Today is Sunday, September 22, the 266th day of 2024. There are 100 days left in the year. Fall begins at 8:43 a.m. EDT.
Today in History:
On September 22, 1985, rock and country music artists participated in “Farm Aid,” a concert held in Champaign, Illinois, to help the country’s farmers.
Also this date:
In 1776, during the Revolutionary War, Captain Nathan Hale, 21, was hanged as a spy by the British in New York.
In 1862, President Abraham Lincoln issued the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, which declared that all enslaved people in the Confederate States would be freed beginning January 1, 1863, unless the states ended hostilities and rejoined the Union.
In 1957, Haitian women were allowed to vote for the first time, 153 years after Haiti became an independent country; François Duvalier was elected president.
In 1975, Sara Jane Moore fired two shots in a failed attempt to assassinate President Gerald R. Ford outside a San Francisco hotel, missing Ford by inches.
In 1980, the conflict in the Persian Gulf between Iran and Iraq erupted into a full-scale war that would continue for almost eight years.
In 1993, 47 people were killed when an Amtrak passenger train fell off a bridge and crashed into Big Bayou Canot near Mobile, Alabama.
In 2014, the United States and five Arab countries launched airstrikes against the Islamic State group in Syria, sending waves of planes and Tomahawk cruise missiles at a range of targets.
In 2017, as the extent of damage from Hurricane Maria became clearer, Puerto Rican officials said they were unable to contact more than half of the communities in the U.S. territory, where all power had been knocked out to the island’s 3.4 million people.
Today’s birthdays: Singer-choreographer-actor Toni Basil is 81. Musician King Sunny Adé is 78. Football Hall of Famer Harold Carmichael is 75. Rock singer David Coverdale (Deep Purple, Whitesnake) is 73. Actor Shari Belafonte is 70. Singer Debby Boone is 68. Country singer June Forester (The Forester Sisters) is 68. Singer Nick Cave is 67. Singer Andrea Bocelli is 66. Singer-musician Joan Jett is 66. Actor Scott Baio is 64. Actor Bonnie Hunt is 63. Actor Mireille Enos is 49. Soccer player Thiago Silva is 40. Actor Tatiana Maslany is 39. Actor Tom Felton is 37. Actor Teyonah Parris is 37. Olympic gold skateboarder Coco Yoshizawa is 15.