On this day September Events

[John A Silkstone]

September 1st

1661 - First yacht race took place; participants were England's King Charles versus his brother, James.

1676 - Nathaniel Bacon led an uprising at Jamestown, Virginia, in which the settlement was burned down.

1773 - Phillis Wheatley's "Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral," was published, making her the first African-American poet to be published.

1807 - Former Vice President Aaron Burr was acquitted on charges of plotting to annex territory in Louisiana and Missouri to establish an independent republic.

1821 - William Becknell took a group of traders from Independence, Missouri, toward Santa Fe, blazing the Santa Fe Trail.

1836 - Marcus Whitman and wife Narcissa established the first American settlement in northern Oregon Territory. Narcissa was one of the first white women to travel the Oregon Trail.

1859 - First Pullman sleeping car was put into service.

1864 - Confederate forces, led by General John Bell Hood, evacuated Atlanta, anticipating the arrival of Union General William T. Sherman's troops.

1865 - Joseph Lister performed first surgery using antiseptics.

1870 - The Prussians defeated the French at Sedan in the last battle of the Franco-Prussian War.

1882 - The first Labour Day was observed in New York City by the Carpenters and Joiners Union.

1894 - Labour Day was declared a national holiday by an act of Congress.

1904 - Helen Keller graduated with honours from Radcliffe College.

1905 - Alberta and Saskatchewan became provinces of Canada.

1914 - St. Petersburg, Russia changed its name to Petrograd.

1916 - Bulgaria declared war on Rumania, expanding the World War I.

1923 - The Kanto earthquake levelled Tokyo and Yokohama, Japan, killing 300,000.

1939 - Germany invaded Poland, beginning World War II in Europe.

1939 - "Physical Review" published first article describing black holes.

1941 - Yellow star became obligatory wear for Jews under the Third Reich.

1945 - Japan surrendered to the United States, ending World War II.

1969 - Moammar Gadhafi deposed King Idris in the Libyan revolution.

1970 - Dr. Hugh Scott of Washington, D.C. became the first African-American superintendent of schools of a major American city.

1971 - Qatar declared independence from Great Britain.

1972 - Bobby Fischer of the United States defeated Boris Spassky of Russia for the world chess title.

1983 - Korean Airlines Flight 007, flying from New York to Seoul, was shot down by the Soviets after it strayed into restricted airspace over Sakhalin Island in the Sea of Japan. All 269 people aboard were killed, including 61 Americans, among them U.S. Representative Larry McDonald.

1985 - Seventy-three years after it sunk in the North Atlantic, the wreck of the R.M.S. Titanic was found by a US-French expedition; it was four hundred miles off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada.

Silky

 

[John A Silkstone]

September 2nd


490 B.C.E. - Phidippides of Athens ran the legendary first marathon in running from Marathon to Athens, a distance of about 25 miles, to announce the defeat of the Persian army after the Battle of Marathon. In his honour, the 26-mile marathon became part of the Olympic Games in 1896.

31 B.C.E. - Roman leader Octavian defeated the alliance of Mark Antony and Cleopatra, queen of Egypt in a naval battle in the Ionian Sea. This put the Roman world under Octavian's control and he became the first Roman emperor as Augustus Caesar.

1666 - Thomas Farrinor, the baker to King Charles II, forgot to turn off the oven in his home on Pudding Lane near London Bridge and thus caused the Great Fire of London.

1751 - Julian calendar replaced in Britain and its colonies with the Gregorian calendar, adjusted so that the following day was September 14 and New Year's Day moved from March 25 to January 1.

1789 - U.S. Treasury Department was established.

1796 - Cleveland, Ohio was founded.

1833 - "New York Sun," the first "penny paper," was published.

1880 - First night game in baseball was played.

1885 - White coal miners in Rock Springs, Wyoming attacked their Chinese co-workers, killing 28 and seriously wounding 15.

1901 - Vice President Theodore Roosevelt gave a speech at the Minnesota State Fair in which he said, "Speak softly and carry a big stick."

1930 - First non-stop airplane flight from Europe to the United States was completed by Dieudonne Coste and Maurice Bellonte of France aboard the Question Mark.

