This Day in History

This Day in History: September 7, 2005

Courtesy of the NY Times’ On this Day:

1533 England's Queen Elizabeth I was born in Greenwich.

1822 Brazil declared its independence from Portugal.

1901 The Peace of Beijing ended the Boxer Rebellion in China.

1927 TV pioneer Philo T. Farnsworth succeeded in transmitting an image through purely electronic means by using a device called an image dissector.

1936 Rock musician Buddy Holly was born Charles Hardin Holley in Lubbock, Texas.

1963 The Pro Football Hall of Fame was dedicated in Canton, Ohio.

1969 Senate Republican leader Everett M. Dirksen died at age 73.

1977 The Panama Canal treaties, calling for the U.S. to turn over control of the waterway to Panama, were signed in Washington.

1977 Convicted Watergate conspirator G. Gordon Liddy was released after serving more than four years in prison.

1979 The Entertainment and Sports Programming Network (ESPN) made its cable TV debut.

1986 Desmond Tutu was installed as the first black to lead the Anglican Church in southern Africa.

1990 Kimberly Bergalis of Fort Pierce, Fla., came forward to identify herself as the young woman who had been infected with AIDS, apparently by her late dentist. Bergalis died the following year.

1996 Rapper Tupac Shakur was shot on the Las Vegas Strip; he died six days later.

1997 Former Zairian dictator Mobutu Sese Seko died in exile in Morocco at age 66.

1998 St. Louis Cardinals slugger Mark McGwire equaled Roger Maris' single-season home run record as he hit No. 61 in a game against the Chicago Cubs.

2003 Yasser Arafat tapped the Palestinian parliament speaker, Ahmed Qureia, to take over as prime minister following the resignation of Mahmoud Abbas.