On this date in:
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| 1609 | English explorer Henry Hudson sailed into the river that now bears his name.
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| 1880 | Journalist and critic H.L. Mencken was born in Baltimore.
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| 1918 | U.S. forces led by Gen. John J. Pershing launched a successful attack on the German-occupied St. Mihiel salient north of Verdun, France, during World War I.
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| 1938 | In a speech in Nuremberg, Adolf Hitler demanded self-determination for the Sudeten Germans in Czechoslovakia.
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| 1943 | German paratroopers rescued former Italian dictator Benito Mussolini from the hotel where he was being held prisoner by his own government.
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| 1944 | U.S. Army troops entered Germany for the first time during World War II, near Trier.
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| 1953 | Massachusetts Sen. John F. Kennedy married Jacqueline Lee Bouvier in Newport, R.I.
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| 1954 | "Lassie" made its TV debut on CBS.
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| 1959 | "Bonanza" premiered on NBC.
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| 1974 | Emperor Haile Selassie was deposed by Ethiopia's military after ruling for 58 years.
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| 1986 | Joseph Cicippio, the acting comptroller at the American University in Beirut, Lebanon, was kidnapped. (He was held more than five years.)
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| 1992 | Police in Peru captured the founder of the Shining Path guerrilla movement, Abimael Guzman.
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| 2000 | Dutch lawmakers gave same-sex couples the right to marry and adopt children.
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| 2001 | President George W. Bush labeled the previous day's terrorist attacks "acts of war" and asked Congress for $20 billion to rebuild and recover.
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| 2002 | President George W. Bush told skeptical world leaders at the United Nations to confront the "grave and gathering danger" of Saddam Hussein's Iraq or stand aside as the United States acted.
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| 2002 | Three former Tyco International Ltd. executives were charged with looting the conglomerate of hundreds of millions of dollars. (Former CEO L. Dennis Kozlowski and CFO Mark Swartz were later convicted; lawyer Mark Belnick was acquitted.)
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| 2003 | The U.N. Security Council ended 11 years of sanctions against Libya.
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| 2003 | Country musician Johnny Cash died at age 71.
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| 2005 | Federal Emergency Management Agency director Michael Brown resigned, three days after losing his onsite command of the Hurricane Katrina relief effort.
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| 2006 | Syrian guards foiled an attempt by suspected al-Qaida-linked militants to blow up the U.S. Embassy in Damascus.
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| 2006 | In a speech in his native Germany, Pope Benedict XVI quoted from an obscure medieval text that characterized some teachings of Islam's founder as "evil and inhuman," unleashing a torrent of rage across the Islamic world.
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| 2007 | Oil prices briefly topped a record $80 a barrel.
**printed from nytimes.com
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