This Day in History

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September 13

1501 – Michelangelo begins work on his statue of David.

1782 – American Revolutionary War: Franco-Spanish troops launch the unsuccessful "grand assault" during the Great Siege of Gibraltar.

1814 – In a turning point in the War of 1812, the British fail to capture Baltimore. During the battle, Francis Scott Key composes his poem "Defence of Fort McHenry", which is later set to music and becomes the United States' national anthem.

1848 – Vermont railroad worker Phineas Gage survives an iron rod 1 1⁄4 inches (3.2 cm) in diameter being driven through his brain; the reported effects on his behavior and personality stimulate thinking about the nature of the brain and its functions.

1862 – American Civil War: Union soldiers find a copy of Robert E. Lee's battle plans in a field outside Frederick, Maryland. It is the prelude to the Battle of Antietam.

1898 – Hannibal Goodwin patents celluloid photographic film.

1956 – The IBM 305 RAMAC is introduced, the first commercial computer to use disk storage.

1985 – Super Mario Bros. is released in Japan for the NES, which starts the Super Mario series of platforming games.

1987 – Goiânia accident: A radioactive object is stolen from an abandoned hospital in Goiânia, Brazil, contaminating many people in the following weeks and causing some to die from radiation poisoning.

1988 – Hurricane Gilbert is the strongest recorded hurricane in the Western Hemisphere, later replaced by Hurricane Wilma in 2005 (based on barometric pressure).

2001 – Civilian aircraft traffic resumes in the United States after the September 11 attacks.

Births

1851 – Walter Reed; 1857 – Milton S. Hershey; 1860 – John J. Pershing; 1903 – Claudette Colbert; 1911 – Bill Monroe; 1916 – Roald Dahl; 1924 – Scott Brady; 1925 – Mel Tormé; 1937 – Don Bluth; 1939 – Richard Kiel; 1944 – Peter Cetera; 1948 – Nell Carter; 1952 – Don Was; 1961 – Dave Mustaine; 1964 – Tavis Smiley; 1967 – Tim "Ripper" Owens; 1969 – Tyler Perry; 1971 – Stella McCartney; 1977 – Fiona Apple; 1978 – Peter Sunde

Deaths

81 – Titus; 1881 – Ambrose Burnside; 1996 – Tupac Shakur; 1998 – George Wallace; 2006 – Ann Richards; 2009 – Paul Burke; 2015 – Moses Malone



Assembled twice, posted once by a goddamned idiot who cannot have two thoughts in his head at the same time.

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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 Pérignon (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

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September 15

Today is Battle of Britain Day in England, commemorating The Battle of Britain.

"Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few". ~Winston Churchill

1440 – Gilles de Rais, one of the earliest known serial killers, is taken into custody upon an accusation brought against him by the Jean de Malestroit, Bishop of Nantes.

1616 – The first non-aristocratic, free public school in Europe is opened in Frascati, Italy.

1816 – HMS Whiting became wrecked on the Doom Bar, a treacherous shoal off the coast of Cornwall, England, that has caused over 600 known shipwrecks.

*1831 – The locomotive John Bull operates for the first time in New Jersey on the Camden and Amboy Railroad.

1835 – HMS Beagle, with Charles Darwin aboard, reaches the Galápagos Islands. The ship lands at Chatham or San Cristobal, the easternmost of the archipelago.

1851 – Saint Joseph's University is founded in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

1916 – World War I: Tanks are used for the first time in battle, at the Battle of the Somme.

1940 – World War II: The climax of the Battle of Britain, when the Royal Air Force shoots down large numbers of Luftwaffe aircraft.

1945 – A hurricane strikes southern Florida and the Bahamas, destroying 366 airplanes and 25 blimps at Naval Air Station Richmond.

1948 – The F-86 Sabre sets the world aircraft speed record at 671 miles per hour (1,080 km/h).

1950 – Korean War: United States forces land at Inchon.

1958 – A Central Railroad of New Jersey commuter train runs through an open drawbridge at the Newark Bay, killing 48.

1959 – Nikita Khrushchev becomes the first Soviet leader to visit the United States.

1961 – Hurricane Carla strikes Texas with winds of 175 miles per hour.

A group from Hawthorne, California called The Pendletones attend their first real recording session at Hite Morgan's studio in Los Angeles. The band recorded 'Surfin', a song that would help shape their career as The Beach Boys.

1962 – The Soviet ship Poltava heads toward Cuba, one of the events that sets into motion the Cuban Missile Crisis.

1965 - The Ford Motor Company became the first automaker to offer an 8-track tape player as an option for their entire line of vehicles in the US. Tapes were initially only available at auto parts stores, as home 8-track equipment was still a year away.

1970 - US Vice-President Spiro Agnew said in a speech that the youth of America were being "brainwashed into a drug culture" by rock music, movies, books and underground newspapers.

1971 – The first Greenpeace ship sets sail to protest against nuclear testing on Amchitka Island.

