Today in History: September 5, first Continental Congress

Today in History Today is Monday, Sept. 5, the 248th day of 2022. There are 117 days left in the year. Today’s Highlight in History: On Sept. 5, 1774, the first Continental Congress assembled in Philadelphia. On this date: In 1698, Russia’s Peter the Great imposed a tax on beards. In 1864, voters in Louisiana approved a new state constitution abolishing slavery. In 1939, four days after war had broken out in Europe, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued a proclamation declaring U.S. neutrality in the conflict. In 1960, at the Rome Olympics, American boxer Cassius Clay (later Muhammad Ali) defeated Zbigniew Pietrzykowski (zuh-BIG’-nee-ehf pee-eht-chah-KAHF’-skee) of Poland to win the light-heavyweight gold medal; Wilma Rudolph of the United States won the second of her three gold medals with the 200-meter sprint. In 1961, President John F. Kennedy signed legislation making aircraft hijackings a federal crime. In 1972, the Palestinian group Black September attacked the Israeli Olympic delegation at the Munich Games, killing 11 Israelis and a police officer. German forces killed five of the gunmen. In 1975, President Gerald R. Ford escaped an attempt on his life by Lynette ‘œSqueaky’� Fromme, a disciple of Charles Manson, in Sacramento, California. In 1986, four hijackers who had seized a Pan Am jumbo jet on the ground in Karachi, Pakistan, opened fire when the lights inside the plane failed; a total of 20 people were killed before Pakistani commandos stormed the jetliner. In 1991, the 35th annual Naval Aviation Symposium held by the Tailhook Association opened in Las Vegas; during the four-day gathering, there were reports that dozens of people, most of them women, were sexually assaulted or otherwise harassed. (The episode triggered the resignation of Navy Secretary H. Lawrence Garrett and the early retirement of Adm. Frank B. Kelso, then the chief of naval operations.) In 1997, Mother Teresa died in Calcutta, India, at age 87. In 2016, Hugh O’Brian, the actor who shot to fame as Sheriff Wyatt Earp in what was hailed as television’s first adult Western, died in Beverly Hills, California, at age 91. In 2018, The New York Times published an opinion piece from an anonymous senior administration official claiming to be part of an internal ‘œresistance’� working to thwart President Donald Trump’s ‘œworst inclinations”; Trump responded that if such a ‘œgutless’� person exists, ‘œthe Times must, for National Security purposes, turn him/her over to the government at once!’� (In late 2020, Miles Taylor, a former chief of staff at the Department of Homeland Security, revealed that he was the author of the op-ed piece.) Ten years ago: In an impassioned speech that rocked the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina, former President Bill Clinton proclaimed, ‘œI know we’re coming back’� from the worst economic mess in generations, and he appealed to hard-pressed Americans to stick with Barack Obama for a second term in the White House; in a roll call that lasted past midnight, Obama was officially nominated. Five years ago: President Donald Trump announced that he was phasing out the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, program protecting young immigrants who were brought to the country illegally, but said he was giving Congress six months to come up with an alternative; he later tweeted that if Congress couldn’t do so, he would ‘œrevisit’� the issue. Hurricane Irma strengthened to a Category 5 storm as it approached the northeast Caribbean on a path toward the United States.