(Continued from page 31)

• On this date:
• In 1777, American forces won the Revolutionary War Battle of Bennington.
• In 1812, Detroit fell to British and Indian forces in the War of 1812.
• In 1858, a telegraphed message from Britain's Queen Victoria to President James Buchanan was transmitted over the recently laid trans-Atlantic cable.
• In 1861, President Abraham Lincoln issued Proclamation 86, which prohibited the states of the Union from engaging in commercial trade with states in rebellion - i.e., the Confederacy.
• In 1913, future Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin was born in Brest in present-day Belarus.
• In 1937, the American Federation of Radio Artists was chartered.
• In 1948, baseball legend Babe Ruth died in New York at age 53.
• In 1954, Sports Illustrated was first published by Time Inc.
• In 1956, Adlai E. Stevenson was nominated for president at the Democratic national convention in Chicago.
• In 1962, The Beatles fired their original drummer, Pete Best, replacing him with Ringo Starr.
• In 1987, 156 people were killed when Northwest Airlines Flight 255 crashed while trying to take off from Detroit; the sole survivor was 4-year-old Cecelia Cichan (SHEE'-an). People worldwide began a two-day celebration of the "harmonic convergence," which heralded what believers called the start of a new, purer age of humankind.
• In 1993, New York police rescued business executive Harvey Weinstein from a covered 14-foot-deep pit, where he'd been held nearly two weeks for ransom. Actor Stewart Granger died in Santa Monica, Calif., at age 80.
•
• Ten years ago: The Midwest and Northeast were almost fully recovered from the worst power outage in U.S. history. A car driven by U.S. Rep. Bill Janklow ran a stop sign on a rural road in South Dakota and collided with motorcyclist Randy Scott, who died. Idi Amin, the former dictator of Uganda, died in Jiddah, Saudi Arabia; he was believed to have been about 80.
• Five years ago: At the Beijing Olympics, Michael Phelps touched the wall a hundredth of a second ahead of Serbia's Milorad Cavic (MEE'-loh-rahd KAH'-vihch) to win the 100-meter butterfly, giving Phelps his seventh gold medal of the Games, tying Mark Spitz's performance in the 1972 Munich Games. Usain (yoo-SAYN') Bolt of Jamaica ran the 100-meter dash in a stunning world-record time of 9.69 seconds. Talk show host Ellen DeGeneres and actress Portia de Rossi were married at their

(Continued on page 33)