On Sept. 20, 1870, Italian troops took control of the Papal States, leading to the unification of Italy.
In 1934 actress Sophia Loren was born in Rome.
In 1962 black student James Meredith was blocked from enrolling at the University of Mississippi by Gov. Ross Barnett.
In 1973 Billie Jean King defeated Bobby Riggs in a $100,000 winner-take-all tennis match dubbed the “battle of the sexes” in Houston. Also, singer Jim Croce died at 30 in a plane crash near Natchitoches, La.
In 1976 Playboy magazine released an interview in which Democratic presidential nominee Jimmy Carter admitted he had “looked on a lot of women with lust.”
In 1994 Broadway composer Jule Styne, who wrote 1,500 songs in his long career, died at 88 in New York.
In 1995 AT&T Corp. announced it was splitting into three companies. In 1998, after playing in a record 2,632 consecutive baseball games, Baltimore Oriole Cal Ripken Jr. sat out a game.
In 1999 Raisa Gorbachev, wife of the last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, died of leukemia at 67.
In 2004 CBS News apologized for a “mistake in judgment” in its story questioning President Bush’s National Guard service, saying it could not vouch for the authenticity of documents featured in the report.
In 2005 Holocaust survivor and Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal died at 96 in Vienna.
