Today’s Highlights in History:
On Sept. 16, 1908, General Motors was founded in Flint, Michigan, by William C. Durant.
On this date:
In 1630, the Massachusetts village of Shawmut changed its name to Boston.
In 1810, Mexico began its revolt against Spanish rule.
In 1940, Samuel T. Rayburn of Texas was elected Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives.
In 1966, the Metropolitan Opera officially opened its new opera house at New York’s Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts with the world premiere of Samuel Barber’s “Antony and Cleopatra.”
In 1972, “The Bob Newhart Show” premiered on CBS.
In 1974, President Gerald R. Ford announced a conditional amnesty program for Vietnam war deserters and draft-evaders.
In 1982, the massacre of between 1,200 and 1,400 Palestinian men, women and children at the hands of Israeli-allied Christian Phalange militiamen began in west Beirut’s Sabra and Shatila refugee camps.
In 1987, two dozen countries signed the Montreal Protocol, a treaty designed to save the Earth’s ozone layer by calling on nations to reduce emissions of harmful chemicals by the year 2000.
In 2001, President George W. Bush, speaking on the South Lawn of the White House, said there was “no question” Osama bin Laden and his followers were the prime suspects in the Sept. 11 attacks; Bush pledged the government would “find them, get them running and hunt them down.”
In 2007, O.J. Simpson was arrested in the alleged armed robbery of sports memorabilia collectors in Las Vegas. (Simpson was later convicted of kidnapping and armed robbery and sentenced to nine to 33 years in prison; he was released in 2017.)
In 2013, Aaron Alexis, a former U.S. Navy reservist, went on a shooting rampage inside the Washington Navy Yard, killing 12 people before being shot dead by police.
In 2016, after five years of promoting a false conspiracy theory about Barack Obama’s birthplace, Republican Donald Trump abruptly reversed course, acknowledging that the president was born in America.
In 2018, at least 17 people were confirmed dead from Hurricane Florence as catastrophic flooding spread across the Carolinas.
In 2021, Jane Powell, a star of Hollywood’s golden age musicals, died at her Connecticut home at age 92.