Way back when: Today in history
BY GENE CURTIS
Thursday, September 16, 2010
9/16/10 at 6:47 AM
1893
More than 100,000 people on horseback, in covered wagons and on foot participated in a run into Oklahoma's Cherokee Strip that opened 7 million acres to settlement. The run into the strip or, more accurately, the Cherokee Outlet, was one of seven into the land now known as Oklahoma.
1940
President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed into law the Selective Training and Service Act, the first peacetime military draft in U.S. history, two days after the act was approved by nearly a 2-1 ratio in both houses of Congress. The act set Oct. 16 as registration day for 16,500,000 Americans; the law required all men between 21 and 35 to register.
1978
An estimated 25,000 were killed when an earthquake of 7.7 magnitude struck a farming region in central Iran. The worst damage was reported in the town of Tabas, the epicenter. The Iranian news agency Pars said only 2,000 of the town's 12,000 residents survived.
2007
A deadly shooting in Baghdad involving the U.S. security firm Blackwater USA left 17 Iraqi civilians dead. Iraqi investigators claimed the Blackwater guards opened fire against civilians without provocation.
Gene Curtis 581-8304
gene.curtis@tulsaworld.com
Associated Images:
Claim seekers gather a few days before the Cherokee Strip run. Oklahoma Historical Society / Courtesy
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