On Sept. 11, 1677, Maine became the first American colony...

September 11, 1998

On Sept. 11, 1677, Maine became the first American colony to approve a law against liquor sales.

In 1777 George Washington's troops were defeated by the British in the Battle of Brandywine near Wilmington, Del.

In 1789 Alexander Hamilton became the nation's first treasury secretary.


In 1862 William Sydney Porter, who wrote under the pen name O. Henry, was born in Greensboro, N.C.

In 1885 author D.H. Lawrence was born in Eastwood, England.

In 1897 a strike by coal miners in Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia ended with the miners winning an eight-hour workday. (The previous day, 20 Pennsylvania miners were killed when police fired on them.)

In 1945 former Japanese Premier Hideki Tojo attempted suicide. (He recovered and was executed as a war criminal.)

In 1962 the Beatles made their first single record, "Love Me Do" and "P.S. I Love You," at EMI's studios in London.

In 1973 Chilean President Salvador Allende Gossens was deposed in a military coup, and the new leaders said he committed suicide rather than surrender.

In 1974 71 of the 82 people aboard an Eastern Airlines jet were killed when it crashed while trying to land in Charlotte, N.C.

In 1976 a TWA jet seized by Croatian hijackers during a New York-to-Chicago flight landed in Paris, where the passengers were allowed to disembark.

In 1982 all 46 people aboard a U.S. Army helicopter were killed when it crashed on a highway during an air show in Mannheim, West Germany.

In 1984 Secretary of State George Shultz announced the U.S. was willing to admit 8,000 children fathered by American GIs during the Vietnam War and 10,000 Vietnamese political prisoners.

In 1993 Antoine Izmery, a prominent supporter of exiled Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, was shot to death outside a Port-au-Prince church.