On this day: September 18
America takes out its first loan, The New York Times and the United States Air Force are born, guitar legend Jimi Hendrix dies, and "The Guiding Light" ends after 72 years, all on this day.
1789: Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton negotiates and secures the first loan for the United States. The Temporary Loan of 1789, which was used to pay the salaries of the president, senators, representatives and officers of the first Congress, would repaid on June 8, 1790, at the sum of $191,608.81.
1789: Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton negotiates and secures the first loan for the United States. The Temporary Loan of 1789, which was used to pay the salaries of the president, senators, representatives and officers of the first Congress, would repaid on June 8, 1790, at the sum of $191,608.81.
1793: The first cornerstone of the Capitol building is laid by George Washington.
1837: Tiffany and Co. is founded by Charles Lewis Tiffany and Teddy Young in New York City as Tiffany, Young and Ellis. The store is called a "stationery and fancy goods emporium." The name would be shortened to Tiffany & Co. in 1853 when Charles Tiffany took control, and the firm's emphasis on jewelry was established.
1850: The U.S. Congress passes the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850. The law declared that all runaway slaves be brought back to their masters. Since any suspected slave was not eligible for a trial, this led to many free blacks being conscripted into slavery as they had no rights in court and could not defend themselves against accusations.
1851: The New-York Daily Times, which later becomes The New York Times, is published for the first time.
1870: The Old Faithful Geyser is observed and named by Henry D. Washburn during the Washburn-Langford-Doane Expedition to Yellowstone.
1873: The Phildalphia-based bank Jay Cooke & Company declares bankruptcy, triggering a series of bank failures in what becomes known as the Panic of 1873. The resulting international economic depression in both Europe and the United States would last until 1879 and be known as the "Great Depression" until the 1930s.
1905: Actress Greta Garbo ("Anna Christie," "Anna Karenina," "Grand Hotel") is born under the birth name Greta Lovisa Gustafsson in Stockholm, Sweden.
1906: A typhoon and accompanying tsunami kill an estimated 10,000 people in Hong Kong.
1919: Fritz Pollard becomes the first African-American to play professional football for a major team, the Akron Pros. In 1920, the team would join the newly founded American Professional Football Association, later renamed the National Football League, and Pollard would help lead them to the league's first crown. The following year he became the NFL's first African-American coach.
1927: Columbia Phonograph Broadcasting System makes its debut with its network broadcast over 16 radio stations of a presentation by the Howard Barlow Orchestra from flagship station WOR in Newark, N.J. The network's name is later changed to CBS.
1928: Juan de la Cierva makes the first autogyro crossing of the English Channel.
1933: Actor Robert Blake, most known for his role as a child actor in the "Our Gang" shorts and as an adult for "In Cold Blood" and the TV series "Baretta," is born in Nutley, N.J. Blake was also tried and acquitted in 2005 of the 2001 murder of his wife, although he was later found liable in civil court for her wrongful death.
1939: Actor Fred Willard ("Best in Show," "Waiting for Guffman," "WALL-E") is born in Shaker Heights, Ohio.
1944: The British submarine HMS Tradewind torpedoes the Japanese cargo ship Junyo Maru, which, unknown to the Tradewind's commander, was carrying 4,200 Javanese slave laborers and 2,300 Allied prisoners of war. It was the world's greatest sea disaster at the time with 5,620 dead.
1947: The National Security Act of 1947 takes effect, making the United States Air Force an independent branch of the armed forces (previously it had been part of the U.S. Army) and formally establishing the National Security Council and the Central Intelligence Agency.
1951: The movie "A Streetcar Named Desire," starring Marlin Brando and Vivien Leigh and directed by Elia Kazan, premieres in Beverly Hills, Calif. The film would end up earning an Academy Award nomination for Best Picture and Brando, Kazan and Leigh would all be nominated for Oscars as well, although, of the three, only Leigh won. The film also would go on to receive Oscars for Best Supporting Actor (Karl Malden), Best Supporting Actress (Kim Hunter) and Best Art Direction.