*1981 – The John Bull becomes the oldest operable steam locomotive in the world when the Smithsonian Institution operates it under its own power outside Washington, D.C.

The Senate Judiciary Committee unanimously approves Sandra Day O'Connor to become the first female justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.

1984 - Frankie Goes To Hollywood's 'Relax' became the longest running chart hit since Engelbert Humperdink's 'Release Me', after spending 43 weeks on the UK singles chart.

1990 - The Steve Miller Band had a UK No.1 with 'The Joker' 16 years after it's first release. The song topped the US Billboard Hot 100 in early 1974. More than 16 years later, it reached No.1 in the UK Singles Chart after being used in "Great Deal", a Hugh Johnson-directed television advertisement for Levi's, thus holding the record for the longest gap between transatlantic chart-toppers.

2001 – George W. Bush, 43rd President of the United States, gives Post 9-11 Weekly Address, foreshadowing an interventionist United States Foreign Policy, leading to the Iraq, and Afghanistan Wars.

2008 – Lehman Brothers files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, the largest bankruptcy filing in U.S. history.

Births

1254 – Marco Polo; 1789 – James Fenimore Cooper; 1830 – Porfirio Díaz; 1857 – William Howard Taft (27th POTUS); 1881 – Ettore Bugatti (yeah, that one); 1890 – Agatha Christie; 1903 – Roy Acuff; 1907 – Fay Wray; 1914 – Creighton Abrams (M1 Abrams battle tank); 1918 – Nipsey Russell; 1922 – Jackie Cooper; 1927 – Norm Crosby; 1940 – Merlin Olsen (Father Murphy); 1946 – Tommy Lee Jones, Oliver Stone; 1951 – Pete Carroll; 1958 – Wendie Jo Sperber (Bosom Buddies); 1961 – Dan Marino; 1964 – Doyle Wolfgang von Frankenstein(The Misfits); 1969 – Allen Shellenberger(Lit); 1972 – Jimmy Carr; 1977 – Tom Hardy

Deaths

1851 - James Fenimore Cooper; 1885 – Jumbo ("The only good thing you ever did for the gals was get hit by that train!"); 1938 – Thomas Wolfe; 1978 – Willy Messerschmitt (yes, that Messerschmitt); 1989 – Robert Penn Warren; 2003 – Garner Ted Armstrong; 2004 – Johnny Ramone(The Ramones); 2007 – Brett Somers (Match Game panelist); 2008 – Richard Wright(Pink Floyd)

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September 16

Today is Stay Away From Seattle Day in the United States.

1620 – Pilgrims set sail from England on the Mayflower.

1732– In Campo Maior, Portugal, a storm hits the Armory and a violent explosion ensues, killing two thirds of its inhabitants.

1810 – With the Grito de Dolores, Father Miguel Hidalgo begins Mexico's fight for independence from Spain.

1863 – Robert College of Istanbul-Turkey, the first American educational institution outside the United States, is founded by Christopher Robert, an American philanthropist.

1880 – The Cornell Daily Sun prints its first issue in Ithaca, New York. The Sun is the nation's oldest, continuously-independent college daily.

1908 – General Motors Corporation is founded.

1919 – The American Legion is incorporated.

1920 – The Wall Street bombing: A bomb in a horse wagon explodes in front of the J. P. Morgan building in New York City killing 38 and injuring 400.

1955 – The military coup to unseat President Juan Perón of Argentina is launched at midnight.

1956 – TCN-9 Sydney is the first Australian television station to commence regular broadcasts.

1959 – The first successful photocopier, the Xerox 914, is introduced in a demonstration on live television from New York City.

1961 – The United States National Hurricane Research Project drops eight cylinders of silver iodide into the eyewall of Hurricane Esther. Wind speed reduces by 10%, giving rise to Project Stormfury.

1961 – Typhoon Nancy, with possibly the strongest winds ever measured in a tropical cyclone (one-minute sustained winds of 215 mph (345 km/h)), makes landfall in Osaka, Japan, killing 173 people.

1966 – The Metropolitan Opera House opens at Lincoln Center in New York City with the world premiere of Samuel Barber's opera Antony and Cleopatra.

1970 - Jimi Hendrix joined Eric Burdon on stage at Ronnie Scott's in London for what would become the guitarist's last ever public appearance.

1975 – The first prototype of the Mikoyan MiG-31 interceptor makes its maiden flight.

1977 - 29-year-old former T. Rex singer Marc Bolan was killed instantly when the car driven by his girlfriend, Gloria Jones, left the road and hit a tree in Barnes, London. Miss Jones broke her jaw in the accident. The couple were on the way to Bolan's home in Richmond after a night out at a Mayfair restaurant. A local man who witnessed the crash said, "When I arrived a girl was lying on the bonnet and a man with long dark curly hair was stretched out in the road - there was a hell of a mess."

