution into
bombs filled with a nerve agent, officially starting the work of
Russia's first plant for destroying the deadly chemicals.
(AP, 9/9/06)
2006 Sep 8, It was reported
that Saudi Arabia’s religious police have issued a decree in Jiddah
and Mecca banning the sale of the pets, seen as a sign of Western
influence.
(AP, 9/8/06)
2006 Sep 8, In South Africa
Hilda Bernstein (b.1915), a London-born anti-apartheid activist and
author, died. Her husband was tried for treason alongside Nelson
Mandela in 1964. Rusty Bernstein (d.2002) was the only defendant
acquitted and freed. Police harassment made life afterward so
difficult for the Bernsteins that the couple was forced into exile,
leaving their children behind. They crossed the border to Botswana
on foot, a journey described in Hilda Bernstein's book "The World
That Was Ours."
(AP, 9/11/06)
2006 Sep 8, Sudan's President
Omar al-Bashir agreed to release American journalist Paul Salopek
and his Chadian assistants after meeting with New Mexico Gov. Bill
Richardson.
(AP, 9/9/06)
2006 Sep 8, The UN General
Assembly adopted a long-awaited strategy to combat terrorism, though
many nations lamented that it does not include a definition or say
anything about states that commit terrorist acts.
(AP, 9/8/06)
2007 Sep 8, In SF “The
Singularity Summit: AI and the Future of Humanity” opened at the
Palace of Fine Arts. The singularity term was used to describe the
day when machines become smart enough to reprogram themselves. Peter
Thiel, founder of PayPal, was the principal backer.
(SFC, 9/7/07, p.A16)
2007 Sep 8, In Nevada Darrin
Tuck (26) handed in a videotape to Nevada authorities. The graphic
video depicted a 2003 sexual assault on a 2-year-old girl. Chester
Arthur Stiles was tracked down following a nationwide manhunt. In
2009 Stiles was sentenced to 21 terms of life in prison.
(SFC, 5/30/09,
p.A4)(www.amw.com/fugitives/case.cfm?id=49286)
2007 Sep 8, In Odessa, Texas, 2
police officers responding to a domestic disturbance were killed and
a third was critically wounded by a gunman who led authorities on an
hours-long standoff. Gunman Larry White (58) was shot in the abdomen
but was in stable condition.
(AP, 9/9/07)
2007 Sep 8, Deputies in Big
Creek, West Virginia, found Megan Williams (20), who was sexually
abused, beaten and stabbed while held captive for at least a week.
She was repeatedly called a racial slur during the attacks in Big
Creek, about 35 miles southwest of Charleston. Six people, all
white, including a mother and son and a mother and daughter, were
arrested in connection with the alleged abduction of the black
woman. The suspects pleaded guilty and were sent to prison. In 2009
Williams, while living in Ohio, said she had lied about the abuse in
2007 in order to get back at her boyfriend, who had beaten her.
(AP, 9/11/07)(SFC, 9/11/07, p.A9)(SFC, 10/22/09,
p.A6)
2007 Sep 8, In Washington state
5 members of the Makah tribe killed a California gray whale with
harpoons and a rifle without tribal approval. In October a federal
grand jury charged the 5 Makah men with misdemeanor counts.
(SFC, 9/10/07, p.A4)(SFC, 10/5/07, p.A4)
2007 Sep 8, The Afghan defense
ministry said at least 50 Taliban rebels have been killed in two
days of operations by Afghan and US-led troops across southern
Afghanistan. In southern Afghanistan 2 British soldiers were killed
in a Taliban attack and a number of other troops were wounded.
(AP, 9/8/07)
2007 Sep 8, A booby-trapped car
exploded at a barracks housing coast guard officials, killing 30
officers in Algeria's second terror attack this week. Al-Qaida in
Islamic North Africa claimed responsibility. The suicide bomber was
reported to be a 15-year-old student.
(AP, 9/8/07)(AP, 9/9/07)(AP, 9/10/07)
2007 Sep 8, Asia Pacific
leaders overcame differences on climate change to agree to take
action against greenhouse gases at a key summit protected by the
tightest security in Australian history.
(AP, 9/8/07)
2007 Sep 8, In Austria Pope
Benedict XVI blasted Europeans for being selfish and not having
enough children, in a sermon at the 850-year-old pilgrimage site of
Mariazell.
