Today’s highlights

On Sept. 22, 1862, President Abraham Lincoln issued the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, declaring all enslaved people in Confederate states should be freed as of Jan. 1, 1863, if the states did not end the fighting and rejoin the Union.

On this date

1776: During the Revolutionary War, Capt. Nathan Hale, 21, was hanged as a spy by the British in New York.

1957: Haitian women were allowed to vote for the first time, 153 years after Haiti became an independent country; François Duvalier was elected president.

1980: The Persian Gulf conflict between Iran and Iraq erupted into a full-scale war that would continue for nearly eight years.

1985: Rock and country music artists participated in “Farm Aid,” a concert staged in Champaign, Illinois, to help the nation’s farmers.

1993: 47 people were killed when an Amtrak passenger train fell off a bridge and crashed into Big Bayou Canot near Mobile, Alabama.

2014: The United States and five Arab nations launched airstrikes against the Islamic State group in Syria, sending waves of planes and Tomahawk cruise missiles against an array of targets.

Today’s birthdays

Singer-choreographer-actor Toni Basil is 81. singer David Coverdale (Deep Purple, Whitesnake) is 73. Actor Shari Belafonte is 70. Singer Debby Boone is 68. Country singer June Forester is 68. Singer-musician Joan Jett is 66. Actor Scott Baio is 64. Actor Tatiana Maslany is 39.