Today is Friday, Sept. 23, the 267th day of 2016. There are 99 days left in the year.

Today’s Highlight in History

On Sept. 23, 1846, Neptune was identified as a planet by German astronomer Johann Gottfried Galle.

On this date

In 1779, during the Revolutionary War, the American warship Bon Homme Richard, commanded by John Paul Jones, defeated the HMS Serapis in battle off Yorkshire, England; however, the seriously damaged Bon Homme Richard sank two days later.

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 more than two years after setting out for the Pacific Northwest.

In 1926, Gene Tunney scored a ten-round decision over Jack Dempsey to win the world heavyweight boxing title in Philadelphia.

In 1939, Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, died in London at age 83.

In 1952, in what became known as the “Checkers” speech, Sen. Richard M. Nixon, R-Calif., salvaged his vice-presidential nomination by appearing on television to refute allegations of improper campaign fundraising.

In 1955, a jury in Sumner, Mississippi, acquitted two white men, Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam, of murdering black teenager Emmett Till. (The two men later admitted to the crime in an interview with Look magazine.)

In 1957, nine black students who’d 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 (later renamed Avery Fisher Hall) formally opened as the first unit of the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. “The Jetsons,” an animated cartoon series about a Space Age family, premiered as the ABC television network’s first program in color.

In 1973, former Argentine president Juan Peron won a landslide election victory that returned him to power; his wife, Isabel, was elected vice president.

In 1987, Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., withdrew from the Democratic presidential race following questions about his use of borrowed quotations and the portrayal of his academic record.

In 1996, space shuttle Atlantis left Russia’s orbiting Mir station with astronaut Shannon Lucid, who ended her six-month visit with tender goodbyes to her Russian colleagues.

Five years ago: Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas took his people’s quest for independence to the United Nations, seeking the world body’s recognition of Palestine and sidestepping negotiations that had foundered for nearly two decades.

The Associated Press

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