1952: Basketball coach Rick Pitino, who has been coaching since 1987, mostly in college but also with two short stints in the NBA with the New York Knicks and Boston Celtics, is born in New York City. Pitino won an NCAA title with the University of Kentucky in 1996 and also holds the distinction of being the only men's coach in NCAA history to lead three different schools (Providence, Kentucky, and Louisville) to a Final Four.
1959: Hall of Fame baseball player Ryne Sandberg, who spent the majority of his 16-year career with the Chicago Cubs, is born in Spokane, Wash.
1960: Fidel Castro arrives in New York City as the head of the Cuban delegation to the United Nations.
1961: Actor James Gandolfini, best known for his portrayal of mob boss Tony Soprano on HBO's "The Sopranos," is born in Westwood, N.J.
1963: The sitcom "The Patty Duke Show," starring Patty Duke in a dual role as "identical cousins," premieres.
1965: The sitcom "I Dream of Jeannie," which featured Barbara Eden as a 2,000-year-old genie and Larry Hagman as an astronaut who becomes her master, debuts. The show would run for five seasons and produce 139 episodes.
1965: The sitcom "Get Smart," starring Don Adams as bungling secret agent Maxwell Smart and Barbara Feldon as his experienced female partner Agent 99, debuts.
1970: Guitar legend Jimi Hendrix is found dead in a London apartment at the age of 27. The official cause of death was inhalation of vomit after barbiturate intoxication.
1971: Cyclist Lance Armstrong, who won the Tour de France a record seven consecutive times, is born in Plano, Texas.
1971: Actress Jada Pinkett Smith, the wife of fellow actor Will Smith and who is known for roles in such movies as "The Nutty Professor" and "Menace II Society," is born in Baltimore.
1974: Hurricane Fifi strikes Honduras with 110 mph winds, killing at least 5,000 people.
1975: Patty Hearst is arrested after a year on the FBI Most Wanted List. The newspaper heiress was kidnapped from a San Francisco apartment on Feb. 4, 1974, by the leftist group Symbionese Liberation Army. While initially their captive, she later announced she was joining the group of her own free will and took part in a bank robbery with them. She would end up being convicted in March 1976 and sentenced to seven years in prison, although her sentence was commuted by President Jimmy Carter and she was released in February 1979. In 2001, she received a full pardon from President Bill Clinton.
1977: Voyager I takes the first photograph of the Earth and the Moon together.
1983: The members of rock band Kiss officially appear in public without makeup for the first time during an appearance on MTV, which coincided with the release of the band's new album, "Lick It Up."
1984: Joe Kittinger becomes the first person to fly a gas balloon alone across the Atlantic Ocean.
1987: The movie "Fatal Attraction," starring Michael Douglas, Glenn Close and Anne Archer, debuts in theaters. The movie ended up being the second highest grossing film of the year in the United States and received six Academy Award nominations, including that for Best Picture, Best Actress for Close and Best Supporting Actress for Archer.
1994: Ken Burn's nine-part documentary "Baseball" premieres on PBS.
1996: Roger Clemens ties his own major league record with 20 strikeouts in a game against the Detroit Tigers at Tiger Stadium.
2001: The first mailing of anthrax letters from Trenton, N.J., in the 2001 anthrax attacks takes place. Letters containing anthrax spores are mailed to several news media offices and two Democratic U.S. Senators, killing five people and infecting 17 others. Federal prosecutors in August 2008 named scientist Bruce Edwards Ivins, who had committed suicide a month earlier, the sole culprit in the crime.
2004: Film director Russ Meyer, known primarily for writing and directing a series of successful low-budget sexploitation films that featured campy humor, sly satire and large-breasted women such as "Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!" and "Vixen!," dies of complications of pneumonia at age 82 in Hollywood Hills, Calif.
2004: Britney Spears and Kevin Federline are married in a wedding ceremony. However, they are not considered legally married until three weeks later on Oct. 6 due to a delay finalizing the couple's prenuptial agreement.
2009: The 72-year run of the soap opera "The Guiding Light" ends with the broadcast of the show's final episode. The show, credited by the "Guinness Book of World Records" as the longest running drama in television history, started with a 15-year run on radio before moving to television in 1952.
