Today is Sunday, Sept. 23, the 266th day of 2018. There are 99 days left in the year.
On Sept. 23, 1955, a jury in Sumner, Mississippi, acquitted two white men, Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam, of murdering black teenager Emmett Till. (The two men later admitted to the crime in an interview with Look magazine.)
In 1780, British spy John Andre was captured along with papers revealing Benedict Arnold’s plot to surrender West Point to the British.
In 1806, the Lewis and Clark expedition returned to St. Louis more than two years after setting out for the Pacific Northwest.
In 1889, Nintendo was founded in Kyoto, Japan, as a playing card company.
In 1846, Neptune was identified as a planet by German astronomer Johann Gottfried Galle.
In 1926, Gene Tunney scored a ten-round decision over Jack Dempsey to win the world heavyweight boxing title in Philadelphia.
In 1952, Sen. Richard M. Nixon, R-Calif., salvaged his vice-presidential nomination by appearing on television from Los Angeles to refute allegations of improper campaign fundraising in what became known as the “Checkers” speech.
In 1957, nine black students who’d entered Little Rock Central High School in Arkansas were forced to withdraw because of a white mob outside.
In 1962, “The Jetsons,” an animated cartoon series about a Space Age family, premiered as the ABC television network’s first program in color.
In 1987, Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., withdrew from the Democratic presidential race following questions about his use of borrowed quotations and the portrayal of his academic record.
In 1999, the Mars Climate Orbiter apparently burned up as it attempted to go into orbit around the Red Planet.
In 2001, President George W. Bush returned the American flag to full staff at Camp David, symbolically ending a period of national mourning following the 9/11 attacks.
In 2002, Gov. Gray Davis signed a law making California the first state to offer workers paid family leave.