1979 - The Sugarhill Gang's 'Rapper's Delight' was released. While it was not the first single to feature rapping, it is generally considered to be the song that first popularized hip hop in the United States and around the world. The song's opening lyric "I said a hip, hop, the hippie, the hippie to the hip hip hop" is world-renowned.

1987 – The Montreal Protocol is signed to protect the ozone layer from depletion.

1992 – The trial of the deposed Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega ends in the United States with a 40-year sentence for drug trafficking and money laundering.

2004 – Hurricane Ivan makes landfall in Gulf Shores, Alabama as a Category 3 hurricane.

2007 – Mercenaries working for Blackwater Worldwide shoot and kill 17 Iraqis in Nisour Square, Baghdad.

2013 – A gunman kills twelve people at the Navy Yard in Washington, D.C..

Births

1875 – J. C. Penney; 1877 – Jacob Schick (yeah, the razor guy); 1880 – Alfred Noyes; 1886 – Jean Arp; 1888 – W. O. Bentley (yeah, that Bentley); 1891 – Karl Dönitz; 1898 – H. A. Rey (co-created Curious George); 1911 – Paul Henning (created The Beverly Hillbillies, Petticoat Junction, & Green Acres, wrote The Ballad Of Jed Clampett); 1914 – Allen Funt (Candid Camera); 1920 – Art Sansom (created comic strip The Born Loser); 1924 – Lauren Bacall; 1925 – B.B. King; 1926 – Robert H. Schuller; 1927 – Peter Falk (Columbo), Jack Kelly ('Bart Maverick' on Maverick); 1930 – Anne Francis (Forbidden Planet, Honey West); 1934 – George Chakiris (leader of The Sharks in the film version of West Side Story); 1941 - Joe Butler♪ ♫(The Lovin' Spoonful); 1942 – Bernie Calvert(The Hollies); 1948 - Ron Blair(Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers); 1949 – Ed Begley Jr.; 1950 – David Bellamy♪ ♫(The Bellamy Bros.); 1952 – Mickey Rourke; 1954 – Earl Klugh; 1956 – David Copperfield; 1958 – Jennifer Tilly; 1963 – Richard Marx♪ ♫; 1964 – Dave Sabo(Skid Row), Molly Shannon; 1971 – Amy Poehler; 1974 – Julian Castro; 1975 – Jason Leffler; 1979 – Flo Rida♪ ♫; 1981 – Alexis Bledel (Gilmore Girls); 1992 - Nick Jonas♪ ♫(The Jonas Bros.)

Deaths

1736 – Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit (invented the thermometer); 1965 – Fred Quimby (producer Tom & Jerry); 1977 – Marc Bolan(T. Rex), 1977 – Maria Callas♪ ♫; 1996 – McGeorge Bundy; 2001 – Samuel Z. Arkoff; 2002 – James Gregory ('Inspector Luger' on Barney Miller); 2003 – Sheb Wooley♪ ♫; 2009 - Mary Travers♪ ♫(Peter Paul & Mary)

[glatt]

Originally Posted by Gravdigr

1958 – A Central Railroad of New Jersey commuter train runs through an open drawbridge at the Newark Bay, killing 48.

That would have been a sight to see

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And hear.

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September 17

Today is Constitution Day and Citizenship Day in the United States, commemorating the adoption of the United States Constitution, and those who have become citizens of the United States of America.

1382 – Louis the Great's daughter, Mary, is crowned "king" of Hungary.

1630 – The city of Boston, Massachusetts is founded.

1683 – Antonie van Leeuwenhoek writes a letter to the Royal Society describing "animalcules": the first known description of protozoa.

1716 – Jean Thurel (<--interesting read) enlists in the Touraine Regiment at the age of 18, the first day of a military career that would span for over 90 years. Born in the reign of Louis XIV and dying during that of Napoleon I, Thurel lived in three different centuries.

1776 – The Presidio of San Francisco is founded in New Spain.

1778 – The Treaty of Fort Pitt is signed. It is the first formal treaty between the United States and a Native American tribe (the Lenape or Delaware Indians).

1787 – The United States Constitution is signed in Philadelphia.

1814 – Francis Scott Key finishes his poem "Defence of Fort McHenry", later to be the lyrics of "The Star-Spangled Banner".

1849 – American abolitionist Harriet Tubman escapes from slavery.

1859 – Joshua A. Norton declares himself "Norton I, Emperor of the United States."

1862 – American Civil War: George B. McClellan halts the northward drive of Robert E. Lee's Confederate Army in the single-day Battle of Antietam, the bloodiest day in American military history (combined total of 22,717 dead, wounded, or missing).

1916 – World War I: Manfred von Richthofen ("The Red Baron"), a flying ace of the German Luftstreitkräfte, wins his first aerial combat near Cambrai, France.

1920 – The National Football League is organized as the American Professional Football Association in Canton, Ohio.