1945 - Just hours after the Japanese surrender in World War II, Ho Chi Minh, the Communist leader, proclaimed the independent Democratic Republic of Vietnam.

1963 - Alabama Governor George Wallace blocked the desegregation of Tuskegee High School by surrounding its building with state troopers. Eight days later, President John F. Kennedy federalized the Alabama National Guard to force an end to Wallace's blockade.

1998 - Swissair Flight 111, in route to Geneva from New York City, crashed about five miles off Nova Scotia while attempting an emergency landing at Halifax International Airport. Two-hundred and twenty-nine people died in the crash.

Silky

 

[John A Silkstone]

September 3rd

1189 - Richard I (Richard the Lion-Hearted) was crowned King of England at Westminster Abbey.

1609 - Henry Hudson discovered the island of Manhattan.

1777 - The flag Stars and Stripes was flown in battle for the first time at Cooch's Bridge, Maryland during the Revolutionary War.

1783 - Treaty of Paris officially ended the Revolutionary War between the United States and Great Britain. It was signed by representatives of the United States, Great Britain, Spain, and France, and the United States became a free and independent nation.

1838 - Frederick Douglass escaped slavery. He became an abolitionist, orator, writer, and diplomat.

1888 - George Eastman patented his roll film camera and registered the Kodak name.

1935 - New land speed record was set by Britain's Malcolm Campbell in the Bluebird at Bonneville Salt Flats, Utah. The car averaged 301 mph.

1939 - Britain and France declared war on Germany, two days after the Nazi invasion of Poland. New Zealand and Australia joined in on the same day.

1939 - Passenger liner Athenia, transporting women and children to the United States, was torpedoed and sunk by a German U-boat. One-hundred and twelve people died.

1943 - British Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery began the Allied invasion of the Italian peninsula, landing in Calabria.

1967 - Nguyen Van Thieu elected president of South Vietnam under a new constitution.

1967 - Sweden switched from driving on the left- to the right-hand side of the road.

1976 - Unmanned U.S. spacecraft Viking II landed on Mars, taking the first close-up colour photographs of the planet.

1978 - Pope John Paul I installed as 264th pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church.

Silky

 

[John A Silkstone]

September 4th

476 - Last emperor of the Western Roman Empire, Romulus Augustus, was deposed by Odoacer, a German barbarian. Odoacer declared himself king of Italy, but later recognized Emperor Zeno of the east as the Roman ruler.

1781 - Los Angeles (El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora la Reina de Los Angeles de Porciuncula) was founded by Spanish settlers.

1862 - Robert E. Lee's Confederate army invaded Maryland, the start of the Antietam Campaign.

1882 - First municipal electric power station, Pearl Street Station in New York City, built by Thomas Edison, gave electricity to its first 85 customers.

1886 - Geronimo, the great Apache leader, surrendered to General Nelson A. Miles at Skeleton Canyon, Arizona.

1917 - In France, U.S. forces suffered their first casualty of World War I.

1944 - British troops liberated Antwerp, Belgium.

1948 - Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands abdicated the crown for health reasons. Daughter Julianna became queen.

1951 - President Harry Truman held the first live coast-to-coast television broadcast from San Francisco. The broadcast was carried by 94 stations.

1957 - Ford Motor Company brought out the Edsel.

1957 - Arkansas governor Orval Faubus and the Arkansas National Guard prevented nine students from entering Central High School in Little Rock. Three weeks later, President Dwight D. Eisenhower sent 1,000 Army paratroopers there to guarantee peaceful desegregation of the school.

1971 - An Alaska Airlines jet crashed near Juneau. One-hundred and eleven people died.

1972 - U.S. swimmer Mark Spitz won a record seventh gold medal in the Olympic Games in Munich.

1987 - West German Mathias Rust was convicted on charges after landing a plane in Moscow's Red Square. He was released after serving one year of his four-year sentence to a labour camp.

Silky

 

[John A Silkstone]

September 5th

3114 B.C.E. - From this day was reckoned the Mayan Long Count end-of-the-world date and the world is to end on the December 21, 2012.

1774 - First Continental Congress assembled in Philadelphia. Delegates drafted a declaration of rights and grievances and elected Virginian Peyton Randolph as the first president of Congress.

