Sept. 29 (UPI) — On this date in history:
In 1789, the U.S. War Department organized the country’s first standing army — 700 soldiers who would serve for three years.
In 1923, Britain began to govern Palestine under a League of Nations mandate.
In 1936, in the U.S. presidential race between Franklin D. Roosevelt and Alf Landon, the Democratic and Republican parties used radio for the first time. FDR won re-election in a record vote in November.
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In 1941, the Babi Yar massacre of nearly 34,000 Jewish men, women and children began on the outskirts of Kiev in Nazi-occupied Ukraine.
In 1965, Communist North Vietnam announced that U.S. pilots taken prisoner would be tried as war criminals.
In 1988, Stacy Marie Allison, a construction worker from Portland, Ore., became the first American woman and the world’s seventh to scale Mount Everest.
In 1992, Earvin “Magic” Johnson announced he was returning to the Los Angeles Lakers less than a year after he retired because he had the AIDS virus. A month later, Johnson announced his retirement for a second time.
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In 2005, John Roberts Jr. easily won confirmation by the U.S. Senate and was sworn in as chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. He succeeded the late William Rehnquist.
In 2011, a special court in India convicted 269 police officers and others for their roles in a 1992 raid on a small village that resulted in multiple rapes and beatings.
In 2017, the U.S. State Department pulled all non-emergency staff from its embassy in Havana, Cuba, in connection to mysterious health issues experienced by workers there. Dubbed “Havana syndrome,” the mysterious symptoms were reported in multiple countries and there has yet to be an official cause.
In 2020, President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden squared off in the first 2020 presidential debate. The candidates frequently talked over and insulted each other, prompting officials to change future debate formats.
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