Subscribe | UPI Odd Newsletter Subscribe Today is Sept. 19. In 2001, in a follow-up to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the Defense Department sent combat aircraft to the Persian Gulf, Indian Ocean, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan and the Army said the next day that ground troops were being sent to the region as well. Advertisement In Mexico City's worst disaster, at least 7,000 people were killed and hundreds of thousands of homes and buildings damaged when a pair of earthquakes rocked the city on this date in 1985. Amazingly, a number of people -- including several newborn babies -- were found alive in the rubble of a hospital as long as nine days after the quakes. President James Garfield died in Elberon, N.J., on this date in 1881 of gunshot wounds inflicted July 2 by a disgruntled office-seeker. Vice President Chester Arthur was sworn in as his successor. The shooting came only 16 years after the assassination of another president, Abraham Lincoln. Though he hit his head on the diving board during preliminary competiton, U.S. swimmer Greg Louganis took the gold medal in three-meter springboard diving at the Seoul Olympics on this date in 1988. Louganis later revealed he was HIV-positive, but hadn't told that to the medical personnel who'd treated his head wound. Advertisement American soldiers won the first Battle of Saratoga, N.Y., during the Revolutionary War on this date in 1777. The British ended up surrendering 5,000 men. And it was on this date in 1995 that the Washington Post published the 35,000-word manifesto written by the notorious Unabomber, who had said he wouldn't try to kill again if it was published. The Post and the New York Times shared the costs of publication. Suspect Theodore Kaczynski would be arrested at his remote Montana cabin April 3, 1996, largely in part because his brother recognized some of the wording of the manifesto. We now return you to the present, already in progress.
