There are 94 days left in the year.
Today’s Highlight in History:
On Sept. 28, 1928, Scottish medical researcher Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin, the first effective antibiotic.
On this date:
In 1781, American forces in the Revolutionary War, backed by a French fleet, began their successful siege of Yorktown, Virginia.
In 1841, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow completed his poem “Excelsior.”
In 1850, flogging was abolished as a form of punishment in the U.S. Navy.
In 1920, eight members of the Chicago White Sox were indicted for allegedly throwing the 1919 World Series against the Cincinnati Reds. (All were acquitted at trial, but all eight were banned from the game for life.)
In 1924, three U.S. Army planes landed in Seattle, having completed the first round-the-world trip by air in 175 days.
In 1939, during World War II, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union signed a treaty calling for the partitioning of Poland, which the two countries had invaded.
In 1958, voters in the African country of Guinea overwhelmingly favored independence from France.
In 1962, a federal appeals court found Mississippi Gov. Ross Barnett in civil contempt for blocking the admission of James Meredith, a Black student, to the University of Mississippi. (Federal marshals escorted Meredith onto the campus two days later.)
In 1995, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and PLO chairman Yasser Arafat signed an accord at the White House ending Israel’s military occupation of West Bank cities and laying the foundation for a Palestinian state.
In 2000, capping a 12-year battle, the government approved use of the abortion pill RU-486.
In 2019, voters in Afghanistan went to the polls to elect a president for the fourth time since a U.S.-led coalition ousted the Taliban regime in 2001; the vote was marred by violence, Taliban threats and widespread allegations of mismanagement. (After a series of delays, the country’s independent election commission announced months later that Ashraf Ghani had won a second term as president.)
In 2020, the worldwide death toll from the coronavirus pandemic topped 1 million, according to a count by Johns Hopkins University.