(AP, 9/8/07)
2007 Sep 8, Hundreds of
colleges reopened in Bangladesh, two weeks after the country's
military-backed government shut them down to quell nationwide
student unrest.
(AP, 9/8/07)
2007 Sep 8, It was reported
that China has 126 airports, 57 of which can handle private planes.
This was compared to 500 airports in the US that can handle big
commercial airliners, and some 10,000 that handle smaller planes.
(Econ, 9/8/07, p.69)
2007 Sep 8, In Colombia the Red
Cross said it has recovered all 11 bodies presumed to be lawmakers
who were killed in a shootout while held hostage by leftist rebels.
(AP, 9/8/07)
2007 Sep 8, Congo and Uganda
signed an agreement to immediately move refugee camps 93 miles from
their shared border to improve security.
(AP, 9/13/07)
2007 Sep 8, A small Sunni Arab
bloc ended its parliamentary boycott, returning to the legislature
as it considers key benchmark legislation demanded by Washington
amid increasing pressure to end the political deadlock. A suicide
bomber drove through a checkpoint and blew up his car in Baghdad's
Shiite district of Sadr City, killing at least 15 people in an
attack apparently aimed at a nearby market. A bomb went off midday
at a crowded market in the Shiite city of Kufa, 100 miles south of
Baghdad, killing four and injuring five. Gunmen in Najaf killed
Mohammed al-Qarawi, director of tribal affairs in anti-American
cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's office. A mortar shell hit a house in the
predominantly Shiite neighborhood of Baladiyat in eastern Baghdad,
killing two people and wounding three.
(AP, 9/8/07)
2007 Sep 8, Taiwan-born Ang
Lee's erotic spy thriller "Lust, Caution" won the Venice Film
Festival's top award, two years after he captured the same prize
here with "Brokeback Mountain."
(AP, 9/9/07)
2007 Sep 8, A late night riot
broke out in Malaysia’s northeastern state of Terengganu after a
group of opposition parties, including the main Islamist party, held
an illegal rally. Malaysian police fired live rounds to quell the
riot wounding two men.
(Reuters, 9/9/07)
2007 Sep 8, The Rev. Ian
Paisley said he is stepping down as leader of the hard-line
Protestant church he founded 56 years ago, a decision his opponents
say was inevitable after he angered many by cooperating with Sinn
Fein to form a Northern Ireland government.
(AP, 9/9/07)
2007 Sep 8, In the Netherlands
Carlos Hartmann (41), of Tecumseh, Mich., killed Thijs Geers (22), a
Dutch student, on a train platform in the southern city of
Roosendaal. Hartmann hoped to punish the Netherlands for its
government's support of the war in Iraq and confessed to axing the
student to death after failing to find a soldier to kill.
(AP, 9/11/07)
2007 Sep 8, Saudi Arabia and an
influential Lebanese politician joined calls by Pakistan for former
prime minister Nawaz Sharif to scrap plans to return to the country
next week.
(AP, 9/8/07)
2007 Sep 8, Voting began in
Sierra Leone's presidential runoff, a ballot to choose the West
African nation's first new leader since UN peacekeepers withdrew two
years ago.
(AP, 9/8/07)
2007 Sep 8, In Sri Lanka
military officials said at least 21 people were killed in fresh
violence in the embattled northern and eastern regions over the last
24 hours.
(AFP, 9/8/07)
2008 Sep 8, The US stock of
Lehman Brothers, led by Dick Fuld, began to get pummeled. By Sep 10
shares were down by almost half their value.
(Econ, 9/13/08, p.77)
2008 Sep 8, In Berkeley, Ca.,
university officials cut off the food and water supply to 4
protesters who continued a 21-month-old protest in a lone redwood.
(SFC, 9/9/08, p.B1)
2008 Sep 8, In Oakland, Ca.,
authorities said 3 school district custodians had been arrested for
stealing electronic equipment from the district.
(SFC, 9/9/08, p.B3)
2008 Sep 8, A roadside blast in
southern Afghanistan killed six civilians.
(AP, 9/8/08)
2008 Sep 8, Australian Trade
Minister Simon Crean said Australia will not sell uranium to India
unless it signs a key non-proliferation pact, despite a decision by
nuclear supplier nations to end a ban on trading with New Delhi.
