2004, a hostage crisis unfolds. in Southern Russia. Heavily armed Chechen militants seize more than 1,100 people at school in Beslan, demanding Russian troops withdraw from nearby Chechnya. The ordeal ends 3 days later with more than 330 people, most of them children, dead.

1983, a Soviet jet fighter shoot down a Korean Air Lines Boeing 747 after it enters the Soviet Union’s airspace. All 269 people on board the civilian airliner are killed. President Ronald Regan condemns the incident: “It was an act of barbarism born of a society which wantonly disregards individual rights and value of human life and seeks constantly to expand and dominate other nations. ”

1972, a chess match made for the Cold War era in Reykjavik, Iceland, that’s where American Bobby Fischer wins the International chess crown, beating Boris Spassky of the Soviet Union.

1923, Rocky Marciano, the only heavyweight boxing champ to retire undefeated is born in Brockton, Massachusetts.

And 1957, Gloria Estefan, the Cuban-American singer and songwriter who has topped mainstream and Latin music charts, is born in Havana.

Today in History. September 1st. Camille Bohannon, the Associated Press.