Today is Sunday, Sept. 4, the 247th day of 2005. There are 118 days left in the year.
Today’s Highlight in History:
On Sept. 4, 1781, Los Angeles was founded by Spanish settlers.
On this date:
In 1888, George Eastman received a patent for his roll-film camera, and registered his trademark: Kodak.
In 1893, English author Beatrix Potter first told the story of Peter Rabbit in the form of a “picture letter” to Noel Moore, the son of Potter’s former governess.
In 1917, the American expeditionary force in France suffered its first fatalities in World War I.
In 1944, during World War II, British troops entered Antwerp, Belgium.
In 1951, President Truman addressed the nation from the Japanese peace treaty conference in San Francisco in the first live, coast-to-coast television broadcast.
In 1957, Arkansas Gov. Orval Faubus called out the National Guard to prevent nine black students from entering Central High School in Little Rock.
In 1957, Ford Motor Co. began selling its ill-fated Edsel.
In 1967, Michigan Gov. George Romney told a TV interview he’d undergone a “brainwashing” by U.S. officials during a 1965 visit to Vietnam — a comment that damaged Romney’s bid for the Republican presidential nomination.
In 1971, an Alaska Airlines jet crashed near Juneau, killing 111 people.
In 1984, Canada’s Progressive Conservatives, led by Brian Mulroney, won a landslide victory in general elections over the Liberal Party of Prime Minister John N. Turner.
Ten years ago: The fourth World Conference on Women opened in Beijing with more than 4,750 delegates from 181 countries. Attorney William Kunstler, who spoke out for the politically unpopular in a controversial career, died in New York at age 76.
Five years ago: French investigators announced that a stray length of metal which had gashed a tire of a supersonic Concorde, leading to a fuel tank fire and the plane’s fatal crash the previous July, probably came from a Continental Airlines plane that had taken off on the same runway four minutes earlier.
One year ago: Slow-moving Hurricane Frances snapped power lines and whipped the Atlantic coast with winds over 90 mph as it neared Florida. A shaken President Vladimir Putin made a rare and candid admission of Russian weakness after more than 330 people were killed in a hostage-taking at a southern school.
Today’s Birthdays: ABC Radio commentator Paul Harvey is 87. Actress Mitzi Gaynor is 74. Singer Merald “Bubba” Knight (Gladys Knight & The Pips) is 63. Actress Jennifer Salt is 61. Golfer Tom Watson is 56. Rhythm-and-blues musician Ronald LaPread is 55. Actress Judith Ivey is 54. Rock musician Martin Chambers (The Pretenders) is 54. Actress Khandi Alexander is 48. Actor-comedian Damon Wayans is 45. Rock musician Kim Thayil is 45. Actor Noah Taylor is 36. Actress Ione Skye is 34. Rhythm-and-blues singer Richard Wingo (Jagged Edge) is 30. Actor Wes Bentley is 27. Singer Dan Miller (“Making the Band”) is 25. Singer Beyonce Knowles is 24.
Thought for Today: “I am one of the people who love the why of things.” — Catherine the Great, Russian czarina (1729-1796).