1836 - Sam Houston elected president of the Republic of Texas.

1877 - Sioux chief Crazy Horse was killed in jail by a U.S. soldier. A year earlier, Crazy Horse and his followers defeated General George Custer at Little Bighorn in Montana, killing Custer and 264 others.

1882 - First Labour Day parade was held with 10,000 workers in attendance in New York City. This first celebration was initiated by Peter J. McGuire, a carpenter and labour union leader who confounded the Federation of Organized Trades and Labour Unions.

1905 - Russo-Japanese War ended with signing of Treaty of Portsmouth in New Hampshire.

1910 - Marie Curie demonstrated radium's transformation from ore to metal at the Academy of Sciences in France.

1914 - Battle of Marne began. The British and French fought the Germans for six days, resulting in 500,000 casualties.

1972 - Members of the Black September faction of the Palestinian Liberation Army attacked the Israeli delegation at the Munich Olympic Games Village. Seventeen people died in the incident.

1975 - President Gerald R. Ford escaped an assassination attempt by Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme, a follower of Charles Manson, in Sacramento, California.

1980 - Longest tunnel, St. Gotthard Automobile Tunnel in Switzerland, opened.

Silky

 

[John A Silkstone]

September 6th

394 - Theodosius became sole ruler of Italy after defeating Eugenius at the Battle of the River Frigidus.

1552 - One of Ferdinand Magellan's ships returned to Spain, having successfully circumnavigated the globe.

1837 - First U.S. coeducational college opened in Oberlin, Ohio -- the Oberlin Collegiate Institute (now Oberlin College).

1869 - The first major coal mine disaster in the U.S. took place at Avondale, Pennsylvania. A fire broke out in a mineshaft and 110 miners were trapped inside and died.

1899 - Carnation Company made the first can of evaporated milk.

1901 - President William McKinley was mortally wounded by anarchist Leon Czolgosz at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York. McKinley died eight days later and Theodore Roosevelt became President.

1907 - Luxury liner Lusitania departed London for New York on her maiden voyage.

1909 - Word was received from American explorer Robert Peary that he had reached the North Pole five months earlier.

1920 - First prize-fight broadcasted on the radio (Jack Dempsey v. Billy Miske).

1936 - Beryl Markham flew the first east-to-west solo flight across the Atlantic Ocean.

1939 - South Africa declared war on Germany.

1952 - Canadian television broadcasting began in Montreal.

1953 - The last official act of the Korean War took place as American and Korean prisoners are exchanged in Operation Big Switch.

1954 - Ground-breaking ceremony was held for the first U.S. nuclear power plant (Shippingport, Pennsylvania).

1966 - South African Prime Minister Hendrik Verwoerd was stabbed to death by a parliamentary page during a session in Cape Town. Verwoerd was an architect of South Africa's racist apartheid policies.

1975 - Czechoslovakian tennis star Martina Navratilova requested U.S. asylum.

1988 - Lee Roy Young became the first African-American Texas Ranger.

1989 - Ben Johnson's victories were removed from the record books after tests showed that he had used performance-enhancing drugs.

1991 - Soviet government recognized the Baltic states of Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania.

1991 - Leningrad's name changed back to St. Petersburg.

1997 - Princess Diana's funeral was held in Westminster Abbey.

Silky

 

[John A Silkstone]

September 7th

1664 - Dutch settlement of New Amsterdam and Governor Peter Stuyvesant surrendered to the British, who renamed it, New York, in honour of the Duke of York.

1776 - First submarine attack occurred when the submersible American Turtle tries to bomb British Admiral Richard Howe's flagship Eagle in New York Harbour during the Revolutionary War.

1813 - First printed reference to the U.S. by the nickname "Uncle Sam" occurred in the "Troy Post."

1822 - Brazil declared independence from Portugal.

1888 - First incubator for premature infant was used.

1892 - First heavyweight-title boxing match fought with gloves under Marquis of Queensbury rules ended when James J. Corbett knocked out John L. Sullivan in the 21st round.

1901 - Signing of the Peking Protocol ended the Boxer Rebellion in China.

1936 - Boulder Dam (later Hoover Dam began operation.

