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• On this date:
• In 1774, the first Continental Congress assembled in Philadelphia.
• In 1793, the Reign of Terror began during the French Revolution as the National Convention instituted harsh measures to repress counter-revolutionary activities.
• In 1836, Sam Houston was elected president of the Republic of Texas.
• In 1913, fire devastated Hot Springs, Ark., destroying some 60 blocks.
• In 1914, the First Battle of the Marne, resulting in a French-British victory over Germany, began during World War I.
• 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 1945, Japanese-American Iva Toguri D'Aquino, suspected of being wartime broadcaster "Tokyo Rose," was arrested in Yokohama. (D'Aquino was later convicted of treason and served six years in prison; she was pardoned in 1977 by President Gerald R. Ford.)
• In 1957, the novel "On the Road," by Jack Kerouac, was first published by Viking Press.
• In 1961, President John F. Kennedy signed legislation making aircraft hijackings a federal crime.
• In 1975, President Gerald R. Ford escaped an attempt on his life by Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme, a disciple of Charles Manson, in Sacramento, Calif.
• 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 22 people were killed in the hijacking.
• In 1997, Britain's Queen Elizabeth II broke the royal reticence over Princess Diana's death, delivering a televised address in which she called her former daughter-in-law "a remarkable person." Mother Teresa died in Calcutta, India, at age 87; conductor Sir Georg Solti (johrj SHOL'-tee) died in France at age 84.
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• Ten years ago: Israeli commandos killed a Hamas bombmaker in a firefight and pulverized the West Bank apartment building in which he had been hiding. Hurricane Fabian slammed into Bermuda, killing four people. Singer-actress Gisele MacKenzie died in Burbank, Calif., at age 76.
• Five years ago: Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice became the highest-ranking American official in half a century to visit Libya, where she met Moammar Gadhafi. Europe's Rosetta space probe flew by the Steins asteroid 250 million miles from Earth. Publishing giant Robert Giroux, who'd guided and supported dozens of great writers from T.S. Eliot and Jack Kerouac to Bernard Malamud and Susan Sontag, died in Tinton Falls, N.J., at age 94.

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