Today’s Highlight in History:
On Sept. 30, 1955, actor James Dean was killed at age 24 in a two-car collision near Cholame, California.
On this date:
In 1777, the Continental Congress — forced to flee in the face of advancing British forces — moved to York, Pennsylvania.
In 1791, Mozart’s opera “The Magic Flute” premiered in Vienna, Austria.
In 1938, after co-signing the Munich Agreement allowing Nazi annexation of Czechoslovakia’s Sudetenland, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain said, “I believe it is peace for our time.”
In 1947, the World Series was broadcast on television for the first time; the New York Yankees defeated the Brooklyn Dodgers 5-3 in Game 1 (the Yankees went on to win the Series four games to three).
In 1949, the Berlin Airlift came to an end.
In 1954, the first nuclear-powered submarine, the USS Nautilus, was commissioned by the U.S. Navy.
In 1960, “The Flintstones,” network television’s first animated prime-time series, debuted on ABC.
In 1962, James Meredith, a Black student, was escorted by federal marshals to the campus of the University of Mississippi, where he enrolled for classes the next day; Meredith’s presence sparked rioting that left two people dead.
In 1972, Pittsburgh Pirates star Roberto Clemente’s had his 3,000th, and final, hit, a double against Jon Matlack of the New York Mets at Three Rivers Stadium.
In 1986, the U.S. released accused Soviet spy Gennadiy Zakharov, one day after the Soviets released American journalist Nicholas Daniloff.
In 1988, Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev retired President Andrei A. Gromyko from the Politburo and fired other old-guard leaders in a Kremlin shake-up.
In 2001, under threat of U.S. military strikes, Afghanistan’s hardline Taliban rulers said explicitly for the first time that Osama bin Laden was still in the country and that they knew where his hideout was located.
In 2012, Mike Trout of the Los Angeles Angels became the first rookie in Major League history to hit 30 home runs and steal 40 bases in a season.
In 2013, Pope Francis announced during a meeting with cardinals that he would canonize two of his most influential predecessors, John Paul II and John XXIII.
In 2017, Monty Hall, the long-running host of TV’s “Let’s Make a Deal,” died of heart failure at his home in Beverly Hills at the age of 96.
In 2021, with only hours to spare, Congress passed and President Joe Biden signed legislation to avoid a partial federal shutdown and keep the government funded through Dec. 3.
In 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed treaties to illegally annex more occupied Ukrainian territory in a sharp escalation of his seven-month invasion.