Today in History: Today is Sunday, Sept. 22, the 266th day of 2024.

Today in history:

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.

Also on this date:

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

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

In 1975, Sara Jane Moore fired two shots in an unsuccessful attempt to assassinate President Gerald R. Ford outside a San Francisco hotel, missing Ford by inches.

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

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

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

In 1994, “Friends” TV sitcom created by David Crane and Marta Kauffman debuts on NBC, starring Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc, Matthew Perry and David Schwimmer.

In 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.

In 2017, as the scale of the damage from Hurricane Maria started to become clearer, Puerto Rican officials said they could not contact more than half of the communities in the U.S. territory, where all power had been knocked out to the island’s 3.4 million people.

Today’s Birthdays: Singer-choreographer-actor Toni Basil is 81. Musician King Sunny Adé (ah-DAY’) is 78. Football Hall of Famer Harold Carmichael is 75.

Rock singer David Coverdale (Deep Purple, Whitesnake) is 73. Actor Shari Belafonte is 70. Singer Debby Boone is 68. Country singer June Forester (The Forester Sisters) is 68. Singer Nick Cave is 67. Singer Andrea Bocelli (an-DRAY’-ah boh-CHEL’-ee) is 66. Singer-musician Joan Jett is 66. Actor Scott Baio is 64. Actor Bonnie Hunt is 63. Actor Mireille Enos is 49. Soccer player Thiago Silva is 40. Actor Tatiana Maslany is 39. Actor Tom Felton is 37. Actor Teyonah Parris is 37. Olympic gold medal skateboarder Coco Yoshizawa is 15.