September 23rd

Today's Highlight in History:
On September 23rd, 1939, Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, died in London.

On this date:
In 63 B.C., Caesar Augustus was born in Rome.

In 1642, Harvard College in Cambridge, Massachusetts, held its first commencement.

In 1779, during the Revolutionary War, the American warship "Bon Homme Richard" defeated the HMS "Serapis" after the American commander, John Paul Jones, is said to have declared: "I have not yet begun to fight!"

In 1780, British spy John Andre was captured along with papers revealing Benedict Arnold's plot to surrender West Point to the British.

In 1806, the Lewis and Clark expedition returned to St. Louis from the Pacific Northwest.

In 1846, the planet Neptune was discovered by German astronomer Johann Gottfried Galle.

In 1952, Republican vice-presidential candidate Richard M. Nixon went on television to deliver what came to be known as the "Checkers" speech as he refuted allegations of improper campaign financing.

In 1957, nine black students who had entered Little Rock Central High School in Arkansas were forced to withdraw because of a white mob outside.

In 1962, New York's Philharmonic Hall (since renamed Avery Fisher Hall) formally opened as the first unit of the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts.

In 1973, former Argentine president Juan Peron was returned to power.

Ten years ago: Iraq threatened to destroy Middle East oil fields and attack Israel if other nations tried to force it from Kuwait. South African President F.W. de Klerk arrived in the US for talks with President Bush.

Five years ago: In a wide-ranging interview aboard Air Force One, President Clinton admitted he had tended in the past to get hung up on details, and pledged to do a better job in providing reassuring leadership to Americans confused by tumultuous times.

One year ago: President Clinton vetoed the Republicans' $792 billion tax cut bill, calling it "too big, too bloated." The Mars Climate Orbiter apparently burned up as it was about to go into orbit around the Red Planet.

"Each generation imagines itself to be more intelligent than the one that went before it, and wiser than the one that comes after it."

-- George Orwell (Eric Blair), British author (1903-1950).