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On This Date

In 1862: During the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln gave the go-ahead for Maj. Gen. Ambrose Burnside’s plan to capture the Confederate capital of Richmond; the resulting Battle of Fredericksburg proved a disaster for the Union.

In 1889: Inspired by the Jules Verne novel “Around the World in Eighty Days,” New York World reporter Nellie Bly (Elizabeth Cochrane) set out to make the trip in less time than the fictional Phileas Fogg. (She completed the journey in 72 days.)

In 1910: Eugene B. Ely became the first aviator to take off from a ship as his Curtiss pusher rolled off a sloping platform on the deck of the scout cruiser USS Birmingham off Hampton Roads, Virginia.

In 1925: The first group exhibition of surrealistic paintings opened at the Galerie Pierre in Paris.

In 1940: During World War II, German planes destroyed most of the English town of Coventry.

In 1965: The U.S. Army’s first major military operation of the Vietnam War began with the start of the five-day Battle of Ia Drang. (The fighting between American troops and North Vietnamese forces ended on Nov. 18 with both sides claiming victory.)

In 1969: Apollo 12 blasted off for the moon.

In 1970: A chartered Southern Airways DC-9 crashed while trying to land in West Virginia, killing all 75 people on board, including the Marshall University football team and its coaching staff.

In 1972: The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed above the 1,000 level for the first time, ending the day at 1,003.16.

In 1973: Britain’s Princess Anne married Captain Mark Phillips in Westminster Abbey. (They divorced in 1992, and Anne remarried.)

In 1986: The Securities and Exchange Commission imposed a $100 million penalty on inside-trader Ivan F. Boesky and barred him from working again in the securities industry.

In 1996: Cardinal Joseph Bernardin, the senior Roman Catholic prelate in the United States and leader of Chicago’s 2.3 million Catholics, died at his home at age 68. Singer Michael Jackson married his plastic surgeon’s nurse, Debbie Rowe, in a ceremony in Sydney, Australia. (Rowe filed for divorce in 1999.)

In 1997: A jury in Fairfax, Virginia, decided that Pakistani national Aimal Khan Kasi should get the death penalty for gunning down two CIA employees outside agency headquarters.

(Five years later on this date, Aimal Khan Kasi was executed.)

In 2008: A lunar probe from India made a planned crash-landing onto the surface of the moon. Space shuttle Endeavour and a crew of seven blasted into the night sky, bound for the international space station. Dr. Adrian Kantrowitz, the cardiac surgeon who performed the first U.S. heart transplant in 1967, died in Ann Arbor, Mich. at age 90.

In 2013: Reversing course, President Barack Obama said millions of Americans should be allowed to renew individual coverage plans ticketed for cancellation under the health care law. During a confirmation hearing before the Senate Banking Committee, Janet Yellen made clear she would be prepared to stand by the Federal Reserve’s low-interest policies, if she were to be confirmed as Fed chair. Former Boston crime boss James “Whitey” Bulger was led off to prison to begin serving a life sentence at 84 for his murderous reign in the 1970s and ’80s. (Bulger was killed Oct. 30, 2018, hours after arriving at a federal prison in West Virginia.) Pittsburgh Pirates center fielder Andrew McCutchen and Detroit Tigers slugger Miguel Cabrera won baseball’s Most Valuable Player awards.

In 2017: Three UCLA basketball players who’d been detained in China on suspicion of shoplifting returned home; they were then indefinitely suspended from the team. Papa John’s Pizza apologized for comments made by CEO John Schnatter (SHNAH’-tur), who had blamed sluggish pizza sales on NFL players kneeling during the national anthem. House Speaker Paul Ryan said the House would require anti-harassment and anti-discrimination training for all members and their staffs; the announcement came hours after two female lawmakers spoke about sexual misconduct involving sitting members of Congress.

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