Today's Highlights in History
On Sept. 10, 1919, New York City welcomed home Gen. John J. Pershing and 25,000 soldiers who had served in the United States 1st Division during World War I.
On Sept. 10, 1934, Roger Maris, the professional baseball player who held the record for home runs in a single season from 1961 to 1998, was born. Following his death on Dec. 14, 1985, his obituary appeared in The Times.
On September 10, 1864, Harper's Weekly featured a cartoon about the stock and gold markets during the Civil War.
On this date in:
1608 John Smith was elected president of the Jamestown colony council in Virginia.
1813 Oliver H. Perry sent the message, "We have met the enemy, and they are ours," after an American naval force defeated the British in the Battle of Lake Erie in the War of 1812.
1846 Elias Howe of Spencer, Mass., received a patent for the sewing machine.
1924 A judge in Chicago sentenced Nathan Leopold Jr. and Richard Loeb to life in prison for the murder of 14-year-old Bobby Franks - a "thrill killing" that had shocked the nation.
1935 Sen. Huey P. Long, the "Kingfish" of Louisiana politics, died two days after being shot in Baton Rouge.
1948 American-born Mildred Gillars, the Nazi wartime radio broadcaster known as "Axis Sally," was indicted in Washington, D.C., for treason.
1955 "Gunsmoke" premiered on CBS. (It ran for 20 years, longer than any other network prime-time series.)
1963 Twenty black students entered public schools in Birmingham, Tuskegee and Mobile, Ala., following a standoff between federal authorities and Gov. George C. Wallace.
1977 A convicted murderer became the last person to be executed by the guillotine in France.
1988 Steffi Graf of West Germany achieved tennis' Grand Slam - winning all four major tournaments in a calendar year - by taking the U.S. Open women's title.
1989 Hungary stopped enforcing East German visa restrictions and opened its borders, beginning a flood of emigration that led to the fall of the Berlin Wall two months later.
2000 The Andrew Lloyd Webber musical "Cats" closed after 7,485 performances over nearly 18 years as the longest-running show in Broadway history.
2000 NBC's "The West Wing" won a record nine Emmy awards, including best drama series.
2002 Switzerland became the 190th member of the United Nations.
2003 Swedish Foreign Minister Anna Lindh, 46, was stabbed in a Stockholm department store; she died the next day.
2008 The world's largest particle collider passed its first major tests by firing two beams of protons in opposite directions around a 17-mile ring under the Franco-Swiss border.
Current Birthdays
Actor Colin Firth turns 50 years old today.
81 Arnold Palmer
Golfer
79 Philip Baker Hall
Actor
65 Jose Feliciano
Singer
62 Bob Lanier
Basketball Hall of Famer
60 Joe Perry
Rock musician (Aerosmith)
57 Amy Irving
Actress
53 Kate Burton
Actress
50 David Lowery
Rock singer, musician
47 Randy Johnson
Baseball player
47 Sean O'Bryan
Actor
46 John E. Sununu
Former U.S. senator, R-N.H.
42 Big Daddy Kane
Rapper
42 Guy Ritchie
Director
36 Ryan Phillippe
Actor
34 Gustavo Kuerten
Tennis player
30 Mikey Way
Rock musician (My Chemical Romance)
26 Matthew Followill
Rock musician (Kings of Leon)
36 Sanjaya Malakar
Singer ("American Idol")
Historic Birthdays
Roger Maris
/1934 - 12/14/1985
American professional baseball player
(Go to obit.)
? Alonso Perez Medina-Sidonia
/1550 - ?/?/1619
Spanish naval commander
83 Sir John Soane
/1753 - 1/20/1837
English Neoclassical architect
74 William Torrey Harris
/1835 - 11/5/1909
American public school educator and philosopher
92 John Lynch
/1847 - 11/2/1939
American politician; served in Mississippi legislature and U.S. Congress during Reconstruction
64 Carl Van Doren
/1885 - 7/18/1950
American novelist, biographer and critic
54 Franz Werfel
/1890 - 8/26/1945
German Expressionist poet, playwright and novelist
83 Elsa Schiaparelli
/1890 - 11/13/1973
Italian-born French dress designer
69 Arthur Holly Compton
/1892 - 3/15/1962
American Nobel Prize-winning physicist (1927)
71 Cyril Connolly
/1903 - 11/26/1974
English critic, novelist and founder of Horizon magazine
