Today's Highlights in History
On Sept. 29, 1957, the New York Giants played their last game at the Polo Grounds, losing to the Pittsburgh Pirates 9-1. The Giants moved to San Francisco for the next season. (Go to article.)
On Sept. 29, 1901, Enrico Fermi, the Italian-born physicist who helped develop America's first atomic weapons, was born. Following his death on Nov. 28, 1954, his obituary appeared in The Times. (Go to obit.
On this date in:
1789 The U.S. War Department established a regular army with a strength of several hundred men.
1829 London's reorganized police force, which became known as Scotland Yard, went on duty.
1901 Nobel Prize-winning physicist Enrico Fermi was born in Rome.
1918 Allied forces scored a decisive breakthrough on the Hindenburg Line during World War I.
1943 General Dwight D. Eisenhower and Italian Marshal Pietro Badoglio signed an armistice aboard the British ship Nelson off Malta.
1954 New York Giants centerfielder Willie Mays made a running catch with his back to home plate on a 450-foot blast by Cleveland Indians batter Vic Wertz in Game 1 of the World Series. It is widely considered to be the greatest catch ever made.
1957 Baseball's New York Giants played their last game at the Polo Grounds before moving to San Francisco for the next season.
1963 The second session of the Second Vatican Council opened in Rome.
1978 Pope John Paul I was found dead in his Vatican apartment a little more than one month after becoming head of the Roman Catholic Church.
1982 Extra-Strength Tylenol capsules laced with cyanide claimed the first of seven victims in the Chicago area. (The case remains unsolved.)
1988 The space shuttle Discovery blasted off from Cape Canaveral, Fla., marking America's return to manned space flight following the Challenger disaster.
1989 Actress Zsa Zsa Gabor was convicted of battery for slapping a Beverly Hills police officer who had pulled her over.
2000 Israeli riot police stormed a major Jerusalem shrine and opened fire on stone-throwing Muslim worshippers, killing four Palestinians and wounding 175.
2005 John Roberts was sworn in as the nation's 17th chief justice after winning Senate confirmation.
2005 New York Times reporter Judith Miller was released from 85 days of federal detention after agreeing to testify in a criminal probe into the leak of a covert CIA officer's identity.
2006 Rep. Mark Foley, R-Fla., resigned after being confronted with sexually explicit computer messages he'd sent to former House pages.
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Historic Birthdays
Enrico Fermi
9/29/1901 - 11/28/1954
Italian-born American Nobel Prize-winning physicist (1938)
(Go to obit.)
57 Pompey The Great
9/29/106 BC - 9/28/48 BC
Roman statesman and general of the Roman Republic
68 John Leslie
9/29/1527 - 5/31/1596
Scottish bishop; advisor to Queen Mary
66 Francois Boucher
9/29/1703 - 5/30/1770
French painter, engraver and designer
47 Horatio Nelson
9/29/1758 - 10/21/1805
English naval commander
84 Caroline Yale
9/29/1848 - 7/2/1933
American educator of the deaf
54 Walther Rathenau
9/29/1867 - 6/24/1922
German statesman, industrialist and philosopher
80 Miguel Aleman
9/29/1902 - 5/14/1983
Mexican president (1946-52)
91 Greer Garson
9/29/1904 - 4/6/1996
English-born motion-picture actress
71 Trevor Howard
9/29/1913 - 1/7/1988
English stage and screen actor
SOURCE: The Associated Press
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