Moments In Time 9/15/11

• On Sept. 27, 1854, two ships collide off the coast of Newfoundland, killing 322 passengers and crew. The wooden-hulled Arctic was severely damaged when it slammed into the iron-hulled steamer Vesta. In trying to beach the ship, the Arctic’s captain ran over several lifeboats, causing even more people to drown.

• On Oct. 1, 1890, an act of Congress creates Yosemite National Park, home of such natural wonders as the 2,425-foot-high Yosemite Falls, rock formations Half Dome and El Capitan, and three groves of giant sequoias, the world’s biggest trees.

• On Sept. 28, 1938, auto inventor Charles Duryea dies in Philadelphia at the age of 76. Duryea and his brother Frank designed and built one of the first functioning gas-powered automobiles. Charles insisted on taking full credit for the brothers’ innovation and said that Frank was “simply a mechanic.”

• On Sept. 26, 1957, “West Side Story,” composed by Leonard Bernstein, opens at the Winter Garden Theatre on Broadway. “West Side Story,” a reinterpretation of William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, tells the tale of a love affair between Tony, who is Polish American, and Maria, a Puerto Rican, set against an urban background of interracial warfare.

• On Sept. 29, 1969, the U.S. Army drops murder charges against eight Special Forces soldiers accused of killing a Vietnamese national. The case against the Green Berets was dismissed for reasons of national security when the CIA refused to release highly classified information.

• On Oct. 2, 1985, Rock Hudson, a Hollywood romantic leading man during the 1950s and ‘60s and later a TV star, dies at the age of 59 from an AIDS-related illness. The 6-foot-5 Hudson rose to fame starring in such films as “Giant” (1956), for which he received an Academy Award nomination.

• On Sept. 30, 1999, large doses of radiation are released at Japan’s Tokaimura nuclear plant, an accident caused by a serious error made by workers at the plant. Instead of pouring 5 pounds of powdered uranium into nitric acid, workers poured in 35 pounds.

(c) 2011 King Features Synd., Inc.