1940 - Nazi Germany began its first blitz of London in World War II. Eight days later, the RAF staged a dramatic counterattack against the Luftwaffe, turning the tide in the Battle of Britain.

1963 - Professional Football Hall of Fame opened in Canton, Ohio.

1986 - Desmond Tutu became the archbishop of Cape Town as he is installed as first black to lead the Anglican Church in South Africa.

Silky

 

[John A Silkstone]

8th September

1504 - Michelangelo's 13-foot marble statue of David was unveiled in Florence, Italy.

1565 - San Augustin (Florida) was founded by Spanish explorer Pedro Menéndez de Avilés -- making it the oldest city in North America. It was built near the site where Ponce de Léon, the discoverer of Florida, landed in 1513.

1636 - Harvard College (originally Cambridge College) was founded, the first college in the U.S.

1760 - French surrendered the city of Montreal to the British.

1900 - Galveston, Texas, was devastated by a hurricane that kills over 6,000 people. It is considered to be the single worst natural disaster in U.S. history.

1906 - Robert Turner invented the automatic typewriter's return carriage.

1917 - Eugene Bullard became the first African-American combat aviator in a reconnaissance mission over France.

1920 - New York-to-San Francisco air mail service was started.

1921 - Margaret Gorman of Washington, D.C. was named the first Miss America.

1935 - Senator Huey P. Long was shot and mortally wounded in Louisiana's state capitol. He died two days later.

1941 - Nazi Germany began its siege of Leningrad, which lasted 900 days. When the siege finally ended in January of 1944, Leningrad's population had been reduced to 600,000 people from 2,500,000 million.

1944 - First German long-range rocket (V2) was launched from Holland and fell on London.

1955 - United States, Australia, France, Great Britain, New Zealand, the Philippines, Pakistan, and Thailand signed the mutual defence treaty that established the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO).

1960 - NASA Marshall Space Flight Centre in Huntsville, Alabama, was dedicated.

1966 - Television program "Star Trek" premiered.

1971 - The Kennedy Centre opened in Washington, D.C.

1974 - President Gerald Ford issued an unconditional pardon to former President Richard Nixon.

1990 - Ellis Island Historical Site opened on Ellis Island, New York City.

1994 - A U.S. Air Boeing 737 crashed at the Pittsburgh International Airport, killing all 132 people on board.

2003 - The Recording Industry Association of America filed 261 lawsuits against individuals for copyright infringement, accusing them of unauthorized sharing of files containing copyrighted material.

Silky

 

[John A Silkstone]

September 9th

337 - Constantine's three sons, already Caesars, added the title of Augustus. Constantine II and Constans share the west while Constantius II takes control of the east.

1543 - Mary Stuart became the infant Queen of Scotland.

1776 - Second Continental Congress made the term "United States" official, replacing "United Colonies."

1834 - Parliament passed the Municipal Corporations Act in England.

1839 - John Herschel took the first glass plate photograph.

1850 - California became the 31st state of the Union.

1908 - Orville Wright made the first one-hour airplane flight at Fort Myer, Virginia.

1926 - National Broadcasting Corporation (NBC) was formed by the Radio Corporation of America.

1942 - Rare attack on U.S. mainland by Japanese occurred; they dropped incendiaries on Oregon in hopes of starting forest fires.

1956 - Elvis Presley's first American appearance, on "The Ed Sullivan Show."

1965 - France left NATO in protest of the U.S.'s domination of the organization.

Silky

 

[John A Silkstone]

September 10th

1608 - Captain John Smith was elected council president of the Jamestown colony in Virginia.

1623 - Lumber and furs were the first cargo to leave Plymouth, Massachusetts, for England.

1813 - Oliver H. Perry and an American naval force defeated the British at the Battle of Lake Erie in the War of 1812.

1846 - Elias Howe received a U.S. patent for the first sewing machine.

1913 - First paved coast-to-coast road, named the Lincoln Highway, opened in the U.S.

1919 - New boundaries were settled in the Treaty of Saint-Germain, which brought about the end of the Austrian Empire.

1939 - Canada and South Africa declared war on Germany, following the declarations of Britain, France, Australia, and New Zealand on the previous day.

1963 - Black students entered Alabama public schools following a standoff between federal authorities and Governor George C. Wallace.

