Today in history

[dlbpharmd]

September 5

1666 The Fire of London is extinguished after two days.

1664 After days of negotiation, the Dutch settlement of New Amsterdam surrenders to the British, who will rename it New York.

1792 Maximilien Robespierre is elected to the National Convention in France.

1804 In a daring night raid, American sailors under Lieutenant Stephen Decatur, board the captured USS Philadelphia and burn the ship to keep it out of the hands of the Barbary pirates who captured her.

1816 Louis XVIII of France dissolves the chamber of deputies, which has been challenging his authority.

1859 Harriot E. Wilson's Our Nig, is published, the first U.S. novel by an African American woman.

1867 The first shipment of cattle leaves Abilene, Kansas, on a Union Pacific train headed to Chicago.

1870 Author Victor Hugo returns to Paris from the Isle of Guernsey where he had lived in exile for almost 20 years.

1877 The great Sioux warrior Crazy Horse is fatally bayoneted at age 36 by a soldier at Fort Robinson, Nebraska.

1878 Bat Masterson, Wyatt Earp, Bill Tilghman and Clay Allison, four of the West's most famous gunmen, meet in Dodge City, Kansas.

1905 The Russian-Japanese War ends as representatives of the combating empires, meeting in New Hampshire, sign the Treaty of Portsmouth. Japan achieves virtually all of its original war aims.

1910 Marie Curie demonstrates the transformation of radium ore to metal at the Academy of Sciences in France.

1944 Germany launches its first V-2 missile at Paris, France.

1958 Martin Luther King is arrested in an Alabama protest for loitering and fined $14 for refusing to obey police.

1960 Leopold Sedar Sengingor, poet and politician, is elected president of Senegal, Africa.

1975 President Gerald Ford evades an assassination attempt in Sacramento, California.

[Damelon]

Sept. 6, 1891: Risky Heart Surgery Saves Stabbing Victim

1891: The victim of a stab wound becomes the first person to undergo heart surgery involving the suturing of the pericardium, or heart sac.
James Cornish, 22, sustained a 2-inch tear to the pericardium when he was stabbed during a fight. The wounded man was taken to City Hospital in St. Louis, where the decision was made to attempt surgery.
It was a controversial decision, because opening the chest cavity to repair wounds to the heart was not yet accepted practice, owing to the excessive risks involved. Nevertheless, with Cornish's temperature at 101 and his complaining of pain, faintness, nausea and loss of feeling on his left side, Dr. H.C. Dalton made the decision to go in.
Dalton made an 8-inch incision and removed part of the fourth rib to get to the damaged heart sac, then sutured it -- no mean feat considering Cornish's heart was pounding at a rate of 140 beats per minute. Following the motion of the beating heart, Dalton stitched up the tear with catgut.
It was touch-and-go for a while: Dalton's account says it appeared that Cornish came close to dying during the surgery, but hypodermic injections of whiskey and strychnia revived him. The surgical team used sterilized warm water to irrigate the wound area, then stitched him up. Once he turned the corner, Cornish made a full recovery.

[dlbpharmd]

September 6

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

1422 Sultan Murat II ends a vain siege of Constantinople.

1522 One of the five ships that set out in Ferdinand Magellan's trip around the world makes it back to Spain. Only 15 of the original 265 men that set out survived. Magellan was killed by natives in the Philippines.

1688 Imperial troops defeat the Turks and take Belgrade, Serbia.

1793 French General Jean Houchard and his 40,000 men begin a three-day battle against an Anglo-Hanoveraian army at Hondschoote, southwest Belgium, in the wars of the French Revolution.

1847 Henry David Thoreau leaves Walden Pond and moves back into town, to Concord, Massachusetts.

1861 Union General Ulysses S. Grant's forces capture Paducah, Kentucky from Confederate forces.

1870 The last British troops to serve in Austria are withdrawn.

1901 President William McKinley is shot while attending a reception at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York, by 28-year-old anarchist Leon Czolgosz. McKinley dies eight days later, the third American president assassinated.

1907 The luxury liner Lusitania leaves London for New York on her maiden voyage.

1918 The German Army begins a general retreat across the Aisne, with British troops in pursuit.

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

1937 The Soviet Union accuses Italy of torpedoing two Russian ships in the Mediterranean.

1941 Germany announces that all Jews living in the country will have to begin wearing a Star of David.

1943 The United States asks the Chinese Nationals to join with the Communists to present a common front to the Japanese.

1953 The last American and Korean prisoners are exchanged in Operation Big Switch, the last official act of the Korean War.

