September 6 · This Day in America
At the Temple of Music in Buffalo, in a hall strung with electric light to celebrate a hopeful new century, President William McKinley stands shaking hands with the public he loved to meet. At 4:07 in the afternoon a young anarchist named Leon Czolgosz steps forward with a revolver hidden under a handkerchief and fires twice. As the crowd surges to beat the gunman, the wounded president raises his hand: do not hurt him. His next thought is for his wife — be careful how you tell her. For days he seems to rally. Then the wound turns, and on September 14 he dies, and a 42-year-old named Theodore Roosevelt becomes the youngest president in American history. A nation that had come to Buffalo to see the future got it, in the hardest possible way.
Source: millercenter.org
Also on this day · 1995
In Baltimore, when the game becomes official, the warehouse numbers turn over to 2,131 and Cal Ripken Jr. breaks Lou Gehrig's record many believed unbreakable. He had not missed a day's work in thirteen years. Pushed onto the field, he takes a lap around the warning track, shaking every hand he can reach, while a sellout crowd stands and roars for twenty-two minutes. A nation tired of a baseball strike fell in love with showing up.
Source: baseballhall.org