September 14
1741
George Frideric Handel completes his oratorio
Messiah.
1752 The British Empire adopts the
Gregorian calendar, skipping eleven days (the previous day was September 2).
1901 U.S. President
William McKinley dies eight days after
an assassination attempt (If he died, wasn't that an
actual assassination?) on September 6.
Theodore Roosevelt became President of the United States at age 42, the youngest person ever to do so.
1960 The
Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) is founded.
1968 -
Roy Orbison's house in Nashville burned down. His two eldest sons both died in the blaze. Orbison was on tour in the UK at the time of the accident.
1969 The US
Selective Service selects September 14 as the first
Draft Lottery date.
1974 -
Eric Clapton scored a US No.1 with his version of the
Bob Marley song '
I Shot The Sheriff'. Clapton's version of the song was included on his 1974 album
461 Ocean Boulevard.
1979 - The film
Quadrophenia was released. Based on
The Who's 1973 rock opera the film featured
Phil Daniels,
Toyah Willcox,
Ray Winstone,
Michael Elphick and
Sting.
1994 The Major League Baseball season is
canceled because of a strike.
US singer
Steve Earle was sentenced to 1 year in jail after being found guilty of possession of crack cocaine.
1998 Telecommunications companies
MCI Communications and
WorldCom complete their $37 billion merger to form
MCI WorldCom.
2000 Microsoft releases
Windows ME.
2001 Historic National Prayer Service held at
Washington National Cathedral for victims of the
September 11 attacks. A similar service is held in Canada on Parliament Hill, the largest vigil ever held in the nation's capital.
2008 -
Iron Maiden singer
Bruce Dickinson was one of the pilots who flew specially chartered flights after 85,000 tourists were stranded in the US, the Caribbean, Africa and Europe after Britain's third-largest tour operator went into administration. The singer, who had worked for the airline
Astraeus for nine years, took up flying during a low point in his solo career after he quit the band in 1993.
Births
1879 Margaret Sanger; 1898 Hal B. Wallis; 1914 Clayton Moore, Mae Boren Axton 'The Queen Mother of Nashville' (songwriter); 1936 Walter Koenig; 1944 Joey Heatherton; 1946 - Pete Agnew

(Nazareth); 1947 Sam Neill; 1949 Steve Gaines

(Lynyrd Skynyrd), Ed King

(Lynyrd Skynyrd); 1954 Barry Cowsill; 1961 Wendy Thomas (Wendy's); 1962 Robert Herjavec; 1964 Faith Ford; 1965 Dmitry Medvedev; 1972 Notah Begay III; 1973 Andrew Lincoln; 1983 Amy Winehouse (British skank)
Deaths
1638 John Harvard (yeah,
that one); 1715 Dom Pιrignon (yeah,
that one); 1836 Aaron Burr (3rd VPOTUS); 1851 James Fenimore Cooper; 1901 William McKinley (25th POTUS); 1927 Isadora Duncan; 1936 Irving Thalberg; 1982 Grace Kelly; 1984 Janet Gaynor; 2001 Dorothy McGuire; 2002 LaWanda Page (The Bronze Goddess of Fire, 'Aunt Esther' on
Sanford & Son); 2009 Henry Gibson; 2009 Patrick Swayze