1923 - Hank Williams, Sr., regarded as one of the most important country music artists of all time, is born in Mount Olive, Alabama.

1928 – The Okeechobee hurricane strikes southeastern Florida, killing more than 2,500 people. It is the third deadliest natural disaster in United States history, behind the Galveston hurricane of 1900 and the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.

1931 - The first long-playing record, a 33 1/3 rpm recording, was demonstrated at the Savoy Plaza Hotel in New York by RCA-Victor. The venture was doomed to fail however due to the high price of the record players, which started around $95 (about $1140 in today's dollars) and wasn't revived until 1948.

1944 – World War II: Allied Airborne troops parachute into the Netherlands as the "Market" half of Operation Market Garden.

1961 – The world's first retractable-dome stadium, the Civic Arena, opens in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

1969, Media on both sides of the Atlantic were running stories that said Paul McCartney was dead. He was supposedly killed in a car accident in Scotland on November 9th, 1966 and that a double had been taking his place for public appearances. In fact, Paul and his girlfriend Jane Asher were on vacation in Kenya at the time.

1976 – The first Space Shuttle, Enterprise, is unveiled by NASA.

1983 – Vanessa Williams becomes the first black Miss America.

1991 – The first version of the Linux kernel (0.01) is released to the Internet.

Over 4 million copies of Guns N' Roses' album, 'Use Your Illusion I' and 'Use Your Illusion II' were simultaneously released for retail sale, making it the largest ship-out in pop history in the US.

2001 – The New York Stock Exchange reopens for trading after the September 11 attacks, the longest closure since the Great Depression.

2006 – Fourpeaked Mountain in Alaska erupts, marking the first eruption for the long-dormant volcano in at least 10,000 years.

2011 – Occupy Wall Street movement begins in Zuccotti Park, New York City.

Births

879 – Charles the Simple; 1854 – David Dunbar Buick (yeah, that Buick); 1859 – Billy the Kid; 1868 – James Alexander Calder (not the sculptor, there was another one); 1900 – J. Willard Marriott (yeah, that Marriott); 1904 – Jerry Colonna♪ ♫; 1907 – Warren E. Burger (Chief Justice SCOTUS); 1923 – Hank Williams♪ ♫; 1926 – Bill Black(Elvis Presley); 1927 – George Blanda; 1928 – Roddy McDowall; 1929 – Stirling Moss; 1930 – David Huddleston, Edgar Mitchell; 1931 – Anne Bancroft; 1935 – Ken Kesey; 1938 – Paul Benedict (neighbor 'Bentley' on The Jeffersons); 1939 – David Souter (Associate Justice SCOTUS); 1947 – Jeff MacNelly (created comic strip Shoe); 1948 – John Ritter; 1953 – Rita Rudner; 1962 – Baz Luhrmann, 1962 – BeBe Winans♪ ♫; 1965 – Kyle Chandler (Friday Night Lights, tv series), Yuji Naka (created Sonic the Hedgehog); 1966 – Doug E. Fresh♪ ♫; 1967 – Michael Carbajal; 1971 – Nate Berkus; 1975 – Jimmie Johnson

Deaths

1621 – Robert Bellarmine (namesake of Bellarmine University); 1858 – Dred Scott; 1868 – Roman Nose (Cheyenne warrior); 1899 – Charles Alfred Pillsbury (yeah, that Pillsbury); 1908 – Thomas Selfridge (first person to die in a powered airplane crash); 1972 – Akim Tamiroff; 1984 – Richard Basehart; 1985 – Laura Ashley; 1996 – Spiro Agnew (39th VPOTUS); 1997 – Red Skelton; 2014 – George Hamilton IV♪ ♫(not the tan one, this one's a country music singer)

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September 18

Today is National HIV/AIDS and Aging Awareness Day in the United States.

324 – Constantine the Great decisively defeats Licinius in the Battle of Chrysopolis, establishing Constantine's sole control over the Roman Empire.

1502 – Christopher Columbus lands at Honduras on his fourth, and final, voyage.

1618 – The twelfth Baktun in the Mesoamerican Long Count Calendar begins.

1793 – The first cornerstone of the Capitol building is laid by George Washington.

1809 – The Royal Opera House in London opens.

1812 – The 1812 Fire of Moscow dies down after destroying more than three-quarters of the city. Napoleon returns from the Petrovsky Palace to the Moscow Kremlin, spared from the fire.

1837 – Tiffany and Co. (first named Tiffany & Young) is founded by Charles Lewis Tiffany and Teddy Young in New York City. The store is called a "stationery and fancy goods emporium".

1838 – The Anti-Corn Law League is established by Richard Cobden.

1850 – The U.S. Congress passes the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850.

1851 – First publication of The New-York Daily Times, which later becomes The New York Times.

1870 – Old Faithful Geyser is observed and named by Henry D. Washburn during the Washburn–Langford–Doane Expedition to Yellowstone.

