On Sept. 1, 1897, the first section of Boston’s new subway system was opened.
In 1932 New York Mayor James J. “Gentleman Jimmy” Walker resigned following charges of graft and corruption in his administration.
In 1935 conductor Seiji Ozawa was born in Shenyang (now Fentian), China.
In 1939 World War II began with Germany’s invasion of Poland.
In 1942 a federal judge in Sacramento upheld the wartime detention of Japanese-Americans as well as Japanese nationals.
In 1945 Americans received word of Japan’s formal surrender that ended World War II. (Because of the time difference, it was Sept. 2 in Tokyo Bay, where the ceremony took place.)
In 1951 the United States, Australia and New Zealand signed a mutual defense pact, the ANZUS treaty.
In 1957 singer Gloria Estefan was born in Havana.
In 1969 a coup in Libya brought Moammar Gadhafi to power.
In 1972 American Bobby Fischer won the international chess crown in Reykjavik, Iceland, defeating Boris Spassky of the Soviet Union.
In 1976 U.S. Rep. Wayne Hays (D-Ohio) resigned in the wake of a scandal in which he admitted having an affair with secretary Elizabeth Ray.
In 1981 Albert Speer, a close associate of Adolf Hitler who ran the Nazi war machine, died in London; he was 76.
In 1983 269 people were killed when a Korean Air Lines Boeing 747 was shot down by a Soviet jet fighter after the airliner entered Soviet airspace.
In 1988 shipyard workers in Gdansk, Poland, ended an 11-day strike, acting with some reluctance on the advice of Solidarity leader Lech Walesa.
In 1991 Yugoslavia’s presidency and the country’s feuding republics accepted a European Community plan designed to stop months of fierce fighting among Croats, Serbs and the army.
In 1993 Louis Freeh was sworn in as director of the FBI.
In 1995 a ribbon-cutting ceremony was held for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland.
In 1997, as Britain continued to mourn the death of Princess Diana, a source in the Paris prosecutor’s office said Diana’s driver, Henri Paul, was intoxicated at the time of the crash.
In 2002 the California Legislature approved a $99 billion budget, ending a 2-month-old standoff. Also in 2002 Rusa, the worst typhoon to hit South Korea in 40 years, left more than 240 people dead or missing.
In 2003 Arab television networks broadcast an audiotape purportedly from Saddam Hussein denying any involvement in a bombing in Najaf, Iraq, that killed a beloved Shiite cleric.
In 2004 the criminal case against Kobe Bryant case collapsed as prosecutors in Colorado dropped a sexual assault charge against the NBA star.
