Today in History

Today in History Today is Wednesday, Sept. 22, the 265th day of 2021. There are 100 days left in the year. Autumn arrives at 3:20 p.m. EDT. Today’s Highlight in History: On Sept. 22, 2014, the United States and five Arab nations launched airstrikes against the Islamic State group in Syria, sending waves of planes and Tomahawk cruise missiles against an array of targets. On this date: In 1761, Britain’s King George III and his wife, Charlotte, were crowned in Westminster Abbey. In 1776, during the Revolutionary War, Capt. Nathan Hale, 21, was hanged as a spy by the British in New York. In 1862, President Abraham Lincoln issued the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, declaring all slaves in rebel states should be free as of January 1, 1863. In 1927, Gene Tunney successfully defended his heavyweight boxing title against Jack Dempsey in the famous ‘œlong-count’� fight in Chicago. In 1949, the Soviet Union exploded its first atomic bomb. In 1950, Omar N. Bradley was promoted to the rank of five-star general, joining an elite group that included Dwight D. Eisenhower, Douglas MacArthur, George C. Marshall and Henry H. ‘œHap’� Arnold. In 1961, the Interstate Commerce Commission issued rules prohibiting racial discrimination on interstate buses. In 1975, Sara Jane Moore attempted to shoot President Gerald R. Ford outside a San Francisco hotel, but missed. In 1980, the Persian Gulf conflict between Iran and Iraq erupted into full-scale war. In 1993, 47 people were killed when an Amtrak passenger train fell off a bridge and crashed into Big Bayou Canot near Mobile, Alabama. (A tugboat pilot lost in fog pushed a barge into the railroad bridge, knocking the tracks 38 inches out of line just minutes before the train arrived.) In 1995, an AWACS plane carrying U.S. and Canadian military personnel crashed on takeoff from Elmendorf Air Force Base near Anchorage, Alaska, killing all 24 people aboard. In 2017, Sen. John McCain declared his opposition to the GOP’s last-ditch effort to repeal and replace ‘œObamacare,’� the second time in three months McCain had emerged as the destroyer of his party’s signature promise to voters. Ten years ago: American diplomats led a walkout at the U.N. General Assembly as Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (ah-muh-DEE’-neh-zhahd) fiercely attacked the United States and major West European nations as ‘œarrogant powers’� ruled by greed and eager for military adventurism. Pope Benedict XVI arrived in Germany on his first state visit to his homeland. Five years ago: Prosecutors charged a white Oklahoma police officer with first-degree manslaughter less than a week after she killed an unarmed Black man on a city street, saying in court documents the officer ‘œreacted unreasonably.’� (Betty Shelby was acquitted in May 2017 of manslaughter in the death of Terence Crutcher.) It was disclosed that computer hackers had swiped personal information from at least 500 million Yahoo accounts in what was believed to have been the biggest digital break-in at an email provider.