(AFP, 9/8/08)
2008 Sep 8, In London 3 of 8
British Muslims with ties to Pakistan were found guilty of
conspiracy to murder in a terrorist bombing campaign, but jurors
failed to reach a verdict on whether they plotted to blow up
multiple trans-Atlantic airliners with liquid explosives disguised
as soft drinks. Abdullah Ahmed Ali, Assad Sarwar and Tanvir Hussain
were convicted of trying to make a bomb out of hydrogen peroxide, .
(AP, 9/8/08)(SFC, 9/9/08, p.A8)(Econ, 9/13/08,
p.63)
2008 Sep 8, In northern China a
landslide triggered by heavy rain killed at least 277 people, with
10 missing and presumed dead in Shanxi province's Xiangfen county.
In 2009 a Chinese court jailed 12 officials for the collapse of an
illegal mining dump that triggered the landslide.
(AP, 9/8/08)(AP, 9/18/08)(AP, 6/28/09)
2008 Sep 8, Deadly Hurricane
Ike roared across Cuba, blowing buildings to rubble and sending
waves surging over homes. Some 900,000 Cubans evacuated from its
path, which forecasters said could take it to Louisiana or Texas
later this week.
(AP, 9/8/08)
2008 Sep 8, French President
Nicolas Sarkozy pressed Moscow to honor its pledge to withdraw
troops from Georgia, while Russian soldiers prevented international
aid convoys from visiting Georgian villages in a tense zone around
the breakaway province of South Ossetia. Pres. Medvedev and Sarkozy
revised the EU-brokered deal to end the fighting between Russia and
Georgia. Medvedev said 200 EU monitors would deploy to regions
surrounding South Ossetia and Abkhazia by next month. After that,
Russian troops would pull out of those regions by Oct. 11 to a line
that preceded last month's fighting.
(AP, 9/8/08)(AP, 9/9/08)
2008 Sep 8, Legal sources said
the Church of Scientology is to be tried for fraud, and seven of its
members for illegally prescribing drugs, in the latest clash between
French officials and the controversial religion.
(AP, 9/8/08)
2008 Sep 8, In Lebanon rival
groups signed an agreement to end sectarian violence that has killed
and wounded scores in the past three months in the northern city of
Tripoli.
(AP, 9/9/08)
2008 Sep 8, Miners in the
southern African kingdom of Lesotho found one of the world's largest
diamonds, a near-flawless white gem weighing nearly 500 carats.
(Reuters, 9/21/08)
2008 Sep 8, Nepal's Maoist-led
government vowed to end slave-like conditions for around 150,000
bonded laborers in the far west of the country who have been paying
off debt for generations. Nepal officially abolished all forms of
slavery in 2001, but the Haliya system, which traps people in a
cycle of debt, lived on in remote areas.
(AFP, 9/8/08)
2008 Sep 8, In Pakistan
missiles fired from 2 US drone aircraft hit a seminary and houses
associated with a Taliban commander in North Waziristan, killing at
least 21 people, including both militants, women and children.
Neither Jalaluddin Haqqani nor his son, Sirajuddin, were present,
but four mid-level Al-Qaeda operatives were among the dead.
(AP, 9/8/08)(SFC, 9/9/08, p.A9)(WSJ, 9/9/08,
p.A16)(AFP, 9/10/08)
2009 Sep 8, Pres. Obama made a
speech aired on C-SPAN, addressed to school children encouraging
them to study hard and stay in school.
(SFC, 9/9/09, p.A6)
2009 Sep 8, A review committee
on NASA, led by Norman Augustine, delivered a summary report saying
the agency does not have enough money to return to the moon. The
Augustine report also said that NASA should stop traveling to the
Int’l. Space Station and to low Earth orbit in general, leaving
these to the private sector.
(Econ, 9/12/09, p.87)
2009 Sep 8, Philip Barry (52)
of Brooklyn was charged with operating an alleged $40 million Ponzi
scheme that stretched for three decades and apparently helped
finance a pornography business. He had turned himself in to
authorities in August after running the scheme for 31 years. Barry
spent a portion of his investors' money on real-estate purchases
that he hoped would appreciate. They did not.
(http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2009/09/brooklyns_philip_barry_may_hav.html)
2009 Sep 8, A US District judge
in San Francisco sentenced Williams “Boots” Del Biaggio III (41),
former co-owner of the San Jose Sharks hockey team, to over 8 years
in prison for bilking investors of million of dollars in a series of
schemes to help buy a stake in the Nashville Predators professional
hockey team and to pay off debts.
