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Good morning.
Some years announce themselves with one giant headline. Others come back in smaller flashes: a TV premiere you remember catching by accident, a movie everyone seemed to be talking about, a song that lived on the radio, or a baseball race that made every box score matter.
Today has a little of all of that. We’ll rewind to 1998 in a moment — including the debut of a smart new television series — but first, here’s what happened on September 22.
📅 On This Day — September 22
1692 — The final executions of the Salem witch trials. Eight people were hanged in Salem on the last execution day of the trials, one of the darkest episodes in colonial American history.
1776 — Nathan Hale was executed. The 21-year-old American patriot was hanged by the British for spying during the Revolutionary War.
1862 — Lincoln issued the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation. The proclamation warned that enslaved people in states still in rebellion on January 1, 1863, would be declared free. The final Emancipation Proclamation followed on New Year’s Day.
1980 — The Iran–Iraq War began. Iraq invaded Iran, opening a long and devastating conflict between the neighboring countries.
2004 — Lost premiered on ABC. The mysterious drama began with the survivors of Oceanic Flight 815 stranded on an island — and quickly became one of television’s defining shows of the decade.
Now, back to a Tuesday in 1998.
⏪ REWIND: 1998
📰 The Headlines
🗞️ Sports Night steps onto the field
On September 22, 1998, ABC premiered Sports Night, Aaron Sorkin’s comedy-drama set behind the scenes of a nightly cable sports show.
The series followed anchors Casey McCall and Dan Rydell and the producers, writers, and crew trying to put a polished broadcast on the air while navigating everything happening off-camera. Its setting was sports television, but the stories were just as interested in friendship, work, ambition, and the pressure of getting the show right every night.
It was a distinctly late-’90s idea: fast-moving television about the people making fast-moving television. And on this Tuesday night, viewers were seeing it for the first time.
🎬 At the Movies
Rush Hour was the movie to beat. The Jackie Chan–Chris Tucker action-comedy had led the domestic box office over the September 18–20 weekend, pairing Chan’s martial-arts action with Tucker’s rapid-fire comedy.
By September 22, the movie was still sitting atop the domestic box office — a reminder that one of the fall’s early crowd-pleasers had arrived.
🎵 On the Charts
Aerosmith was at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 dated September 26 with “I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing.”
Just behind it at No. 2 was Monica’s “The First Night.”
That’s a very 1998 pair: a veteran rock band with a sweeping movie ballad at the top, followed immediately by one of R&B’s biggest young stars.
🏁 In Sports
The home-run race was impossible to ignore.
Entering September 22, Mark McGwire had 65 home runs and Sammy Sosa had 63. Neither homered that day, so the numbers stayed put — but with the regular season running out, even a homerless night carried suspense.
Every game had become another chapter in a chase that baseball fans were following one swing at a time.
📺 On Television
Tuesday night offered a lineup that now reads like a late-1990s time capsule.
ABC — Home Improvement, The Hughleys, Spin City, Sports Night, NYPD Blue
CBS — JAG, CBS Tuesday Movie
NBC — Mad About You, Encore! Encore!, Just Shoot Me!, Working, Dateline NBC
FOX — King of the Hill, Costello, Guinness World Records: Primetime
That’s the kind of night when the remote control had a workout. Which one would have kept you from changing the channel?
🏰 Disney Vault
Disney was spending 1998 taking its storytelling somewhere new: out to sea.
The Disney Magic, the first ship in the Disney Cruise Line fleet, had made its maiden voyage that summer. Its inaugural season offered three- and four-day Caribbean cruises from Port Canaveral, with Disney’s private island, Castaway Cay, becoming part of the experience.
Today, Disney cruising is an established part of the company’s vacation business. In 1998, though, guests were experiencing the idea for the first time.
❤️ Health Snap
Headphones make it easy to carry music, podcasts, and audiobooks everywhere — and also easy to listen louder and longer than you realize.
A few simple habits can help protect your hearing: keep the volume moderate, take listening breaks, and use well-fitting or noise-reducing headphones when they help you hear clearly without turning the sound up to compete with your surroundings.
Want a broader look at your everyday health habits? Take the free Health Assessment.
🎂 September 22 Birthdays
Andrea Bocelli — 68 (born 1958) — The Italian tenor became an international star by bringing classical and popular music to audiences around the world.
Joan Jett — 68 (born 1958) — The rock singer and guitarist went from the Runaways to Joan Jett & the Blackhearts, forever associated with the anthem “I Love Rock ‘n Roll.”
Nick Cave — 69 (born 1957) — The Australian singer-songwriter, author, and longtime frontman of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds has built a career around dark, distinctive storytelling.
Billie Piper — 44 (born 1982) — Before becoming widely known to television audiences through Doctor Who, Piper was a teenage pop star in Britain. On this date in 1998, she was turning 16 during her breakthrough year on the UK charts.
Tom Felton — 39 (born 1987) — The English actor is best known to generations of Harry Potter fans as Draco Malfoy.
That’s our trip through September 22 — from Salem and the Civil War era to a 1998 night of television, movies, music, baseball, and a brand-new Disney cruise ship.
If today’s stories brought back a memory, share Yesterday Today with someone who might remember it too. Better yet, ask them what they were watching, listening to, or talking about in 1998.
Until tomorrow, keep looking back — you never know what you’ll rediscover.
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