| On this date in: |
| 1813 |
Composer Giuseppe Verdi was born in Le Roncole, Italy. |
| 1845 |
The U.S. Naval Academy opened in Annapolis, Md. |
| 1886 |
The tuxedo dinner jacket made its American debut at the autumn ball in Tuxedo Park, N.Y. |
| 1911 |
Revolutionaries under Sun Yat-sen overthrew China’s Manchu dynasty. |
| 1935 |
George Gershwin’s opera “Porgy and Bess,” featuring an all-black cast, opened on Broadway. |
| 1943 |
Chiang Kai-shek took the oath of office as president of China. |
| 1964 |
The 18th Summer Olympic Games opened in Tokyo. |
| 1966 |
The Beach Boys released the single “Good Vibrations.” |
| 1970 |
Fiji became independent after nearly a century of British rule. |
| 1979 |
Hockey Hall-of-Famer Wayne Gretzky made his NHL debut with the Edmonton Oilers. |
| 1985 |
U.S. fighter jets forced an Egyptian plane carrying the hijackers of the Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro to land in Italy, where the gunmen were taken into custody. |
| 2002 |
The House voted 296-133 to give President George W. Bush broad authority to use military force against Iraq. (The Senate followed suit the next day.) |
| 2005 |
Angela Merkel became Germany’s first female chancellor and its first leader from the former Communist east. |
| 2008 |
Connecticut’s Supreme Court ruled that gay couples have the right to marry. |