(SFC, 9/9/09, p.D3)
2009 Sep 8, The SF Bay Bridge
opened as work to fix a crack on the cantilever section of the
bridge was fixed ahead of schedule. Cars were allowed to start
crossing around 6:30 a.m.
(www.contracostatimes.com/news/ci_13290522?source=rss)
2009 Sep 8, In Connecticut
Annie Le (24), a California graduate student at Yale, disappeared
after entering a laboratory building. She was due to be married on
Sep 13. On Sep 13 police found her body stuffed behind a wall in the
high-security laboratory building where she worked. On June 3, 2011,
Raymond Clark III was sentenced to 44 years in prison for the
murder.
(SSFC, 9/13/09, p.A16)(AP, 9/14/09)(SFC, 6/4/11,
p.A4)
2009 Sep 8, Afghan President
Hamid Karzai surpassed for the first time the 50% threshold needed
to avoid a run-off in the presidential election, according to
preliminary results, but with fraud allegations rising, a UN-backed
commission ordered a re-count of tainted ballots. A suicide car bomb
exploded outside the gates of the ISAF military airport in Kabul,
killing three civilians and wounding nine people, including four
foreign soldiers.
(AP, 9/8/09)(AFP, 9/9/09)
2009 Sep 8, In Afghanistan
Marine Corporal Dakota Meyer (21) saved the lives of 13 Marines and
23 Afghan soldiers during a 6-hour fight the with Taliban that left
5 other US soldiers dead in Kunar province. Marine Staff Sgt. Juan
Rodriguez-Chavez accompanied Meyer. In 2011 the Kentucky farm boy
was awarded the US Medal of Honor. For his valor, Rodriguez-Chavez,
who hailed originally from Acuna, Mexico, would be awarded the Navy
Cross.
(SFC, 9/15/11, p.A12)(AP, 9/15/11)
2009 Sep 8, Across northern
Argentina and southern Brazil a violent storm that spawned a tornado
and mudslides killed at least 15 people. Dozens were injured in the
winds and hail as their homes were destroyed.
(AP, 9/8/09)
2009 Sep 8, The British
government said the last remaining armed paramilitary groups in
Northern Ireland had pledged to decommission all their weapons
within six months. Hours later army experts in Northern Ireland
defused a massive roadside bomb, averting what could have been a
"devastating" explosion in the long-troubled British province.
(AP, 9/8/09)(AFP, 9/8/09)
2009 Sep 8, A British judge
sentenced Neil Lewington (44), a racist who planned to attack people
he considered "non-British," to at least six years in jail for
terrorist offenses.
(AP, 9/8/09)
2009 Sep 8, Deutsche Telekom AG
and France Telecom SA said they intend to combine their British
mobile phone units, shaking up the country's intensely competitive
market and forming the country's biggest mobile operator. Analysts
said Nokia Siemens Networks, the key equipment vendor to British
operations of Deutsche Telekom and France Telecom, had most to lose
in the merger.
(AP, 9/8/09)(Reuters, 9/8/09)
2009 Sep 8, In central China's
Henan province an explosion at an illegal coal mine killed 42 miners
and left another 37 men trapped. Elsewhere in Henan province 13
workers were killed in gold mine fire sparked by the severing of
electrical wires in a cave-in.
(AP, 9/8/09)(AP, 9/9/09)
2009 Sep 8, Colombia’s
President Alvaro Uribe signed legislation calling for a national
referendum on amending the constitution to allow him to seek
re-election for a second time.
(AP, 9/9/09)
2009 Sep 8, In the Democratic
Republic of Congo two Norwegians were sentenced to death by a court
for murdering a Congolese man in the northeast of the country in
May.
(AFP, 9/8/09)
2009 Sep 8, A security official
said Egyptian border guards shot dead four sub-Saharan migrants as
they tried to illegally enter Israel.
(AFP, 9/8/09)
2009 Sep 8, The EU said that a
member states could be allowed to ban gambling websites if its
intention was to stop crime.
(Reuters, 9/8/09)
2009 Sep 8, Guatemalan
President Alvaro Colom declared "a state of public calamity" to help
mobilize funds and resources to confront a food shortage that will
affect thousands of families.
(AP, 9/9/09)
2009 Sep 8, Iranian security
forces cracked down on the opposition's campaign to highlight
torture and abuse of prisoners in the country's postelection crisis,
shutting down offices of pro-reform leaders and arresting five of
their aides in a startling series of raids.
