1997-2007 Flashback

Sept. 7, 2007

September

September 2, 2003—A federal appeals court in San Francisco throws out more than 100 death sentences in Arizona, Montana and Idaho because the inmates had been sent to death row by judges instead of juries.

September 4, 2002— Singer Kelly Clarkson is voted the first ''American Idol'' on the Fox TV series.

September 5, 1997—Nobel Peace Prize winner Mother Teresa dies in Calcutta, India, at age 87.

September 8, 2003— The Recording Industry Association of America, the music industry's largest trade group, files 261 copyright lawsuits across the country against Internet users for trading songs online.

September 11, 2001—Suicide hijackers crash two airliners into the World Trade Center in New York, causing the 110-story twin towers to collapse. Another hijacked airliner hits the Pentagon and a fourth crashes in a field in Pennsylvania.

September 12, 2002— Three former Tyco International Ltd. executives are charged with looting the conglomerate of hundreds of millions of dollars. Former CEO L. Dennis Kozlowski and CFO Mark Swartz are later convicted; lawyer Mark Belnick is acquitted.

September 18, 1997— Coopers & Lybrand and Price Waterhouse agree to merge to create the world's biggest accounting firm.

September 21, 2003— NASA's Galileo spacecraft plunges into Jupiter's turbulent atmosphere, bringing a fiery conclusion to a 14-year exploration of the solar system's largest planet and its moons.

September 24, 1998— Redesigned $20 bills meant to be harder to counterfeit go into circulation.

September 30, 2004—Vioxx, the heavily promoted arthritis drug, is pulled from the market by its maker after a study found it doubled the risk of heart attacks and strokes.