| On this date in: |
| 1618 | Sir Walter Raleigh, the English courtier, military adventurer and poet, was executed in London. |
| 1682 | The founder of Pennsylvania, William Penn, landed at what is now Chester, Pa. |
| 1891 | Broadway star Fanny Brice was born Fanny Borach in Newark, N.J. |
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| 1901 | President William McKinley's assassin, Leon Czolgosz, was electrocuted. |
| 1923 | The Republic of Turkey was proclaimed. |
| 1929 | Stock prices collapsed on the New York Stock Exchange amid panic selling. Thousands of investors were wiped out. |
| 1940 | The United States America began its first peacetime military draft. |
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| 1947 | Frances Cleveland Preston, the widow of President Grover Cleveland, died at age 83. |
| 1956 | Israel invaded Egypt's Sinai Peninsula during the Suez Canal crisis. |
| 1956 | "The Huntley-Brinkley Report" premiered as NBC's nightly TV newscast. |
| 1962 | The Beach Boys' debut album, "Surfin' Safari," was released. |
| 1966 | The National Organization for Women was founded. |
| 1967 | The musical "Hair" opened off-Broadway. |
| 2004 | Osama bin Laden, in a videotaped statement, directly admitted for the first time that he had ordered the Sept. 11 attacks. |
| 2004 | European Union leaders signed the EU's first constitution. |
