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Today is Sunday, September 1, the 245th day of 2024. There are 121 days left in the year.
Today in history:
On September 1, 1985, an American-French expedition located the wreck of the Titanic at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, about 400 miles off the coast of Newfoundland.
Also on this date:
In 1715, after a reign of 72 years, King Louis XIV of France died four days before his 77th birthday; he was succeeded by his five-year-old great-grandson, Louis XV.
In 1897, the first section of Boston’s new subway opened, creating the first underground rapid transit system in North America.
In 1914, the passenger pigeon, once one of the most common bird species on earth, became extinct, as the last known specimen, named Martha, died in captivity at the Cincinnati Zoo.
In 1923, the Japanese cities of Tokyo and Yokohama were destroyed by an earthquake that claimed approximately 140,000 lives.
In 1939, Nazi Germany invaded Poland, an event considered the start of World War II.
In 1964, pitcher Masanori Murakami of the San Francisco Giants became the first Japanese baseball player to play in a Major League Baseball game.
In 1969, a coup in Libya brought Moammar Gadhafi to power.
In 1972, American Bobby Fischer won the international chess crown in Reykjavik, Iceland, when the Soviet Union’s Boris Spassky resigned before the 21st and final game resumed.
In 1983, 269 people were killed when a Korean Air Lines Boeing 747 was shot down by a Soviet fighter jet after the plane entered Soviet airspace.
In 2004, Islamic terrorists took more than a thousand people hostage in a school in Beslan, North Ossetia, Russia; the siege would end three days later with gunfire and explosions, killing 334 people, more than half of them children.
In 2015, Rowan County, Kentucky, Clerk Kim Davis, invoking “God’s authority,” again denied marriage licenses to gay couples, in direct defiance of the federal courts, and vowed not to resign even under the pressure of high fines or imprisonment. (Davis would spend five days in jail as a result and is currently appealing a ruling ordering her to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in related legal fees.)
Today’s Birthdays:
- Lawyer and law professor Alan Dershowitz is 86.
- Comedian-actor Lily Tomlin is 85.
- Singer Barry Gibb is 78.
- Talk show host Dr. Phil McGraw is 74.
- Singer Gloria Estefan is 67.
- TV presenter-author Padma Lakshmi is 54.
- Actor Ricardo Antonio Chavira is 53.
- Fashion designer Rachel Zoe is 53.
- Actor Scott Speedman is 49.
- Composer-producer Ludwig Göransson is 40.
- Actor-singer Zendaya is 28.