Today in History: September 20

1863: Jacob Ludwig Karl Grimm, who first came into contact with fairy tales as a law student studying under Friedrich Karl von Savigny, dies at age 78.

1878: Writer Upton Sinclair is born to a wealthy and distinguished Southern family at Baltimore, Maryland.  In 1906 he’ll score one of the biggest self-publishing successes of all time with his The Jungle.

1881: New York City lawyer Chester Alan Arthur, who originally made a name for himself representing blacks who complained about segregated city transportation, is sworn in as President of the United States.

1945: Arizona-raised Republican Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia (NYU Law 1910) dies at New York City.

1969: One of the few pop songs about commodities hits the top of the charts, with the Archies’ Sugar, Sugar.

1979: Former Ford president Lee Iacocca is named President of the Chrysler Corporation, which is teetering on the brink of bankruptcy.

1995: AT&T Corp., which the U.S. government had spent decades trying to break up, announces that it is splitting into three companies: AT&T, Lucent, and NCR.