Today's Highlight in History:
On Sept. 6, 1901, President William McKinley was shot and mortally wounded by anarchist Leon Czolgosz at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, N. Y. (McKinley died eight days later; he was succeeded by Vice President Theodore Roosevelt. Czolgosz was executed the next month.)
On this date:
In 1522, one of Ferdinand Magellan's five ships -- the Vittoria -- arrived at Sanlucar de Barrameda in Spain, completing the first circumnavigation of the world. In 1620, 149 Pilgrims set sail from England aboard the Mayflower, bound for the New World. In 1757, the Marquis de Lafayette, the French hero of the American Revolution, was born in Auvergne, France. In 1837, the Oberlin Collegiate Institute of Ohio went co-educational. One hundred years ago, in 1909, American explorer Robert Peary sent a telegram from Indian Harbor, Labrador, announcing that he had reached the North Pole five months earlier. In 1916, the first self-service grocery store, Piggly Wiggly, was opened in Memphis, Tenn., by Clarence Saunders.
Seventy years ago, in 1939, the Union of South Africa declared war on Germany.
In 1941, Jews over the age of 6 in German-occupied areas were ordered to wear yellow Stars of David.
In 1948, Princess Juliana of the Netherlands was inaugurated as queen, two days after the abdication of her mother, Queen Wilhelmina.
In 1966, South African Prime Minister Hendrik Verwoerd was stabbed to death by an apparently deranged page during a parliamentary session in Cape Town.
In 1970, Palestinian guerrillas seized control of three U.S.-bound jetliners. Two were later blown up on the ground in Jordan, along with a plane hijacked on Sept. 9; the fourth plane was destroyed on the ground in Egypt; there was no loss of life.
In 1975, Czechoslovakian tennis player Martina Navratilova, in New York for the U.S. Open, requested political asylum.
In 1978, James Wickwire and Louis Reichardt became the first Americans to reach the summit of Pakistan's K2, the world's second-highest mountain, after Mount Everest.
In 1992, a man who had received a transplanted baboon liver 10 weeks earlier died at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.
In 1995, Baltimore Orioles shortstop Cal Ripken, Jr., played his 2,131st consecutive game, breaking the record set in 1939 by Lou Gehrig of the New York Yankees.In 1996, Eddie Murray of the Baltimore Orioles hit his 500th career home run during a game against the Detroit Tigers.
In 1997, Britain bade farewell to Princess Diana with a funeral service at Westminster Abbey. Read the original AP story.
Ten years ago: In Detroit, striking teachers and the school board agreed on a tentative agreement aimed at ending a week long walkout. (The teachers ratified the contract two days later.)
In 2001, Barry Bonds of the San Francisco Giants became the fifth player in baseball history to hit 60 home runs in a season. (He finished the year with a record 73 homers.)
In 2002, meeting outside Washington D.C., for only the second time since 1800, Congress convened in New York to pay homage to the victims and heroes of Sept. 11, 2001.
Five years ago: Former President Bill Clinton underwent successful heart bypass surgery during a four-hour procedure at New York Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia. In Iraq, seven members of the First Marine Division from Camp Pendleton, Calif., and three U.S.-trained Iraqi soldiers were killed by a car bomb near Fallujah. What was once hurricane Frances pounded the Florida Panhandle as a tropical storm.
In 2005, the California Legislature became the first legislative body in the nation to approve same-sex marriages. (Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger later vetoed the bill.)
In 2006, President George W. Bush acknowledged previously secret CIA prisons around the world and said 14 high-value terrorism suspects had been transferred from the system to Guantanamo Bay for trials.
One year ago: In the wake of Russia's military standoff with Georgia, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said that now was not the right time for the U.S. to move forward on a once-celebrated deal for civilian nuclear cooperation with Russia. (President George W. Bush canceled the deal two days later.) More than 100 people died in a rock slide that crashed into a shantytown just outside Cairo, Egypt.
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