On This Day In History
Did You Know?
“Star Trek” premieres on NBC-TV starring William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy
Today in History in 1966
Would You Believe?
Giraffe DNA study published in “Current Biology” reveals there are 4 species not just 1, as previously assumed
Today in History in 2016
September 9th
1000 Battle of Svolder, Baltic Sea: King Olaf on board the Long Serpent defeated in one of the greatest naval battles of the Viking Age. He leaps to his death overboard.
1776 Congress officially renames the country as the United States of America (from the United Colonies)
1817 Alexander Twilight, probably first African American to graduate from a US college, receives BA degree at Middlebury College
1914 First fully mechanized unit in the British Army created – the Canadian Automobile Machine Gun Brigade (WWI)
1993 Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization exchange letters of mutual recognition
2015 Queen Elizabeth II becomes Great Britain’s longest-reigning monarch at 63 years and seven months, beating the previous record set by her great-great-grandmother, Queen Victoria
Did You Know?
Mary Stuart, at nine months old, is crowned “Queen of Scots” in the central Scottish town of Stirling
Today in History in 1543
Would You Believe?
Nurse Sally Tompkins is officially commissioned as an officer (and its only woman officer) by the Confederate US Army
Today in History in 1861
September 10th
1776 George Washington asks for a spy volunteer, Nathan Hale volunteers
1813 American Naval Commander Oliver Hazard Perry defeats the British in Battle of Lake Erie
1846 Elias Howe takes out a US patent for a lockstitch sewing machine
1924 Leopold and Loeb found guilty of the murder of Robert Franks in Chicago in the “the crime of the century”
1977 Hamida Djandoubi, convicted of torture and murder, is the last person to be executed by Guillotine in France
2008 The Large Hadron Collider at CERN, described as the biggest scientific experiment in the history of mankind is powered up in Geneva, Switzerland
2020 California’s August Complex wildfire becomes largest recorded in state history at 471,000 acres (736 square miles)
September 11th
1297 Battle at Stirling Bridge, Scottish rebel William Wallace defeats the English
1609 Expulsion order announced against the Moriscos of Valencia; beginning of the expulsion of all Spain’s Moriscos
1697 Battle of Zenta: forces of Prince Eugen of Savoye defeat the Turks, ending Ottoman control of large parts of Central Europe
1708 Great Northern war: Charles XII of Sweden stops his march to conquer Moscow outside Smolensk, marking the turning point in the war
2001 Two passenger planes hijacked by Al Qaeda terrorists crash into New York’s World Trade Towers causing the collapse of both and deaths of 2,606 people
2001 Terrorists hijack a passenger plane and crash it into the Pentagon causing the deaths of 125 people
2001 Attempt by passengers and crew of United Airlines Flight 93 to retake control of their hijacked plane from terrorists causes plane to crash in Pennsylvania field killing all 64 people on board
Did You Know?
Benjamin Franklin writes “There never was a good war or bad peace”
Today in History in 1773
Would You Believe?
Mountain Meadows Massacre, Mormons dressed as Indians murder 120 colonists in Utah
Today in History in 1857
September 12th
1758 French astronomer Charles Messier mistakenly identifies the Crab Nebula so begins his Messier Catalogue
1909 World’s first patent for synthetic rubber granted to German chemist Fritz Hofmann
1933 Leó Szilárd, waiting for a red light on Southampton Row in Bloomsbury, conceives idea of a nuclear chain reaction
1940 Four teens, following their dog down a hole near Lascaux, France discover 17,000 year old drawings now known as the Lascaux Cave Paintings
1958 US Supreme Court orders the all-white Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas to integrate
1959 Luna 2 launched by USSR; 1st spacecraft to impact on the Moon
Did You Know?
1st submarine publicly tested in London on the Thames for King James I
Today in History in 1624
Would You Believe?
United States’ 1st known female cop appointed, Alice Stebbins Wells by LAPD
Today in History in 1910
September 13th
509 BC The temple of Jupiter on Rome’s Capitoline Hill is dedicated on the ides of September
335 Church of Holy Sepulchre consecrated in Jerusalem
1224 Francis of Assisi is afflicted with stigmata after a vision praying on Mount Verna
1501 Michelangelo begins work on his Statue of David, a masterpiece of Renaissance sculpture
1845 English chemist Michael Faraday discovers the ‘Faraday effect’, the influence of a magnetic field on polarized light
1847 American-Mexican war: US General Winfield Scott captures Mexico City
1993 Public unveiling of the Oslo Accords, an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement initiated by Norway, signed by Israeli Minister of Foreign Affairs Shimon Peres and PLO official Mahmoud Abbas
Did You Know?
Building begins on Hadrian‘s Wall, Northern England
Today in History in 122
Would You Believe?
The Straw Hat Riot begins in New York City as people protest the right to wear straw hats beyond the accepted end date of September 15
Today in History in 1922
September 14th
1752 Britain and the British Empire (including the American colonies) adopt the Gregorian calendar (no Sept 3 – Sept 13)
1936 1st prefrontal lobotomy in America performed by Walter Freeman and James W. Watts at George Washington University Hospital in Washington D.C.
1939 World’s 1st practical helicopter, the VS-300 designed by Igor Sikorsky takes (tethered) flight in Stratford, Connecticut
1949 India’s Constituent Assembly adopts Hindi as an official language. Celebrated today as Hindi Day.
1956 IBM introduces the RAMAC 305, 1st commercial computer with a hard drive that uses magnetic disk storage, weighs over a ton
1960 Iraq, Iran, Kuwait, Saudi-Arabia and Venezuela form the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC)
2020 Astronomers report possible sign of life on Venus, after detecting phosphine in planets’s atmosphere by telescope [1]
2021 1 in 500 Americans have died of COVID-19 as the nation’s known death toll reaches 663,913 (Johns Hopkins) [1]
Did You Know?
Francis Scott Key pens the poem “Defence of Fort M’Henry”, later known as “The Star-Spangled Banner” while witnessing the bombardment of Fort McHenry from a ship in Baltimore harbor
Today in History in 1814
Would You Believe?
14 yr old Texan Ahmed Mohamed arrested at school when home-made clock assumed to be a bomb – Mark Zuckerberg and US President Barack Obama send supportive tweets
Today in History in 2015