This Day In History: Cyanide-laced Tylenol kills six

Cyanide-laced Tylenol kills first three of seven victims

Born on This Day

Portrait Of Miguel De Cervantes Saavedra (1547-1615)

Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

1547 - 1616

Spanish writer whose 1605 novel "Don Quixote" revolutionized literature with its blend of realism and fantasy.

Gene Autry Sings

Gene Autry

1907 - 1998

Hollywood's singing cowboy starred in Westerns while releasing country hits like 1939's "Back in the Saddle Again."

2023-24 Phoenix Suns Media Day

Kevin Durant

1988 -

Standout basketball player who led the Golden State Warriors to back-to-back NBA championships in 2017-18.

Miguel de Cervantes SaavedraGetty Images

Gene AutryGetty Images

Kevin DurantNBAE via Getty Images

1954

SEP29

Outfielder Willie Mays of the then-New York Giants makes a seemingly impossible over-the-shoulder catch of a long fly ball to deep center in the 1954 World Series. It becomes forever known as “The Catch.”

Timeline

Also on This Day in History

Discover more of the major events, famous births, notable deaths and everything else history-making that happened on September 29th

Benedict Arnold’s accomplice is sentenced to death

British spy John André is court-martialed, found guilty and sentenced to death by hanging on September 29, 1780. André, an accomplice of Benedict Arnold, had been captured by Patriots John Paulding, David Williams and Isaac Van Wart six days earlier on September 23, after they found incriminating papers stashed in his boot. It was the […]

1:50m read read

The great singing cowboy Gene Autry is born in Texas

Gene Autry, perhaps the greatest singing cowboy of all time, is born on September 29, 1907, in Tioga, Texas. While still a boy, Autry moved with his family to a ranch in Oklahoma where he learned to play the guitar and sing. The young Autry was quickly attracted to a new style of music that […]

1:30m read read

Inventor Rudolf Diesel mysteriously vanishes

On September 29, 1913, Rudolf Diesel, inventor of the engine that bears his name, disappears from the steamship Dresden while traveling from Antwerp, Belgium to Harwich, England. On October 10, a Belgian sailor aboard a North Sea steamer spotted a body floating in the water; upon further investigation, it turned out that the body was […]

2:00m read read

Allied forces break through the Hindenburg Line

On September 29, 1918, after a 56-hour-long bombardment, Allied forces breach the so-called Hindenburg Line, the last line of German defenses on the Western Front during World War I. Built in late 1916, the Hindenburg Line—named by the British for the German commander in chief, Paul von Hindenburg; it was known to the Germans as […]

2:26m read read

Nazis and communists divvy up Poland

On September 29, 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union agree to divide control of occupied Poland roughly along the Bug River—the Germans taking everything west, the Soviets taking everything east. As a follow-up to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, (also known as the Hitler-Stalin Pact), that created a non-aggression treaty between the two behemoth military powers of Germany […]

2:02m read read

Babi Yar massacre begins

The Babi Yar massacre of nearly 34,000 Jewish men, women and children begins on the outskirts of Kiev in the Nazi-occupied Ukraine. The German army took Kiev on September 19, and special SS squads prepared to carry out Nazi leader Adolf Hitler’s orders to exterminate all Jews and Soviet officials found there. Beginning on September […]

1:04m read read

New York Times article claims Russians want the “American dream”

An article in the New York Times claims that Russian citizens want the “American dream”: private property and a home of their own. The article was one of many that appeared during the 1950s and 1960s, as the American media attempted to portray the average Russian as someone not much different from the average American. […]

Stacy Allison becomes first American woman to reach summit of Mt. Everest

Stacy Allison of Portland, Oregon, becomes the first American woman to reach the summit of Mount Everest, which at 29,035 feet above sea level is the highest point on earth. Allison, a member of the Northwest American Everest Expedition, climbed the Himalayan peak using the southeast ridge route. Mount Everest sits on the crest of […]

1:28m read read

“My Own Private Idaho” premieres in theaters

On September 29, 1991, My Own Private Idaho, an independent film written and directed by Gus Van Sant and starring Keanu Reeves and River Phoenix, premieres in New York theaters. The movie told the story of two young male hustlers, one of whom (Phoenix) is a hapless narcoleptic searching for the mother who abandoned him, […]

2:42m read read

Mexican American voting rights advocate Willie Velasquez awarded Presidential Medal of Freedom

On September 29, 1995, voting rights advocate Willie Velasquez is posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Velasquez and the organizations he founded are credited with dramatically increasing political awareness and participation among the Hispanic communities of the Southwestern United States. The son of a union organizer, Velasquez was one of five founders of the […]

1:58m read read

Willie Velasquez

Reporter Judith Miller released from prison

On September 29, 2005, New York Times reporter Judith Miller is released from a federal detention center in Alexandria, Virginia, after agreeing to testify in the investigation into the leaking of the identity of covert CIA officer Valerie Plame. Miller had been behind bars since July 6, 2005, for refusing to reveal a confidential source […]

1:54m read read

This Day In History: Cyanide-laced Tylenol kills six

School principal murdered by student in Wisconsin

John Klang, the principal of Weston High School in Cazenovia, Wisconsin, is shot and killed by 15-year-old student Eric Hainstock on September 29, 2006. The incident takes place amidst a spate of school violence across North America, including a shooting rampage at a Canadian college on September 13 and a hostage situation at a Colorado […]

1:54m read read

Dow suffers record-breaking single-day drop

On September 29, 2008, after Congress failed to pass a $700 billion bank bailout plan, the Dow Jones Industrial Average falls 777.68 points—at the time, the largest single-day point loss in its history. Down 7 percent, a greater loss than the 684.81 skid on September 17, 2001 (the first trading day post-9/11), the S&P 500 […]

1:32m read read

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