(AP, 9/9/09)
2009 Sep 8, In Iraq a roadside
bomb killed Lt. Col. Zaid Hussein Khalaf, the head of an
anti-terrorism police unit, and four of his bodyguards in the
northern town of Armili, home to a large Shiite population. A
roadside bomb struck a police patrol near the town of Daqouq,
killing two policemen and wounding 3 others. A Health Ministry
official escaped an assassination attempt when a roadside bomb hit
his convoy in the eastern part of Baghdad, but one ministry employee
died in the blast. Roadside bombs killed 4 US soldiers in separate
incidents.
(AP, 9/8/09)
2009 Sep 8, Mike Bongiorno
(85), called Italy's "Quiz King," died. His big TV break came in the
1950s when he helped popularize the quiz show on Italian pubcaster
Rai. One of his biggest hits was "Lascia o Raddoppia?" (Double or
quits) the Italian version of "The $64,000 Question."
(www.variety.com/article/VR1118008405.html?categoryid=14&cs=1&nid=2562)
2009 Sep 8, Kenya replaced its
police chief on months after human rights groups complained that
some his officers killed and raped during the violent aftermath of
the disputed December 2007 elections, but activists said more
reforms are needed to restore confidence in a notoriously predatory
police force.
(AP, 9/8/09)
2009 Sep 8, In Mexico Police a
body with both arms cut off was found dumped on a street in the
border city of Ciudad Juarez. The court system in southern Tabasco
state said rural journalists Roberto Juarez and Lazaro Abreu Tejero
Sanchez have been arrested for allegedly working as informants for
the Zetas, a gang aligned with the Gulf drug cartel.
(AP, 9/9/09)
2009 Sep 8, In northwest
Pakistan Taliban militants attacked a group of boys on their way to
school, killing four and wounding three in Orakzai ethnic Pashtun
tribal region, because they were minority Shi'ite Muslims. Taliban
militants are from the majority Sunni community and attack Shi'ites
as part of their strategy to fight the government. Tribesmen
retaliated after the attack and killed at least two militants and
wounded several. Government aircraft attacked militants in a
village, 30 km (20 miles) east of Kalaya, killing six of them and
destroying four hideouts. Gunmen kidnapped a Greek man after killing
a police guard in the northern Chitral region on the Afghan border.
(Reuters, 9/8/09)
2009 Sep 8, Russia's foreign
minister rejected speculation that the Arctic Sea, a hijacked
Russian-crewed freighter, was carrying S-300 missiles possibly
destined for Iran. A Russian shipping expert and an EU anti-piracy
official have speculated that the vessel was carrying a clandestine
cargo, possibly S-300 surface-to-air missiles for Iran or Syria.
(AP, 9/8/09)
2009 Sep 8, Somalia graduated
its first 500 naval recruits hoping they would form the backbone of
the country’s first naval force in nearly two decades. 8 civilians
were killed and 31 wounded overnight during clashes pitting
insurgents against government and African Union forces in Mogadishu.
(SFC, 9/9/09, p.A2)(AFP, 9/8/09)
2009 Sep 8, Sudanese journalist
Lubna Ahmed Hussein, who spent a day in jail for refusing to pay a
fine for wearing "indecent trousers," vowed on her release to keep
up the battle against the law. The UN’s human rights office said
Sudan's conviction Hussein for indecency for wearing trousers
violates international law and is emblematic of wider gender
discrimination in the Islamic country.
(AFP, 9/8/09)(Reuters, 9/8/09)
2009 Sep 8, The Turkish
conglomerate, Dogan Yayin, was slapped with a 3.75 lira ($2.5
billion) fine for allegedly evading taxes in the transfer of assets
from one of its companies to another. This followed a $609 million
fine levied in February against Aydin Dogan’s conglomerate.
(http://tinyurl.com/mkkebw)(Econ, 9/12/09, p.72)
2009 Sep 8, In northwestern
Turkey flash floods triggered by torrential rains killed six people
and left swaths of lands awash. At least three people were reported
missing.
(AP, 9/8/09)
2009 Sep 8, Uganda’s defense
spokesman, Lieutenant Colonel Felix Kulayigye, said Ugandan troops
have crossed into the neighboring Central African Republic (CAR) in
pursuit of Lord's Resistance Army rebels with Bangui's blessing.
(AFP, 9/8/09)
2009 Sep 8, Yemen’s the
Interior Ministry said 4 Yemenis carrying explosives and guns had
been arrested near the US embassy in San'a.
