Sept. 3, 2008 - Today In History

The Associated Press

Today is Wednesday, Sept. 3, the 247th day of 2008. There are 119 days left in the year.

Today's Highlight in History:

On Sept. 3, 1783, the Treaty of Paris between the United States and Great Britain officially ended the Revolutionary War.

On this date:

In 1189, England's King Richard I (the Lion-Hearted) was crowned in Westminster Abbey.

In 1658, Oliver Cromwell, the Lord Protector of England, died in London.

In 1939, Britain, France, Australia and New Zealand declared war on Germany, two days after the Nazi invasion of Poland.

In 1943, the British Eighth Army invaded Italy during World War II, the same day Italy signed a secret armistice with the Allies.

In 1951, the television soap opera "Search for Tomorrow" made its debut on CBS. (It ran on CBS until 1982, when it moved to NBC until its final episode, which aired in December 1986.)

In 1967, Nguyen Van Thieu was elected president of South Vietnam under a new constitution.

In 1967, motorists in Sweden began driving on the right-hand side of the road instead of the left.

In 1976, the unmanned U.S. spacecraft Viking 2 landed on Mars to take the first close-up, color photographs of the planet's surface.

In 1978, Pope John Paul I was installed as the 264th pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church.

In 2004, the three-day hostage siege at a school in Beslan, Russia, ended in bloody chaos after Chechen militants set off bombs as Russian commandos stormed the building; more than 330 people, mostly children, were killed.

Ten years ago:

President Clinton visited Omagh, Northern Ireland, where he walked down the street where a car bombing had claimed 29 lives, and offered his condolences to the families of the victims.

Authorities continued to recover remains from Swissair Flight 111, which had crashed off Nova Scotia the night before with 229 people aboard.

Five years ago:

Paul Hill, a former minister who said he murdered an abortion doctor and his bodyguard to save the lives of unborn babies, was executed in Florida by injection, becoming the first person put to death in the United States for anti-abortion violence.

President Bush signed legislation to begin free trade with Singapore and Chile.

One year ago:

Millionaire adventurer Steve Fossett, 63, vanished after taking off in a single-engine plane in western Nevada.

President Bush, accompanied by Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, paid a surprise visit to Iraq, where he was briefed by U.S. military commanders and Iraqi leaders.

Panama blasted away part of a hillside next to the canal, marking the start of the waterway's biggest expansion since it opened in 1914.

Jerry Lewis raised nearly $64 million during his annual Labor Day Telethon.

Today's Birthdays:

Actress Helen Wagner ("As the World Turns") is 90.

"Beetle Bailey" cartoonist Mort Walker is 85.

Actress Anne Jackson is 82.

Actress Eileen Brennan is 76.

Country singer Tompall Glaser is 75.

Actress Pauline Collins is 68.

Rock singer-musician Al Jardine is 66.

Actress Valerie Perrine is 65.

Rock musician Donald Brewer (Grand Funk Railroad) is 60.

Rock guitarist Steve Jones (The Sex Pistols) is 53.

Rock singer-musician Todd Lewis is 43.

Actor Costas Mandylor is 43.

Actor Charlie Sheen is 43.

Singer Jennifer Paige is 35.

Actor Nick Wechsler is 30.

Thought for Today:

"Any doctrine that will not bear investigation is not a fit tenant for the mind of an honest man." —

Robert G. Ingersoll,

American lawyer
and politician
(1833-1899).