1895 – Booker T. Washington delivers the "Atlanta Compromise" address.

1906 – A typhoon with tsunami kills an estimated 10,000 people in Hong Kong.

1919 – Fritz Pollard becomes the first African American to play professional football for a major team, the Akron Pros.

1927 – The Columbia Broadcasting System goes on the air.

1928 – Juan de la Cierva makes the first autogyro crossing of the English Channel.

1939 – The Nazi propaganda broadcaster known as Lord Haw-Haw begins transmitting.

1944 – World War II: The British submarine HMS Tradewind torpedoes Jun'yō Maru, 5,600 killed.

1948 – Margaret Chase Smith of Maine becomes the first woman elected to the United States Senate without completing another senator's term, when she defeats Democratic opponent Adrian Scolten.

1960 - On his twenty-first birthday, Frankie Avalon was given $600,000 that he earned as a minor from such hits as his 1959 US No.1 single 'Venus'.

1961 – U.N. Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld dies in a plane crash while attempting to negotiate peace in the war-torn Katanga region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

1970 - Jimi Hendrix was found unconscious and unresponsive at the residence of Monika Dannemann in London. An ambulance was dispatched and arrived at 11:27 a.m. Hendrix was taken to St Mary Abbot's Hospital where he was pronounced dead at 12:45 p.m. It was determined that Hendrix aspirated his own vomit and died of asphyxia while intoxicated with barbiturates. Dannemann later revealed that Hendrix had taken nine of her prescribed Vesparax sleeping tablets, 18 times the recommended dosage.

1976 - One hit wonders Wild Cherry started a three week run at No.1 on the US singles chart with 'Play That Funky Music'. The song started life as a B-side.

1977 – Voyager I takes first photograph of the Earth and the Moon together.

1983 - KISS appeared without their 'make-up' for the first time during an interview on MTV promoting the release of their newest album, Lick It Up.

1984 – Joe Kittinger completes the first solo balloon crossing of the Atlantic.

1997 – United States media magnate Ted Turner donates US$1 billion to the United Nations.

2001 – First mailing of anthrax letters from Trenton, New Jersey in the 2001 anthrax attacks.

2006 - 73 year old country singer Willie Nelson and four members from his band were charged with drug possession after marijuana and magic mushrooms were found by police on his tour bus near Lafayette, Louisiana.

2009 – The 72-year run of the soap opera The Guiding Light ends as its final episode is broadcast.

2014 – Scotland votes against independence from the United Kingdom.

Births

1819 – Léon Foucault (Foucault's Pendulum); 1872 – Carl Friedberg; 1895 – John Diefenbaker; 1905 – Eddie "Rochester" Anderson ("valet" to Jack Benny); 1905 – Greta Garbo; 1916 – Rossano Brazzi; 1917 – June Foray (voice of 'Rocky The Flying Squirrel', 'Cindy Lou Who', et al.); 1920 – Jack Warden; 1924 – J. D. Tippit (shot by Lee Harvey Oswald Nov. 22, 1963); 1926 – Bud Greenspan; 1933 – Jimmie Rodgers♪ ♫(Kisses Sweeter Than Wine); 1939 – Fred Willard; 1940 – Frankie Avalon♪ ♫; 1945 – P. F. Sloan♪ ♫(wrote Secret Agent Man, Eve of Destruction, et al.); 1945 – John McAfee (computer programmer & wacko, founded McAfee security software company); 1950 – Anna Deavere Smith (hospital administrator 'Gloria Akalitus' on Nurse Jackie); 1951 – Ben Carson, Dee Dee Ramone(The Ramones); 1952 – Rick Pitino; 1961 – James Gandolfini, Mark Olson♪ ♫(The Jayhawks); 1962 – Boris Said; 1964 – Holly Robinson Peete; 1967 – Ricky Bell♪ ♫(Bell Biv Devoe), Tara Fitzgerald; 1970 – Aisha Tyler; 1971 – Lance Armstrong; 1971 – Jada Pinkett Smith; 1972 – Adam Cohen♪ ♫(son of Leonard Cohen); 1973 – James Marsden ('Cyclops' in X-Men movies); 1975 – Jason Sudeikis

Deaths

1949 – Frank Morgan ('The Wizard' in The Wizard of Oz); 1961 – Dag Hammarskjöld; 1964 – Seán O'Casey; 1970 – Jimi Hendrix; 1980 – Katherine Anne Porter; 1997 – Jimmy Witherspoon♪ ♫; 2004 – Russ Meyer; 2012 – Steve Sabol (co-founded NFL Films); 2013 – Ken Norton

[Gravdigr]

September 19

Ahoy mateys, ye need to be knowin' that today be International Talk Like A Pirate Day, it be happenin' on this day every yarr.

1676 – Jamestown is burned to the ground by the forces of Nathaniel Bacon during Bacon's Rebellion.

1692 – Giles Corey is pressed to death after refusing to plead in the Salem witch trials.