(AP, 9/8/09)
2010 Sep 8, The leader of a
small Florida church that espouses anti-Islam philosophy said he was
determined to go through with his plan to burn copies of the Quran
on Sept. 11, despite pressure from the White House, religious
leaders and others to call it off.
(AP, 9/8/10)
2010 Sep 8, BP issued a report
on the causes of the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe and listed the
unfolding of the tragedy in 4 acts, each containing several errors.
(Econ, 9/11/10, p.74)
2010 Sep 8, Tropical Storm
Hermine swept north through Texas and into Oklahoma swamping city
neighborhoods and killing 6 people, 5 in Texas and 1 in Oklahoma.
(SFC, 9/9/10, p.A7)(SFC, 9/11/10, p.A4)
2010 Sep 8, Afghan President
Hamid Karzai's brother said he made at least $800,000 by buying and
then reselling a high-end Dubai villa using a loan provided by the
chairman of the troubled Kabul Bank.
(AP, 9/8/10)
2010 Sep 8, In Australia a
kangaroo was beaten to death with a metal pole in the Great Otway
National Park in the southern state of Victoria. Three 8th grade
pupils were later suspended from school as authorities investigated
the beating.
(AFP, 9/17/10)
2010 Sep 8, The head of a
Bahraini human rights organization says the government has taken
over his group and removed him from his post. The government said
the group was "only serving one segment of society," referring to
the country's majority Shiites.
(AP, 9/8/10)
2010 Sep 8, Belgian police say
10 people have been arrested in raids across Europe against hackers
who put illegal copies of movies and television series on the
Internet. Police said 5 arrests were in Belgium and the other
arrests were made in Poland, Norway and Sweden, where the alleged
leaders of four computer piracy networks were being held.
(AP, 9/8/10)
2010 Sep 8, British mobile
phone giant Vodafone lost a legal appeal against an Indian tax bill
estimated at $2.0 billion relating to the group's 2007 purchase of
local group Hutchison Essar.
(AFP, 9/8/10)
2010 Sep 8, Michael Lassen
(61), English stained-glass artist, died in a hospital after falling
from a ladder on Sep 3, while working on a widow at the Durham
cathedral.
(Econ, 10/9/10, p.124)
2010 Sep 8, The Bank of Canada
raised its benchmark interest rate for a third consecutive time,
nudging the rate up 25 basis points to 1 percent, but said a weak US
economy would hamper Canada's recovery.
(Reuters, 9/8/10)
2010 Sep 8, Diplomatic tensions
between China and Japan escalated when Beijing called in Japan's
ambassador for a second time after a Chinese fishing boat collided
with two Japanese patrol vessels near a chain of disputed islands.
(AP, 9/8/10)
2010 Sep 8, Congo’s President
Joseph Kabila ordered the indefinite suspension near the mining hub
of Walikale, where more than 240 people were treated for rape last
month.
(AP, 9/10/10)
2010 Sep 8, In East Timor Mario
Viejas Carrascalao (73), a deputy prime minister, announced his
resignation in a letter published in the national newspaper, Tempo
Semanal. In a blow to his "personal dignity," he said PM Gusmao had
screamed at him at a public meeting and called him dumb. Carrascalao
outlined a long list of problems facing East Timor, accusing the
government of failing to address and sometimes participating in
corruption and nepotism, and increasing their own well-being while
ordinary citizens continued to live in abject poverty.
(AP, 9/8/10)
2010 Sep 8, German Chancellor
Angela Merkel praised the bravery of illustrator Kurt Westergaard
(75), a Danish cartoonist who caricatured the Prophet Muhammad, at
an award ceremony honoring his achievements for freedom of speech.
(AP, 9/9/10)
2010 Sep 8, Iran’s foreign
ministry said authorities have suspended the execution by stoning of
a woman convicted of adultery. A judiciary official told Fars news
agency that the woman facing death by stoning has expressed surprise
over reports that she was lashed after a British newspaper published
a picture showing her without a headscarf. Fars reported that Vahid
Kazemzadeh, a member of the Iranian judiciary's Islamic Human Rights
Commission, said he has met Sakineh Mohammadi-Ashtiani, who also
complained to him that she has never met her lawyer, Mohammad
Mostafaie.
