TODAY in HISTORY: September 04

Following are some of the major events to have occurred on September 04

 

Reuters


1914 - Cardinal Giacomo Della Chiesa was elected Pope, becoming Benedict XV.

 

1925 - The U.S. dirigible Shenandoah, the first airship to use helium gas, ran into a storm over southern Ohio and broke up in the air with the loss of 14 officers and men.

 

1976 - The U.S. spacecraft Viking 2 landed on Mars and began sending back photographs.

 

1993 - Cambodia's government agreed to a constitutional monarchy with Norodom Sihanouk returning to the throne.

 

1994 - Russia and China ended decades of confrontation and agreed to cease keeping nuclear missiles aimed at each other.

 

1997 - A Vietnam Airlines Tupolev Tu-134 plane crashed while coming in to land at Phnom Penh airport; 64 people died.

 

2000 - Pope John Paul beatified the ultra-conservative 19th century pope Pius IX, putting him on the path to sainthood despite protests from Jews and liberal Catholics. He also beatified Pope John XXIII, a popular moderniser.

 

2001 - The United States and Israel angrily pulled out of the U.N. racism conference in Durban in protest at attempts to single out Israel as a racist state.

 

2003 - The world's first amphibian vehicle is demonstrated in London.

 

2006 – Tennis player Andre Agassi plays his last U.S. Open.

 

2007 - Briton Jane Tomlinson, hailed as an inspiration for defying terminal cancer to run marathons, cycle across America and raise over a million pounds for charity, died at the age of 43.