1901 President William B. McKinley was shot and mortally wounded by anarchist Leon Czolgosz at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, N.Y. (McKinley is one of two assassinated U.S. presidents who should have survived his wounds [Garfield was the other]. Due to procedural errors and poor decisions made after he was shot, he died eight days after the shooting. His vice-president, Theodore Roosevelt, was and remains the youngest person to assume the presidency.)
1909 American explorer Robert Peary sent word that he had reached the North Pole five months earlier. (There is some controversy to this claim. There are serious questions as to whether Peary ever reached the North Pole)
1916 The first self-service grocery store, Piggly Wiggly, was opened in Memphis, Tenn., by Clarence Saunders. (This is widely recognized as the world’s first supermarket, where shoppers walked the aisles and picked out their own goods.)
1941 Jews over the age of 6 in German-occupied areas were ordered to wear yellow Stars of David.(The “yellow star” requirement for Jews was revived by the Taliban, about 60 years later.)
1970 Palestinian guerrillas seized control of three jetliners, which were later blown up on the ground in Jordan after the passengers and crews were evacuated.
1975 Czechoslovakian tennis player Martina Navratilova, in New York for the U.S. Open, requested political asylum.
1992 A man who had received a transplanted baboon liver 10 weeks earlier died at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.
1996 Eddie Murray of the Baltimore Orioles hit his 500th career home run during a game against the Detroit Tigers.
1997 Britain bade farewell to Princess Diana with a funeral service at Westminster Abbey.
1998 Japanese director Akira Kurosawa died at age 88.
2001 Barry Bonds of the San Francisco Giants became the fifth player in baseball history to hit 60 home runs in a season. (He finished the year with a record 73 homers.) (Ahhh – the miracle of modern medicine!)
2002 Meeting outside Washington D.C., for only the second time since 1800, Congress convened in New York to pay homage to the victims and heroes of Sept. 11, 2001.
2004 Former President Bill Clinton underwent successful heart bypass surgery.
2006 President George W. Bush acknowledged previously secret CIA prisons around the world and said 14 high-value terrorism suspects had been transferred from the system to Guantanamo Bay for trials.
2007 Opera singer Luciano Pavarotti died at age 71.