This Week in Boomer History: Attica ... Oprah ... ‘Imagine’

Notable events from our shared experience

Pete Rose breaks Ty Cobb’s record for most career hits with his 4,192nd on Sept. 11, 1985. In 1989, Rose, then manager of the Cincinnati Reds, is banned for life from baseball for betting on games — specifically his own team’s.

Photographed by Andy Warhol for the cover, John Lennon releases his second solo album,  Imagine, on  Sept. 9. 1971. Former bandmate George Harrison plays guitar on four tracks. The cut “How Do You Sleep?” is seen as Lennon’s take on his broken relationship with Paul McCartney.

>> 10 Essential Boomer Albums

After serving eight years in the House of Representatives, Margaret Chase Smith is elected to the first of her four terms as senator from Maine on Sept. 13, 1948,  She becomes the first woman to serve in both houses of Congress.

Having already won the U.S. Amateur Championships in August, Arthur Ashe wins the men’s singles title at the U.S. Open tennis championships on Sept. 9, 1968. He’s the first black male to capture the Open and the only player to have won both titles the same year.

The Oprah Winfrey Show debuts  Sept. 8, 1986. It airs for 25 seasons, winning 47 Emmys. Topic of the first show: “How to Marry the Man or Woman of Your Choice.” More TV premieres this week: Star Trek, Sept. 8, 1966; The Waltons, Sept. 14, 1972; The Golden Girls, Sept. 14, 1985. (Of the original “girls,” only Betty White, the oldest and now 92, is still living.)

>> Get entertainment and dining discounts with your AARP Member Advantages.

President Gerald Ford pardons Richard Nixon on Sept. 8, 1974, for crimes he might have committed in office, attempting, he said, to spare the disgraced former president more suffering and the nation renewed upheaval. The move is widely considered to have doomed Ford’s run at the presidency in 1976.

Ten employees and 29 inmates are fatally shot at the Attica Correctional Facility in upstate New York as state troopers, National Guard troops and prison guards storm the prison to end a four-day siege on Sept. 13, 1971.

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