1974 - Guinea-Bissau declared its independence from Portugal.

1977 - Hamida Djandoubi, a Tunisian immigrant and a convicted murderer, became the last person in France executed with the guillotine.

1981 - Pablo Picasso's painting "Guernica" was returned to Spain and put in Madrid's Prado Museum. Picasso's will said that the painting was not to return to Spain until the Fascists lost power and democracy restored.

2000 - Broadway's longest-running production, "Cats," closed after more than 7400 performances.

Silky

 

[John A Silkstone]

1297 - Scottish patriot Sir William Wallace defeated the army of Edward I at Stirling Bridge.

1709 - Duke of Marlborough (John Churchill) and Prince Eugene of Savoy of Austria defeated French Marshal Villars at the Battle of Malplaquet, France.

1777 - General George Washington and his troops are defeated by the British under General William Howe at the Battle of Brandywine, Pennsylvania.

1789 - Alexander Hamilton was appointed the first U.S. Secretary of the Treasury.

1814 - American fleet scored a decisive victory over the British in Battle of Lake Champlain (War of 1812). The American victory, coupled with the end of the British war against Napoleon, led to peace negotiations in Ghent, Belgium.

1841 - President John Tyler's veto of the Banking Bill prompted his cabinet to resign (except Secretary of State Daniel Webster).

1897 - A strike by 75,000 coal mine workers ended after 10 weeks. The miners won an 8-hour workday, semi-monthly pay checks, and the abolition of company stores.

1904 - The battleship Connecticut was launched in New York.

1916 - First time "Star Spangled Banner" was sung at the beginning of a baseball game (Cooperstown, New York).

1918 - American troops arrived in Russia to fight the Bolsheviks.

1941 - Charles A. Lindbergh said "the British, the Jewish and the Roosevelt administration" were trying to draw the U.S. into World War II, sparking charges of anti-Semitism.

1959 - The first U.S. food stamps were authorized by Congress.

2001 - Suicide hijackers crashed two airliners into the World Trade Centre in New York, causing the 110-story twin towers to collapse. Another hijacked airliner hit the Pentagon and a fourth crashed in a field in Pennsylvania. The attackers were Islamic terrorists from Saudi Arabia and several other Arab nations. Reportedly financed by Saudi fugitive Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda terrorist organization, they were allegedly acting in retaliation for America's support of Israel, its involvement in the Persian Gulf War, and its continued military presence in the Middle East.

Silky

 

[John A Silkstone]

September 12th

490 B.C.E. - Athenian and Plataean Hoplites commanded by General Miltiades drove back a Persian invasion of Greece at Marathon.

1609 - English explorer Henry Hudson sailed the ship Half Moon into the river that now bears his name.

1722 - The Treaty of St. Petersburg put an end to the Russo-Persian War.

1918 - General John J. Pershing led American Expeditionary Forces on their first major offensive in Europe as an independent army. In the St. Mihiel offensive, the American Expeditionary Forces utilized with resounding success the armoured fighting tank brigades as a substitute for the cavalry.

1919 - Adolph Hitler joined the German Worker's Party.

1940 - Lascaux Cave's 17,000-year-old paintings were discovered by teenagers who stumbled upon the ancient artwork when trying to find their dog. The paintings are the finest examples of art from the Palaeolithic Period.

1944 - U.S. Army troops entered Germany for the first time in World War II, near Trier.

1949 - The Ladies Professional Golf Association of America (LPGA) was formed in New York City with Patty Berg as its first president.

1953 - Senator John Fitzgerald Kennedy wed Jacqueline Bouvier at St. Mary's Church in Newport, Rhode Island.

1953 - Nikita Khrushchev was elected the first secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, six months after the death of Joseph Stalin.

1959 - Luna 2 was launched by the USSR, becoming the first spacecraft to land on the Moon.

1969 - President Richard Nixon ordered a resumption in bombing North Vietnam.

1972 - The TV show "Maude" debuted.

1974 - In Boston on the day the schools opened, opposition to court-ordered school "bussing" turned violent. The National Guard was mobilized in October to restore peace.

1977 - South African black student leader Steven Biko died while in police custody, leading to international protests and a United Nations-imposed arms embargo.

