Associated Press
On Sept. 1, 1939, World War II began as Nazi Germany invaded Poland.
On this date in:
1905- Alberta and Saskatchewan became the eighth and ninth provinces of Canada.
1942- A federal judge in Sacramento, Calif., upheld the wartime detention of Japanese-Americans as well as Japanese nationals.
1951- The United States, Australia and New Zealand signed a mutual defense pact, the ANZUS treaty.
1969- A coup in Libya brought Moammar Gadhafi to power.
1972- American Bobby Fischer won the international chess crown in Reykjavik, Iceland, defeating Boris Spassky of the Soviet Union.
1981- Albert Speer, a close associate of Adolf Hitler who ran the Nazi war machine, died at a London hospital at age 76.
1983- A Korean Air Lines Boeing 747 was shot down by a Soviet jet fighter after the airliner entered Soviet airspace; 269 people were killed.
2004- More than 1,100 people were taken hostage by heavily armed Chechen militants at a school in Beslan in southern Russia; more than 330 people, most of them children, were killed during the three-day ordeal.
2009- A law allowing gay marriage took effect in Vermont.
Today’s Birthdays:
Comedian-actress Lily Tomlin turns 76 years old today.
Barry Gibb, Singer (The Bee Gees), 69
Gloria Estefan, Singer, 58
Dee Dee Myers, Former White House Press Secretary, 54
Scott Speedman, Actor (“Felicity”), 40
Joe Trohman, Rock musician (Fall Out Boy), 31
Talk show host Phil McGraw (“Dr. Phil”) turns 65 years old today.