On this day
Revisit the music, news, notable people, and historical moments connected to this date.
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Even though glamor and fairy-tale existence of Princess Diana of Wales were appealing, it was her painful struggle with impossible role that eventually touched hearts of millions of ordinary people, particularly women; she redefined role of princess to match her own personality and expectations of insatiable public in age of celebrity worship; photo (M)
Interviews with Barry S Sternlicht, chairman and chief executive of Starwood Lodging Trust, and Paul A Nussbaum, chairman of Patriot American Hospitality, nation's largest and second-largest hotel real estate investment trusts respectively; photos; maps; graphs; chart (M)
Russian fascination with Western cars is on display, along with luxury models, at annual Moscow auto show; photos; long-repressed desires set free in capitalist economy leads many newly-rich to equate acquisition of such cars with true happiness; list of inflated prices for luxury imports (S)
Venus Williams will play Martina Hingis in finals of US Open tennis tournament on Sept 7; if Williams, 17, succeeds in defeating Hingis, 16, at National Tennis Center's Arthur Ashe Stadium, she will be first unseeded woman to win US Open, and first black woman to win it in 40 years; photos (M)
Iris and B Gerald Cantor Film Center of New York University is to be housed in converted movie theater on East Eighth Street in Greenwich Village; rendering (S)
Music on My Birthday
The Top 50 albums for the chart week of September 3, 1997, covering September 7, 1997.
Fleetwood Mac
Puff Daddy & The Family
Spice Girls
Soundtrack
matchbox 20
1997Dean-Charles Chapman, English actor[†]
Dean-Charles Chapman is an English actor known for portraying Billy Elliot in the West End theatre production of Billy Elliot the Musical. His notable TV roles include Richard Grey in The White Queen (2013) and Tommen Baratheon in the HBO fantasy series Game of Thrones (2014–2016). He also portrayed Tom Blake in Sam Mendes's film 1917 (2019).
1997Mobutu Sese Seko, Congolese soldier and politician, President of Zaire (born 1930)[†]
Mobutu Sese Seko Kuku Ngbendu wa za Banga, often shortened to Mobutu Sese Seko or Mobutu and also known by his initials MSS, was a Congolese politician and military officer who was the first and only president of Zaire from 1971 to 1997. Previously, Mobutu served as the second president of the Democratic Republic of the Congo from 1965 to 1971. He also served as the fifth chairperson of the Organisation of African Unity from 1967 to 1968. During the Congo Crisis, Mobutu, serving as Chief of Staff of the Army and supported by Belgium and the United States, deposed the democratically elected government of left-wing nationalist Patrice Lumumba in 1960. Mobutu installed a government that arranged for Lumumba's execution in 1961, and continued to lead the country's armed forces until he took power directly in a second coup in 1965.
1997Maiden flight of the Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor.[†]
The maiden flight, also known as first flight, of an aircraft is the first occasion on which it leaves the ground under its own power. The same term is also used for the first launch of rockets.
In 1997, the world population was approximately 5,924,787,816 people[†]