1992 - Space shuttle Endeavour blasted off; it carried Mark Lee and Jan Davis, the first married couple in space, and Mae Carol Jemison, the first black woman in space.

2002 - Three former Tyco International Ltd. Executives were charged with taking hundreds of millions of dollars from the conglomerate; all three pleaded innocent at their arraignment in New York.

Silky

 

[John A Silkstone]

September 13th

122 - Building of Hadrian's Wall began.

1759 - The British achieved a dramatic victory when they scaled the cliffs over the city of Quebec, defeating French forces on the Plains of Abraham in the last of the French and Indian Wars (known as the Seven Years' War).

1788 - Constitutional Convention authorized the first national election for the first Wednesday in February 1789, and declared New York City the temporary national capital.

1847 - The Battle of Chapultepec, the last action of the war between the United States and Mexico, was waged. U.S. General Winfield Scott captured a fort overlooking Mexico City and then took the town by storm the next day.

1862 - Union troops in Frederick, Maryland, discovered General Robert E. Lee's attack plans for the invasion of Maryland wrapped around a pack of cigars.

1943 - Chiang Kai-shek became president of China.

1943 - Otto Skorzeny, Adolf Hitler's commando leader, kidnapped Fascist leader Benito Mussolini, rescuing him from the Italian resistance forces that held him in a villa in the Abruzzi Mountains.

1948 - Margaret Chase Smith (R-Maine) was elected to the U.S. Senate, becoming the first woman to serve in both houses of Congress.

1951 - In Korea, U.S. Army troops began their assault on Heartbreak Ridge. The month-long fight produced 3700 casualties.

1971 - The four-day revolt at the maximum-security Attica Correctional Facility near Buffalo, New York, came to end when 1,500 state police and National Guardsmen stormed the complex.

1993 - Israel and Palestine signed their first major agreement during a ceremony in Washington, D.C. The historic agreement granted Palestine limited self-government in the Gaza Strip and in Jericho on the occupied West Bank.

2001 - Secretary of State Colin Powell named Osama bin Laden as the prime suspect in the terror attacks on the United States.

Silky

 

[John A Silkstone]

September 14th

1741 - George Friedrich Handel completed "Messiah."

1812 - French emperor Napoleon entered Moscow, but found it deserted. After waiting a month for a surrender that never came, Napoleon, faced with the onset of the Russian winter, was forced to order his starving army out of Moscow. The Grande Armée finally escaped Russia, having suffered a loss of over 400,000 men during the disastrous invasion.

1814 - Francis Scott Key was inspired to write a poem, "The Star-Spangled Banner" when he witnesses an attack on Baltimore by a British fleet and the bombing of Fort McHenry. It later became the national anthem of the United States.

1862 - At the Battle of South Mountain and Battle Crampton's Gap, Maryland Union troops smashed into the Confederates as they closed in on what became the Antietam battleground.

1911 - Russian Premier Piotr Stolypin was mortally wounded in an assassination attempt at the Kiev opera house.

1936 - The first prefrontal lobotomy was performed in attempt to relieve depression and anxiety, by Dr. Walter Freeman in Washington, D.C.

1940 - Congress passed the Selective Service Act, providing for the first peacetime draft in U.S. history.

1948 - Groundbreaking ceremony took place in New York for the United Nations' world headquarters.

1959 - Soviet space probe Luna Two became the first manmade object to reach the Moon as it impacted the lunar surface.

1960 - Iraq, Iran, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia formed OPEC (Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries).

1975 - Pope Paul the Sixth declared Mother Elizabeth Ann Bayley Seton the first U.S.-born saint. She founded the United States' first religious order, the Sisters of Mercy of St. Joseph.

Silky

 

[John A Silkstone]

1588 - The Spanish Armada, which attempted to invade England, was destroyed by a British fleet.

1776 - British forces occupied New York City during the American Revolution.

1784 - First ascent in a hydrogen balloon was achieved by Italian Vincenzo Lunardi in England.

1789 - U.S. Department of Foreign Affairs was renamed the Department of State.

1821 - Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and El Salvador proclaimed independence.

1830 - The first person was killed by a train: statesman William Huskisson at the opening of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway.

1858 - The Butterfield Overland Mail Company began delivering mail from St. Louis to San Francisco.

