Sept. 20 historic events
1870 Italian troops took control of the Papal States, leading to the unification of Italy.
1873 Panic swept the New York Stock Exchange in the wake of railroad bond defaults and bank failures.
1881 Chester A. Arthur was sworn in as the 21st president of the United States, succeeding James A. Garfield, who had been assassinated.
1891 The first gasoline-powered car debuts in Springfield, Massachusetts, United States.
1962 James Meredith, a black man, was blocked from enrolling at the University of Mississippi by Gov. Ross R. Barnett.
1970 Syrian tanks roll into Jordan in response to continued fighting between Jordan and the fedayeen.
1984 A suicide car bomber attacked the U.S. Embassy annex in north Beirut, killing a dozen people.
1998 After playing in a record 2,632 consecutive games over 16 seasons, Cal Ripken Jr. of the Baltimore Orioles sat out a game against the New York Yankees. (The Yankees gave Ripken a standing ovation when they realized he wouldn’t be playing that night.)
1999 Lawrence Russell Brewer was convicted in the dragging death of an African-American man, James Byrd Jr., in Jasper, Texas.
2001 In an address to a joint session of Congress and the American people, U.S. President George W. Bush declares a “war on terror”.
2004 CBS News apologized for a story questioning President George W. Bush’s National Guard service, saying it could not vouch for the authenticity of documents featured in the report.
2005 Holocaust survivor and Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal died at age 96.