万花筒 kaleidoscope2007-09-03&09-04, 历史上的今天(9.1)（在线收听）

September 1st, 1939, start of WWII as Nazi Germany’s dictator Adolf Hitler invades neighboring Poland. The war lasts for the next six years, spanning from Europe and North Africa to Asia and the Pacific.

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

1983, a Soviet jet fighter shoots down a Korean Air Lines Boeing 747 after it enters the Soviet Union’s airspace. All 269 people onboard 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 the 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, Tommi Abraham, The Associated Press