1862 - Confederate troops captured Harpers Ferry in Maryland.

1916 - Tanks were used for the first time in warfare history during the Battle of Somme by the British against the Germans.

1917 - Russia was proclaimed a republic by Alexander Kerensky, the head of a provisional government.

1923 - Oklahoma was placed under martial law in response to terrorist activity by the Ku Klux Klan (KKK).

1928 - Scottish bacteriologist Alexander Fleming accidentally discovered the antibiotic effects of penicillin. For his discovery, Fleming was knighted by King George VI of England in 1944 and shared the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1945.

1935 - The Nuremberg Laws were enacted, depriving German Jews of their citizenship and civil rights -- and making the swastika the official symbol of Nazi Germany.

1940 - The Luftwaffe sustained heavy losses inflicted by the Royal Air Force during the Battle of Britain in World War II. This turning of the tides forced Adolf Hitler to abandon his plans to invade Britain.

1950 - In the Korean conflict, the U.S.-led United Nations forces landed at Inchon in the south and began their drive toward Seoul.

1963 - An 11-year-old and three 14-year-old children were killed when a dynamite bomb exploded during Sunday services at the all-black 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama. Robert Chambliss, the prime suspect in the bombing, was not brought to justice until 1977.

1971 - Environmental group Greenpeace was founded.

Silky

 

[John A Silkstone]

September 16th

1620 - The Pilgrims set sail in the Mayflower for America from Plymouth, England.

1630 - Shawmut (also called Trimontaine), Massachusetts, was renamed Boston, and became the state capital.

1668 - King John Casimer V of Poland abdicated the throne.

1782 - George Washington first used the Great Seal of the United States on a document.

1810 - Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, a Catholic priest, launched the Mexican War of Independence with the issuing of his Grito de Dolores, or "Cry of Delores," calling for an end to the 300 years of Spanish rule in Mexico.

1893 - More than 50,000 people claimed land in the Cherokee Strip during the first day of the Oklahoma land rush.

1908 - General Motors filed papers of incorporation.

1908 - Esperanto first taught at college (Clark University).

1915 - Haiti became a U.S. protectorate

1919 - The American Legion was incorporated by an act of Congress.

1942 - Japanese base at Kiska in the Aleutian Islands was raided by American bombers.

1945 - Japan surrendered Hong Kong to Britain.

1966 - The Metropolitan Opera opened its new opera house at New York's Lincoln Centre for the Performing Arts.

1974 - President Gerald R. Ford announced a conditional amnesty program for Vietnam War deserters and draft-evaders.

1975 - Rhodes Scholarships were first offered to women.

1982 - Hundreds of Palestinian refugees were massacred in Beirut by Lebanese Christian militia.

1987 - Two dozen nations signed the Montreal Protocol, an agreement to save the ozone layer by curbing harmful emissions.

Silky

 

[Bombardier]

Great stuff Silky
Where do you get your info from mate ?

 

[John A Silkstone]

September 17th

1394 - Jews were expelled from France by order of King Charles VI.

1787 - The Constitution of the United States of America was completed and signed by 38 of the 41 delegates attending the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia. Narrowly approved in some states, the Constitution of the United States of America became law by June 1789.

1796 - President George Washington delivered his "Farewell Address" to Congress before concluding his second term in office.

1862 - This was the bloodiest single day of fighting in the American Civil War; more than 26,000 men were killed, wounded, or missing in action at the Battle of Antietam in western Maryland.

1908 - The first aircraft fatality, during a demonstration at Fort Myer in Arlington, Virginia, occurred. A propeller came loose on a plane piloted by Orville Wright and Lieutenant Thomas Selfridge of the U.S. Signal Corps, a passenger on the plane, died of a skull fracture.

1930 - Construction began on Hoover Dam (then Boulder Dam near Las Vegas.

1939 - The Soviet Union invaded Poland; just weeks after Nazi Germany launched its assault there.

1942 - British Prime Minister Winston Churchill met with Soviet Premier Josef Stalin in Moscow as the German army attacks Stalingrad.

1944 - British and American air forces attempted an invasion of German-occupied Netherlands but many of the British airmen surrendered.