1965 Indian troops invade Lahore; Pakistan paratroopers raid Punjab.

1976 A Soviet pilot lands his MIG-25 in Tokyo and asks for political asylum in the United States.

1988 Lee Roy Young becomes the first African-American Texas Ranger in the force's 165-year history.

[dlbpharmd]

September 7

1571 At the Battle of Lepanto in the Mediterranean Sea, the Christian galley fleet destroys the Turkish galley fleet.

1630 The town of Trimontaine, in Massachusetts, is renamed Boston, and becomes the state capital.

1701 England, Austria, and the Netherlands form an Alliance against France.

1778 Shawnee Indians attack and lay siege to Boonesborough, Kentucky.

1812 On the road to Moscow, Napoleon wins a costly victory over the Russians at Borodino.

1813 The earliest known printed reference to the United States by the nickname "Uncle Sam" occurs in the Troy Post.

1864 Union General Phil Sheridan's troops skirmish with the Confederates under Jubal Early outside Winchester, Virginia.

1876 The James-Younger gang botches an attempt to rob the First National Bank of Northfield, Minnesota.

1888 An incubator is used for the first time on a premature infant.

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

1912 French aviator Roland Garros sets an altitude record of 13,200 feet.

1916 The U.S. Congress passes the Workman's Compensation Act.

1940 Germany's blitz against London begins during the Battle of Britain.

1942 The Red Army pushes back the German line northwest of Stalingrad.

1954 Integration of public schools begins in Washington D.C. and Maryland.

[Damelon]

Sept. 7, 1998: If the Check Says 'Google Inc.,' We're 'Google Inc.'

1998: Handed a check for $100,000 made out to "Google Inc.," Sergey Brin and Larry Page figure they better incorporate their fledgling search engine. So they do.
Brin and Page, who met while grad students at Stanford University and -- according to company lore -- took an instant disliking for one another, nevertheless found a common interest in the idea of devising a reliable method for retrieving what you want from the endless amounts of information available on the internet.
Their technology was solid, but not solid enough to impress either the money boys or the major internet portals, so they continued struggling for financial support. Enter Andy Bechtolsheim, a founder of Sun Microsystems, who was one of the few to see the true potential of what Brin and Page had wrought. During their presentation to him, Bechtolsheim said he had to duck out for another meeting and offered to write them a check.
It was that hundred-grander, made out to Google Inc., that got the ball (and the bank) rolling. Brin and Page incorporated, managing to attract other investors, with an initial investment of around $1 million.
With its first corporate headquarters located in a friend's garage in Menlo Park, California, Google's search engine was already getting 10,000 queries a day while still in beta.
The following year, Google moved into a real office in Palo Alto, saw its staff explode to eight employees, and by late 1999 was answering 500,000 queries per day. That arc has pretty much continued to this day.

[Damelon]

September 8: Independence Day in the Republic of Macedonia (1991); Victory Day in Malta; National Day in Andorra; International Literacy Day.

* 1331 – Stefan Uroš IV Dušan of the House of Nemanjić was crowned King of Serbia.
* 1888 – The inaugural season of The Football League in England, the oldest professional league competition in world football (soccer), began with twelve member clubs.
* 1900 – The Great Galveston Hurricane, one of the deadliest Atlantic hurricanes with estimated winds of 135 miles per hour (215 km/h) at landfall, struck Galveston, Texas, USA, killing at least 6,000 people.
* 1941 – World War II: German forces began the Siege of Leningrad. Over 1 million of Leningrad's civilians died from starvation before the siege ended on January 27, 1944, becoming one of the most lethal battles in world history.
* 1974 – Watergate scandal: U.S. President Gerald Ford gave recently-resigned U.S. President Richard Nixon a full and unconditional, but controversial, pardon for any crimes he committed while in office.

[dlbpharmd]

September 8

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

1529 The Ottoman Sultan Suleiman re-enters Buda and establishes John Zapolyai as the puppet king of Hungary.

1565 Spanish explorers found St. Augustine, Florida, the first permanent European settlement in what is now the United States.

1628 John Endecott arrives with colonists at Salem, Massachusetts, where he will become the governor.

1644 The Dutch colony of New Amsterdam surrenders to the British fleet that sails into its harbor. Five years later, the British change the name to New York.

1755 British forces under William Johnson defeat the French and the Indians at the Battle of Lake George.

1760 The French surrender the city of Montreal to the British.

1845 A French column surrenders at Sidi Brahim in the Algerian War.

1863 Confederate Lieutenant Dick Dowling thwarts a Union naval landing at Sabine Pass, northeast of Galveston, Texas.

1903 Between 30,000 and 50,000 Bulgarian men, women and children are massacred in Monastir by Turkish troops seeking to check a threatened Macedonian uprising.

1906 Robert Turner invents the automatic typewriter return carriage.

1915 Germany begins a new offensive in Argonne on the Western Front.

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

1925 Germany is admitted into the League of Nations.

1935 Senator Huey Long of Louisiana is shot to death in the state capitol, allegedly by Dr. Carl Austin Weiss, Jr.

1944 Germany's V-2 offensive against England begins.

1945 Korea is partitioned by the Soviet Union and the United States.

1951 Japanese representatives sign a peace treaty in San Francisco.

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

1960 Penguin Books in Britain is charged with obscenity for trying to publish the D.H. Lawrence novel Lady Chatterly's Lover.

