Today is Tuesday, Sept. 6, the 250th day of 2016. There are 116 days left in the year.
Today's Highlight in History:
On Sept. 6, 1916, the first self-serve grocery store, Piggly Wiggly, was opened in Memphis, Tennessee, by Clarence Saunders. (The store was set up to allow customers to hand-pick their groceries from shelves, rather than request them from a clerk standing behind a counter.)
On this date:
In 1861, Union forces led by Gen. Ulysses S. Grant occupied Paducah, Kentucky, during the Civil War.
In 1901, President William McKinley was shot and mortally wounded by anarchist Leon Czolgosz (CHAWL'-gawsh) at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York. (McKinley died eight days later; Czolgosz was executed on October 29.)
In 1925, the silent film horror classic "The Phantom of the Opera," starring Lon Chaney, had its world premiere at the Astor Theater in New York.
In 1939, the Union of South Africa declared war on Germany.
In 1943, 79 people were killed when a New York-bound Pennsylvania Railroad train derailed and crashed in Philadelphia.
In 1954, groundbreaking took place for the Shippingport Atomic Power Station in western Pennsylvania.
In 1966, birth control advocate Margaret Sanger died in Tucson, Arizona, at age 86, eight days before her birthday. South African Prime Minister Hendrik Verwoerd (fehr-FOORT') was stabbed to death by an apparently deranged page during a parliamentary session in Cape Town.
In 1970, Palestinian guerrillas seized control of three U.S.-bound jetliners. (Two were later blown up on the ground in Jordan, along with a London-bound plane hijacked on Sept. 9; the fourth plane was destroyed on the ground in Egypt. No hostages were harmed.)
In 1975, 18-year-old tennis star Martina Navratilova of Czechoslovakia, in New York for the U.S. Open, requested political asylum in the United States.
In 1985, all 31 people aboard a Midwest Express Airlines DC-9 were killed when the Atlanta-bound jetliner crashed just after takeoff from Milwaukee's Mitchell Field.
In 1991, the Soviet Union recognized the independence of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. Russian lawmakers upheld a decision by residents of Leningrad to restore the city's pre-revolutionary name, St. Petersburg.
In 1997, a public funeral was held for Princess Diana at Westminster Abbey in London, six days after her death in a car crash in Paris.
Ten years ago: President George W. Bush acknowledged for the first time that the CIA was running secret prisons overseas and said tough interrogation had forced terrorist leaders to reveal plots to attack the United States and its allies. Japan's Princess Kiko gave birth to a boy (later named Hisahito), providing the centuries-old Chrysanthemum Throne with its first male heir in more than 40 years. Anibal Sanchez threw a no-hitter in his 13th career start as the Florida Marlins beat the Arizona Diamondbacks 2-0.
Five years ago: A man with a rifle opened fire in an IHOP restaurant in Carson City, Nevada, killing three of five uniformed National Guard members and a woman having breakfast with her husband; gunman Eduardo Sencion also shot himself and died in the parking lot. Convoys of Moammar Gadhafi loyalists, including his security chief, fled Libya, crossing the Sahara into Niger.
One year ago: Guatemala held its general election; with no presidential candidate winning more than 50 percent of the vote, there was a runoff the following October between Jimmy Morales (who won) and Sandra Torres.
