Today in History: September 18, FBI captures Patricia Hearst

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Today in history:Also on this date:Today’s Birthdays:

Today is Thursday, Sept. 18, the 261st day of 2025. There are 104 days left in the year.

Today in history:

On Sept. 18, 1975, newspaper heiress Patricia Hearst was captured by the FBI in San Francisco, 19 months after being kidnapped by the Symbionese Liberation Army.

Also on this date:

In 1793, President George Washington laid the cornerstone of the U.S. Capitol.

In 1850, Congress passed the Fugitive Slave Act, which created a force of federal commissioners charged with returning escaped slaves to their owners. The act was repealed in 1864 during the American Civil War.

In 1851, the first edition of The New York Times was published.

In 1947, the National Security Act, which created a National Military Establishment and the position of Secretary of Defense, went into effect.

In 1961, United Nations Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjold (dahg HAWM’-ahr-shoold) was killed in a plane crash in Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia).

In 1970, rock star Jimi Hendrix died in London at age 27.

In 2014, voters in Scotland rejected independence, opting to remain part of the United Kingdom in a historic referendum.

In 2020, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a towering champion of women’s rights who became the court’s second female justice, died at her home in Washington at age 87, of complications from pancreatic cancer.