(AFP, 9/8/10)(Reuters, 9/8/10)
2010 Sep 8, Iran’s UN
ambassador Mohammad Khazaee told the UN General Assembly his country
needs more international help to combat the narcotics trade which he
said was the "main financial source" for militant groups in the
region.
(AFP, 9/8/10)
2010 Sep 8, In Iraqi 4
prisoners with links to al-Qaida have escaped from the US-controlled
part of the Karkh maximum-security prison, formerly Camp Cropper, in
Baghdad.
(AFP, 9/9/10)
2010 Sep 8, Ireland announced
it plans to split its most troubled financial institution, Anglo
Irish Bank, in two as part of wider efforts to reassure
international lenders that the Irish are dealing with their debt
crisis.
(AP, 9/8/10)
2010 Sep 8, Israelis ushered in
the Jewish new year, or Rosh Hashana, at sundown with a widespread
sense of pessimism that a new round of US-sponsored Mideast talks
can achieve peace.
(AP, 9/9/10)
2010 Sep 8, Israel Tal (86), a
decorated war hero and the creator of Israel's renowned "Merkava"
tank, died in the Israeli town of Rehovot. In the 1970s Tal oversaw
the design of the Merkava tank (Hebrew for "chariot") which is
widely seen as one of the best of its time.
(AP, 9/9/10)
2010 Sep 8, In Mexico hooded
gunmen burst into Mayor Alexander Lopez Garcia's office in the
northern Mexico state of San Luis Potosi and shot him to death. He
was the third mayor slain in less than a month.
(AP, 9/9/10)
2010 Sep 8, In southern Mexico
tens of thousands of people have abandoned their homes to escape
flooding from weeks of torrential rains, and forecasts are
predicting even more rainfall. The flooding has affected all four of
Mexico's southernmost states: Tabasco, Veracruz, Chiapas and Oaxaca.
(AP, 9/8/10)
2010 Sep 8, In northern Morocco
9 Portuguese tourists were killed and 14 injured when their tour bus
plunged into a ravine.
(AFP, 9/8/10)
2010 Sep 8, In Pakistan 3
suspected US missile strikes in less than 12 hours hit militant
targets in the northwest, an unusually intense barrage that follows
four other such attacks in the last week. At least 14 suspected
militants were killed.
(AP, 9/8/10)
2010 Sep 8, The Palestinian
Authority said it has arrested an unspecified number of Hamas
activists believed to be responsible for two shooting attacks in the
West Bank last week, one of which left four Jewish settlers dead.
Palestinian militants fired a mortar round from the Gaza Strip
narrowly missing a kindergarten in a kibbutz in southern Israel.
(AFP, 9/8/10)
2010 Sep 8, Somali pirates
hijacked the Malta flagged cargo ship MV Olib G and its crew of 15
Georgian and 3 Turkish sailors. The ship was just carrying ballast.
(AP, 9/8/10)
2010 Sep 8, Somali pirates
hijacked the German-owned Magellan Star, flagged under Antigua and
Barbuda. The next day US Marine commandos stormed the cargo vessel
off the Somalia coast, and reclaimed control of the ship, taking
nine prisoners without firing a shot.
(AP, 9/9/10)
2010 Sep 8, South Korea said it
will ban unauthorized financial dealings with Iran and impose other
penalties as part of a US-led campaign to enforce sanctions against
the country over its disputed nuclear enrichment program. South
Korea listed 126 Iranian companies and individuals for the
sanctions.
(AP, 9/8/10)(SFC, 9/9/10, p.A2)
2010 Sep 8, Sri Lanka's
Parliament voted to eliminate term limits for the president, a move
critics say could lead to dictatorship. Sri Lanka’s 1978
Constitution was amended for the 18th time giving the president more
power and removing the bar on his serving more that two 6-years
terms.
(AP, 9/8/10)(Econ, 9/11/10, p.20)
2010 Sep 8, In Sudan a Darfur
rebel group was attacked by Ugandan Lord's Resistance Army
guerrillas. The group later said 2 small reconnaissance groups of
about 20 young LRA rebels carrying light arms shot and killed one
LJM soldier before retreating into dense forest in remote South
Darfur.
(Reuters, 9/10/10)
2010 Sep 8, The UN Children's
Fund launched a scheme to provide 13 million textbooks to Zimbabwe's
students, in a 50-million-dollar effort to revive the struggling
school system.
(AFP, 9/8/10)
Go to
http://www.timelinesdb.com
Go to September 9