Historical Events
1940 – Yankees, lose to A’s and eliminated from pennant for 1st time since 1935
1983 – Tim Raines is 1st since Ty Cobb to steal 70 and drive in 70 runs
1988 – Canadian Finn class sailor Lawrence Lemieux abandons race 5 to assist injured competitor after being in 2nd place; selfless act is awarded with the Pierre de Coubertin medal
1989 – Oakland wins AL West and SF wins NL West title
1992 – ASPCA stops Santeria ceremony in Bronx halts sacrifice of 42 animals
2008 – CNSA astronaut Zhai Zhigang becomes the first Chinese person to perform a spacewalk while flying on Shenzhou 7.
Famous Birthdays
1862 – Louis Botha, 1st Prime Minister of South Africa (1910-19), born in Greytown, South Africa (d. 1919)
1931 – Freddy Quinn, Austrian singer
1939 – Nicholas Haslam, English interior designer, born in Amersham
1961 – Irvine Welsh, Scottish writer
1976 – Jason Phillips, American baseball player
1983 – Shermon Tang, Hong Kong actress
Famous Deaths
1641 – Francois van d’aerssen, mister of Sommelsdijk and diplomat, dies at 69
1891 – Ivan Goncharov, Russian author (b. 1812)
1915 – Conrad T van Deventer, Dutch jurist/MP (liberal), dies at 57
1940 – Walter Benjamin, German/French literature critic/writer, dies at 48
1991 – Oona Chaplin, daughter of Eugene O’Neill and wife of Charlie Chaplin, dies at 66
2007 – Kenji Nagai, Japanese photojournalist (b. 1957)