Flashback
Today is Saturday, Sept. 3, the 246th day of 2005. There are 119 days left in the year.
Today’s highlight in history: On Sept. 3, 1783, the Treaty of Paris between the United States and Great Britain officially ended the Revolutionary War.
On this date:
In 1189, England’s King Richard I (the Lion-Hearted) was crowned in Westminster.
In 1658, Oliver Cromwell, the Lord Protector of England, died.
In 1939, Britain and France declared war on Germany, two days after the Nazi invasion of Poland.
In 1943, the British Eighth Army invaded Italy during World War II, the same day Italy signed a secret armistice with the allies.
In 1967, Nguyen Van Thieu was elected president of South Vietnam under a new constitution.
In 1967, motorists in Sweden began driving on the right-hand side of the road, instead of the left.
In 1976, the unmanned U.S. spacecraft Viking II landed on Mars to take the first close-up, color photographs of the planet’s surface.
In 1978, Pope John Paul I was installed as the 264th pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church.
In 1989, a Cubana de Aviacion jetliner crashed after takeoff in Havana, killing all 126 aboard and 26 people on the ground.
In 1994, China and Russia proclaimed an end to any lingering hostilities, pledging they would no longer target nuclear missiles or use force against each other.
Ten years ago: Testing Serb will, the United Nations reopened a route to Sarajevo and threatened more air attacks if the rebel stranglehold of the Bosnian capital didn’t end.
Five years ago: The presidential candidates squabbled over debate schedules as Republican George W. Bush announced he had accepted three prime-time sessions. Democrat Al Gore rejected the plan, saying the formats proposed by Bush could limit the audience and amount of face-to-face debate time.
One year ago: The three-day hostage siege at a school in Beslan, Russia, ended in bloody chaos after Chechen militants set off bombs as Russian commandos stormed the building; nearly 340 people were killed. Former President Clinton was hospitalized in New York with chest pains and shortness of breath; he ended up undergoing heart bypass surgery.