1796 – George Washington's Farewell Address is printed across America as an open letter to the public.

1846 – Two French shepherd children, Mélanie Calvat and Maximin Giraud, experience a Marian apparition on a mountaintop near La Salette, France, now known as Our Lady of La Salette.

1863 – American Civil War: The first day of the Battle of Chickamauga, in northwestern Georgia, the bloodiest two-day battle of the conflict, and the only significant Confederate victory in the war's Western Theater.

1864 – American Civil War: Third Battle of Winchester: Union troops under General Philip Sheridan defeat a Confederate force commanded by General Jubal Early. With over 50,000 troops engaged it was the largest battle fought in the Shenandoah Valley and was not only militarily decisive in that region of Virginia but also played a role in securing Abraham Lincoln's election in 1864.

1881 – U.S. President James A. Garfield dies of wounds suffered in a July 2 shooting. Vice President Chester A. Arthur becomes President upon Garfield's death.

1952 – The United States bars Charlie Chaplin from re-entering the country after a trip to England.

1959 – Nikita Khrushchev is barred from visiting Disneyland due to security concerns.

1970 – The first Glastonbury Festival is held at Michael Eavis's farm in Glastonbury, United Kingdom.

The Mary Tyler Moore Show premiered on CBS.

1973 - Country rock singer/songwriter 26-year-old Gram Parsons formerly of The Byrds and The Flying Burrito Brothers, died under mysterious conditions in Joshua Tree, California. His death was attributed to heart failure but later was officially announced as a drug overdose. His coffin was stolen by two of his associates, manager Phil Kaufman and Michael Martin, a former roadie for The Byrds, and was taken to Cap Rock in the California desert, where it was set alight, in accordance to Parson's wishes. The two were later arrested by police.

1976 – Two Imperial Iranian Air Force F-4 Phantom II jets fly out to investigate an unidentified flying object when both independently lose instrumentation and communications as they approach, only to have them restored upon withdrawal.

1981 – Simon & Garfunkel reunite for a free concert in New York's Central Park. Over 400,000 fans attend the show.

1982 – Scott Fahlman posts the first documented emoticons, :-) and, :-(, on the Carnegie Mellon University bulletin board system.

1985 – A strong earthquake kills at least 5,000 people, and destroys about 400 buildings in Mexico City.

Tipper Gore and other political wives form the Parents Music Resource Center as Frank Zappa and other musicians testify at U.S. Congressional hearings on obscenity in rock music.

1991 – Ötzi the Iceman is discovered by German tourists.

1995 – The Washington Post and The New York Times publish the Unabomber's manifesto.

2006 – The Thai military stages a coup in Bangkok. The Constitution is revoked and martial law is declared.

2010 – The leaking oil well in the Deepwater Horizon oil spill is sealed. The well blew out on April 20, and was capped 87 days later. Reports in early 2012 indicated the well site was still leaking.

Births

1911 – William Golding; 1913 – Frances Farmer; 1922 – Willie Pep; 1926 – James Lipton (Inside The Actors' Studio); 1927 – Helen Carter♪ ♫(The Carter Family), William Hickey (Prizzi's Honor); 1928 – Adam West (Batman); 1931 – Brook Benton♪ ♫; 1932 – Mike Royko; 1933 – David McCallum ('Dr. Donald "Ducky" Mallard' on NCIS, 'Illya Kuryakin' in The Man from U.N.C.L.E.); 1934 – Brian Epstein (manager for The Beatles); 1940 – Bill Medley♪ ♫(The Righteous Bros.); 1940 – Paul Williams♪ ♫; 1941 – Mama Cass Elliot♪ ♫(The Mamas & The Papas); 1945 – Randolph Mantooth (Emergency!); 1948 – Jeremy Irons; 1949 – Twiggy; 1949 – Ernie Sabella (voice of 'Pumbaa' in The Lion King), Barry Scheck (co-founded The Innocence Project); 1950 – Joan Lunden; 1952 – Nile Rodgers(Chic); 1958 – Lita Ford(The Runaways); 1960 – Mario Batali; 1962 – Cheri Oteri (SNL); 1964 – Trisha Yearwood♪ ♫; 1966 – Soledad O'Brien; 1970 – Victor Williams (The King of Queens); 1974 – Jimmy Fallon; 1980 – Sara & Tegan Quin♪ ♫(Tegan and Sara)

Deaths

1881 – James A. Garfield (20th POTUS); 1942 – Condé Montrose Nast (founded Condé Nast Publications); 1968 – Red Foley♪ ♫; 1973 – Gram Parsons♪ ♫; 1985 – Italo Calvino; 1995 – Orville Redenbacher; 2004 – Eddie Adams, Skeeter Davis♪ ♫; 2006 – Danny Flores♪ ♫("Tequila!"); 2009 – Arthur Ferrante; 2011 – Dolores Hope (Bob's main squeeze); 2015 – Jackie Collins

[Gravdigr]

September 20

622 – Muhammad and Abu Bakr arrived in Medina.