1947 - James Forrestal was sworn in as the first U.S. Secretary of Defence.

1948 - United Nations mediator for Palestine, Count Folke Bernadotte, was assassinated in Jerusalem by Jewish extremists.

1972 - "MASH" premiered on TV.

1976 - NASA unveiled the first space shuttle, the Enterprise, in Palmdale, California.

1978 - At Camp David, Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat signed the first peace treaty between Israel and one of its Arab neighbours.

1983 - Vanessa Williams of New York became the first black Miss America.

Silky

 

[John A Silkstone]

September 18th

1634 - Anne Hutchinson, the first female religious leader in the American colonies, arrived at the Massachusetts Bay Colony with her family.

1759 - The French formally surrendered Quebec to the British. Both James Wolfe and Louis Montcalm, the British and French commanders, died in the battle.

1789 - The U.S. took out its first loan. Alexander Hamilton took the loan from the Bank of New York and Bank of North America.

1793 - President George Washington laid the cornerstone for the U.S. Capitol.

1810 - Chile declared its independence from Spain.

1850 - Congress passed the Fugitive Slave Act, requiring the return of escaped slaves to their owners. It was the second fugitive slave law passed by Congress.

1851 - The first edition of the "New York Times" newspaper was published.

1891 - Harriet Maxwell Converse became the first European-American woman to be made a Native American chief.

1900 - The first direct primary was held in the U.S., in Hennepin County, Minnesota.

1927 - The Columbia Phonograph Broadcasting System (later, CBS) started operations with 16 radio stations.

1934 - The League of Nations admitted the Soviet Union.

1947 - The Air Force is established as a separate branch of the military. The National Security Act was passed, unifying the Army, Navy, and Air Force of the U.S.

1948 - Margaret Chase Smith became the first woman elected to the Senate when she defeats Democratic opponent Adrian Scolten.

1975 - Patricia Hearst, the newspaper heiress and wanted fugitive, was captured by the FBI in San Francisco, 19 months after being kidnapped by the Symbionese Liberation Army.

1977 - Ted Turner won the America's Cup in his yacht Courageous.

2003 - Hurricane Isabel hit North Carolina's Outer Banks with 100-mph winds and moved up the Eastern Seaboard; the storm was blamed for 40 deaths.

Silky

 

[John A Silkstone]

September 19th

1356 - In an important battle of the Hundred Years' War, English Prince Edward defeated the French at Poitiers and took King John II as a prisoner.

1544 - Francis, king of France, and Charles V of Austria signed a peace treaty ending a 20-year war.

1676 - Jamestown was burned by Bacon's Rebellion.

1777 - Americans under General Horatio Gates won the Battle of Saratoga in the Revolutionary War.

1777 - The Continental Congress fled their capital in Philadelphia for the more secure site of York, Pennsylvania, upon learning of the approach of General William Howe and the British forces.

1783 - The Joseph-Michel Montgolfier and Jacques-Etienne Montgolfier sent up the first hot-air balloon with live creatures on board, in Versailles, France.

1796 - George Washington issued his farewell address as U.S. President.

1849 - First commercial laundry was established in Oakland, California.

1893 - New Zealand granted women the right to vote.

1934 - Bruno Hauptmann was arrested in New York and charged with the kidnap-murder of Charles Lindbergh's baby.

1948 - Moscow announced it would withdraw from Korea by the end of the year.

1955 - Juan Domingo Perón, president of Argentina since 1946, was deposed and exiled in a military coup.

1957 - U.S. conducted its first underground nuclear test, in the Nevada desert.

1980 - Titan II exploded in Damascus, AR, by accident. One person died.

1983 - St. Kitts and Nevis declared independence from England.

1984 - Great Britain and China announced their agreement to transfer Hong Kong to Chinese rule in 1997.

1985 - Mexico City was struck by the first of two huge earthquakes that claimed more than 10,000 lives.

1995 - The Washington Post published the so-called "Unabomber's Manifesto," a sixty-five-page thesis on what the "Unabomber" thought were the problems with America's society.

2002 - President George W. Bush asked Congress for authority to "use all means," including military force if necessary, to disarm and overthrow Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein if he did not quickly meet United Nations demands to abandon all weapons of mass destruction.

Silky