Today's Highlight in History:
Fifty years ago, on Sept. 16, 1953, "The Robe," the first movie filmed in the widescreen process CinemaScope, had its world premiere at the Roxy Theater in New York.
On this date:
In 1638, France's King Louis the XIV was born.
In 1810, Mexico began its revolt against Spanish rule.
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In 1893, hundreds of thousands of settlers swarmed onto a section of land in Oklahoma known as the "Cherokee Strip."
In 1919, the American Legion was incorporated by an act of Congress.
In 1940, President Roosevelt signed into law the Selective Training and Service Act, which set up the first peacetime military draft in U.S. history.
In 1940, Samuel T. Rayburn of Texas was elected Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives.
In 1963, the science-fiction anthology series "The Outer Limits" premiered on ABC television.
In 1974, President Ford announced a conditional amnesty program for Vietnam war deserters and draft-evaders.
In 1977, Maria Callas, the American-born prima donna famed for her lyric soprano and fiery temperament, died in Paris at age 53.
In 1982, the massacre of hundreds of Palestinian men, women and children by Lebanese Christian militiamen began in west Beirut's Sabra and Chatilla refugee camps.
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Ten years ago: A judge in Berlin convicted three elderly former Communist leaders in the shooting deaths of East Germans who had tried to scale the Berlin Wall.
Five years ago: In his first news conference since the release of Kenneth Starr's graphic report, President Clinton said he'd told "the essential truth" about his affair with Monica Lewinsky; as for whether he might resign, Clinton responded that Americans "want me to go on." House Judiciary Committee Chairman Henry Hyde, responding to a report in an Internet publication, Salon Magazine, admitted to "indiscretions" with a woman in the 1960s at a time when both were married.
One year ago: U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan announced that Iraq had unconditionally accepted the return of U.N. weapons inspectors.