1187 – Saladin begins the Siege of Jerusalem.

1498 – The 1498 Nankai earthquake generates a tsunami that washes away the building housing the statue of the Great Buddha at Kōtoku-in in Kamakura, Kanagawa, Japan; since then the Buddha has sat in the open air.

1519 – Ferdinand Magellan sets sail from Sanlúcar de Barrameda with about 270 men on his expedition to circumnavigate the globe.

1737 – The finish of the Walking Purchase which forces the cession of 1.2 million acres (4,860 km²) of Lenape-Delaware tribal land to the Pennsylvania Colony.

1881 – U.S. President Chester A. Arthur is sworn in, the morning after becoming President upon James A. Garfield's death.

1893 – Charles Duryea and his brother road-test the first American-made gasoline-powered automobile.

1906 – Cunard Line's RMS Mauretania, the largest and fastest ship in the world at the time, is launched at the Swan Hunter & Wigham Richardson shipyard in Newcastle upon Tyne, England.

1911 – White Star Line's [url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RMS_Olympic"]RMS Olympic[/URL] collides with British warship HMS Hawke.

1946 – The first Cannes Film Festival is held, having been delayed seven years due to World War II.

1964 - At the end of their North American tour The Beatles played a charity concert at the Paramount Theatre in New York City, the 3,682 audience each paid $100 a ticket ($765, each, in 2016 dollars).

1967 – RMS Queen Elizabeth 2 is launched at John Brown & Company, Clydebank, Scotland.

1971 – Having weakened after making landfall in Nicaragua the previous day, Hurricane Irene regains enough strength to be renamed Hurricane Olivia, making it the first known hurricane to cross from the Atlantic Ocean into the Pacific.

1973 – Billie Jean King beats Bobby Riggs in the Battle of the Sexes tennis match at the Houston Astrodome.

On his way to perform his second concert of the day, US singer/songwriter Jim Croce was killed with five others when his chartered aircraft clipped a pecan tree on take off in Louisiana. He was 30 years old.

1982 – The National Football League players begin a 57-day strike.

1984 – A suicide bomber in a car attacks the U.S. embassy in Beirut, Lebanon, killing twenty-two (or twenty-four) people.

1985 – Capital gains tax is introduced in Australia, one of a number of tax reforms by the Hawke/Keating government.

2000 – The United Kingdom's MI6 Secret Intelligence Service building is attacked by individuals using a Russian-built RPG-22 anti-tank missile. The perpetrators remain unidentified.

2001 – In an address to a joint session of Congress and the American people, U.S. President George W. Bush declares a "War on Terror".

2007 – Between 15,000 and 20,000 protesters marched on Jena, Louisiana, in support of six black youths who had been convicted of assaulting a white classmate.

2011 – The United States military ends its "Don't ask, don't tell" policy, allowing gay men and women to serve openly for the first time.

Births

1842 – James Dewar; 1878 – Upton Sinclair; 1892 – Roy Turk♪ ♫(wrote Are You Lonesome Tonight); 1917 – Red Auerbach, Fernando Rey, Don Starr (Dallas); 1920 – Jay Ward (designed Cap'n Crunch); 1929 – Anne Meara; 1934 – Sophia Loren; 1934 – Jeff Morris (The Blues Bros); 1942 - Popdigr; 1946 – Pete Coors (yeah, that Coors); 1948 – George R. R. Martin; 1948 – Chuck Panozzo(Styx); 1948 – John Panozzo(Styx); 1955 – Peter Scolari (Bosom Buddies, Honey, I Shrunk The Kids); 1956 – Gary Cole (Office Space); 1960 – Deborah Roberts; 1964 – Randy Bradbury(Pennywise); 1966 - Nuno Bettencourt♪ ♫(Boston, Extreme); 1967 – Gunnar & Matthew Nelson♪ ♫(Nelson, twin sons of Ricky Nelson); 1975 – Asia Argento, Juan Pablo Montoya; 1990 – Phillip Phillips♪ ♫; 1991 – Spencer Locke




Deaths

1793 – Fletcher Christian (mutineer on the HMS Bounty); 1945 – William Seabrook; 1957 – Jean Sibelius; 1973 – Jim Croce; 1984 – Steve Goodman; 2005 – Simon Wiesenthal; 2010 – Leonard Skinner (namesake of Lynyrd Skynyrd, no shit); 2014 – Polly Bergen; 2015 – Jack Larson ('Jimmy Olsen' on Adventures of Superman)

[Gravdigr]

September 21

Today is observed as an International Day of Peace.

1745 – Battle of Prestonpans: A Hanoverian army under the command of Sir John Cope is defeated, in ten minutes, by the Jacobite forces of Prince Charles Edward Stuart.

1776 – Part of New York City is burned shortly after being occupied by British forces.

