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1773
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1968
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more events on September 1
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2004
Armed terrorists take children and adults hostage in the Beslan school hostage crisis in North Ossetia, Russia.
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1998
On National Day, Vietnam releases 5,000 prisoners, including political dissidents.
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1985
The wreck of the Titanic found by Dr. Robert Ballard and Jean Louis Michel in a joint U.S. and French expedition.
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1979
US spacecraft Pioneer 11 makes the first-ever flyby of Saturn.
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1974
Yutaka Yamamoto, founder of Ordet animation studios (Kannagi: Crazy Shrine Maidens).
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1972
America’s Bobby Fischer beats Russia’s Boris Spassky in Reykjavik, Iceland, to become world chess champion.
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1970
Dr. Hugh Scott of Washington, D.C. becomes the first African-American superintendent of schools in a major U.S. city.
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1969
Colonel Muammar Gaddafi seizes power in Libya following a coup.
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1968
Mohamed Atta, Egyptian terrorist; a ringleaders of the 9/11 attacks who piloted American Airlines Flight 11 into the World Trade Center’s North Tower.
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1957
Gloria Estefan, sincere, songwriter, actress; among top-selling 100 artists worldwide (“Words Get in the Way,” “Anything for You”).
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1951
Australia, New Zealand and the United States sign the ANZUS Treaty, a mutual defense pact.
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1946
Greg Errico, drummer and producer (Sly & the Family Stone).
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1942
C. J. Cherryh, fantasy and science fiction author (The Chanur series, Gene Wars, Heroes in Hell).
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A federal judge in Sacramento, Cal., upholds the government’s detention of Japanese-Americans and Japanese nationals as a war measure.
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1939
Lily Tomlin, multiple-award-winning actress, comedian, writer, producer (Laugh-In, Nashville, The Magic School Bus).