Today in HistoryToday <$>is Thursday, September 14, the 257th day of 2006. There are 108 days left in the year.

ON THIS DATE<$>

In 1812, the Russians set fire to Moscow in the face of an invasion by Napoleon Bonaparte’s troops.

In 1939, the first successful helicopter, Igor Sikorsky’s VS-300, made its maiden flight.

In 1948, a groundbreaking ceremony took place in New York at the site of the United Nations’ world headquarters.

In 1982, Lebanese president-elect Bashir Gemayel was assassinated by a bomb at his party headquarters in East Beirut.

In 2001, Ahmad Shah Masood, the legendary guerrilla commander who had helped to lead the fight against Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban, died from wounds suffered in a suicide bomb attack on September 9.

THOUGHT FOR TODAY

“Civilisations die from philosophical calm, irony, and the sense of fair play quite as surely as they die of debauchery.” — Joseph Wood Krutch, American author, critic and educator (1893-1970).