1780 – American Revolutionary War: Benedict Arnold gives the British the plans to West Point.

1897 – The "Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus" editorial is published in the New York Sun.

1921 – A storage silo containing 4,500 tonnes of ammonium sulfate and ammonium nitrate explodes in Oppau, Germany, killing 500-600 people, injuring 2,000 more. The explosion was heard in Munich, more than 300 km away, blew roofs off houses 25 km away, and destroyed ~80 percent of all buildings in Oppau.

1937 – The Hobbit, by J. R. R. Tolkien, is published.

1938 – The Great Hurricane of 1938 makes landfall on Long Island in New York. The death toll is estimated at 500-700 people.

1942 – The Boeing B-29 Superfortress makes its maiden flight.

1961 – Maiden flight of the Boeing CH-47 Chinook transportation helicopter.

1964 – The North American XB-70 Valkyrie, the world's first Mach 3 bomber, makes its maiden flight from Palmdale, California.

1980 - During a North American tour, Bob Marley collapsed while jogging in New York's Central Park. After hospital tests he was diagnosed as having cancer. Marley played his last ever concert two nights later at the Stanley Theater in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

1981 – Sandra Day O'Connor is unanimously approved by the U.S. Senate as the first female Supreme Court justice.

1987 - American jazz bassist Jaco Pastorius died from injuries sustained in a fight. Pastorius was trying to enter the Midnight Bottle Club in Wilton Manors, Florida, (where he'd been banned), and became involved in a fight with a bouncer, Pastorius fell into a coma and was put on life support. In 2006, Pastorius was voted "The Greatest Bass Player Who Has Ever Lived" by readers in Bass Guitar magazine.

1996 – The Defense of Marriage Act passes the United States Congress (a vote of 342-67 in the House of Representatives and a vote of 85-14 in the Senate). The law prohibited federal recognition of same-sex marriage, while allowing states to adopt any marital definition of their choosing.

2001 – Deep Space 1 flies within 2,200 km of Comet Borrelly.

2003 – Galileo mission is terminated by sending the probe into Jupiter's atmosphere, where it is crushed by the pressure at the lower altitudes.

2005 – Hurricane Rita becomes the third most intense hurricane (dropped to fourth on October 19, 2005).

Deaths

1645 – Louis Jolliet (namesake of Joliet, Illinois; Joliet, Montana; and Joliette, Quebec); 1866 – H. G. Wells; 1903 – Preston Tucker (designed the Tucker Sedan); 1912 – Chuck Jones; 1931 – Larry Hagman; 1934 – Leonard Cohen♪ ♫; 1935 – Henry Gibson; 1936 – Dickey Lee♪ ♫; 1940 – Bill Kurtis; 1944 – Steve Beshear; 1944 – Fannie Flagg, Hamilton Jordan, Bobby Tench; 1945 – Jerry Bruckheimer; 1945 – Richard Childre$$(NASCAR team owner); 1947 – Don Felder(The Eagles), Stephen King; 1950 – Bill Murray; 1953 – Arie Luyendyk; 1954 – Shinzō Abe, Phil Taylor(Motorhead); 1957 – Ethan Coen; 1959 – Dave Coulier; 1960 – David James Elliott (JAG); 1961 – Nancy Travis; 1962 – Rob Morrow (Northern Exposure); 1963 – Angus Macfadyen (Braveheart); 1965 – Cheryl Hines; 1967 – Faith Hill♪ ♫, Tyler Stewart(Barenaked Ladies); 1968 – Ricki Lake (tv mouth); 1971 – Alfonso Ribeiro ('Carlton' on Fresh Prince of Bel Air), Luke Wilson; 1972 – Liam Gallagher♪ ♫(Oasis); 1981 – Nicole Richie; 1983 – Maggie Grace (Taken); 1989 – Jason Derulo

Deaths

1904 – Chief Joseph (Nez Perce chief); 1947 – Harry Carey (the actor); 1962 – Bo Carter(Mississippi Sheiks); 1974 – Walter Brennan, Jacqueline Susann; 1987 - Jaco Pastorious; 1998 – Florence Griffith Joyner (FloJo, Olympic sprinter); 2006 – Boz Burrell(King Crimson, Bad Company); 2007 – Alice Ghostley, Rex Humbard

[xoxoxoBruce]

1961 – Maiden flight of the Boeing CH-47 Chinook transportation helicopter.

And in 1967 we were building one a day, every day.

[Clodfobble]

Which part did you build? I don't think you ever told us exactly what you did there in the factory.

[xoxoxoBruce]

At that time I machined the hubs and rings that hold the rotors plus miscellaneous small parts.

[lumberjim]

I have a friend that works for Sikorsky. He's involved with the high end custom helicopter projects. I think he was offered an interview for a position as a project leader for the next presidential helicopter. Would have to move to take the job if he got it. I think he must have passed cuz he still lives in Honkybrook.