On This Day, Sept. 19: Greg Louganis wins gold after hitting head on board

Sept. 19 (UPI) -- On this date in history:

In 1777, American soldiers won the first Battle of Saratoga in the Revolutionary War.

In 1881, U.S. President James Garfield, 49, who had been shot in July by a disgruntled office-seeker, died of his wounds. Vice President Chester Arthur was sworn in as the successor to Garfield, who had been president for 6 1/2 months. His assassin was executed in 1882.

In 1893, with the signing of the Electoral Bill by Gov. David Boyle, New Zealand became the first country to grant national voting rights to women.

In 1955, after a decade of rule, Argentine President Juan Domingo Peron was deposed in a military coup.

File Photo courtesy Wikipedia

In 1985, an earthquake collapsed hundreds of buildings, killed at least 7,000 people and injured thousands of others in Mexico City.

In 1988, U.S. swimmer Greg Louganis took the gold medal in 3-meter springboard diving at the Seoul Olympics after hitting his head on the board during preliminary competition.

In 1995, The Washington Post published a manifesto by Theodore Kaczynski, the so-called Unabomber, who carried out 16 bombings across the United States from 1978-95, killing three people. Kaczynski was arrested in 1996 and was sentenced to eight life sentences in prison.

In 2006, Thailand Premier Thaksin Shinawatra was overthrown in a bloodless military coup.

In 2010, 42-year-old Frenchman Philippe Croizon, a quadruple amputee, swam across the English Channel in 13 1/2 hours. Croizon covered the 21 miles with flippers attached to the stumps of his legs and special steering attachments in the arm areas.

In 2013, Hiroshi Yamauchi, who led the transformation of Nintendo from a small Japanese company to a worldwide video gaming giant, died of pneumonia in Japan at the age of 85. Yamauchi was Nintendo's president from 1949 to 2002. He also was the majority owner of Major League Baseball's Seattle Mariners.

In 2017, a 7.1-magnitude earthquake shook central Mexico, killing more than 350 people, including dozens of children in the rubble of a school.