1960 President Eisenhower dedicates NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.

1971 The Kennedy Center opens in Washington, DC with a performance of Leonard Bernstein's Mass.

1972 Arab terrorists kill 11 Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics.

1974 President Gerald Ford pardons former President Richard M. Nixon for any crimes arising from the Watergate scandal he may have committed while in office.

[dlbpharmd]

September 9

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

1087 William the Conquerer, Duke of Normandy and King of England, dies in Rouen while conducting a war which began when the French king made fun of him for being fat.

1513 King James IV of Scotland is defeated and killed by English at Flodden.

1585 Pope Sixtus V deprives Henry of Navarre of his rights to the French crown.

1776 The term "United States" is adopted by the Continental Congress to be used instead of the "United Colonies."

1786 George Washington calls for the abolition of slavery.

1791 French Royalists take control of Arles and barricade themselves inside the town.

1834 Parliament passes the Municipal Corporations Act, reforming city and town governments in England.

1850 California, in the midst of a gold rush, enters the Union as the 31st state.

1863 The Union Army of the Cumberland passes through Chattanooga as they chase after the retreating Confederates. The Union troops will soon be repulsed at the Battle of Chickamauga.

1886 The Berne International Copyright Convention takes place.

1911 An airmail route opens between London and Windsor.

1915 A German zeppelin bombs London for the first time, causing little damage.

1926 The Radio Corporation of America creates the National Broadcasting Co.

1942 A Japanese float plane, launched from a submarine, makes its first bombing run on a U.S. forest near Brookings, Oregon.

1943 Allied troops land at Salerno, Italy and encounter strong resistance from German troops.

1970 U.S. Marines launch Operation Dubois Square, a 10-day search for North Vietnamese troops near DaNang.

1976 Communist Chinese leader Mao Tse-tung died in Beijing at age 82.

[dlbpharmd]

September 10

1419 John the Fearless is murdered at Montereau, France, by supporters of the dauphine.

1547 The Duke of Somerset leads the English to a resounding victory over the Scots at Pinkie Cleugh.

1588 Thomas Cavendish returns to England, becoming the third man to circumnavigate the globe.

1623 Lumber and furs are the first cargo to leave New Plymouth in North America for England.

1813 The nine-ship American flotilla under Oliver Hazard Perry wrests naval supremacy from the British on Lake Erie by capturing or destroying a force of six English vessels.

1846 Elias Howe patents the first practical sewing machine in the United States.

1855 Sevastopol, under siege for nearly a year, capitulates to the Allies during the Crimean War.

1861 Confederates at Carnifex Ferry, Virginia, fall back after being attacked by Union troops. The action is instrumental in helping preserve western Virginia for the Union.

1912 J. Vedrines becomes the first pilot to break the 100 m.p.h. barrier.

1914 The six-day Battle of the Marne ends, halting the German advance into France.

1923 In response to a dispute with Yugoslavia, Mussolini mobilizes Italian troops on Serb front.

1961 Jomo Kenyatta returns to Kenya from exile, during which he had been elected president of the Kenya National African Union.

1963 President John F. Kennedy federalizes Alabama's National Guard to prevent Governor George C. Wallace from using guardsmen to stop public-school desegregation.

1981 Pablo Picasso's painting Guernica is returned to Spain and installed in Madrid's Prado Museum. Picasso stated in his will that the painting was not to return to Spain until the Fascists lost power and democracy was restored.

[Damelon]

Sept. 10, 1977: Heads Roll for the Last Time in France

1977: France stages its last execution using the guillotine.
A Tunisian immigrant living in Marseilles, Hamida Djandoubi, was executed for the torture-slaying of his girlfriend. He had killed her in revenge, after she reported to authorities that he had tried to force her into prostitution.
The guillotine, despite its associations with the French Revolution, was not native to France. Variants were used in other European countries long before Marie Antoinette and Citizen Robespierre lost their heads. One machine was used as early as 1307 to dispense justice in Ireland. France's preferred method of doing away with offenders prior to the Revolution was breaking on the wheel, a ghoulish medieval practice meant to inflict as much pain as possible prior to final release.
The guillotine was adopted by Louis XVI as a humane form of execution. Louis himself was soon to find out just how humane it really was. As was the unfortunate Mr. Djandoubi nearly two centuries later.
His appeal denied, Djandoubi mounted the scaffold at 4:40 a.m. on the 10th. Marcel Chevalier, France's chief executioner, dropped the blade. The method, already under intense criticism from opponents of capital punishment, drew more fire following Djandoubi's execution, when a doctor in attendance testified that Djandoubi remained responsive for up to 30 seconds after decapitation.
It was not the first time that the condemned appeared to remain conscious for an uncomfortably long period of time before life finally oozed out. Henri Languille, guillotined in 1905, reportedly looked at a witness who called out his name -- after being decapitated.
Chevalier's son, Eric, was also present at the execution. He was there to observe, and to prepare for eventually succeeding his father as the nation's chief executioner. As it was, Eric had to find another line of work when France officially abolished the death penalty in 1981.

[dlbpharmd]

September 11

1297 Scots under William Wallace defeat the English at Stirling Bridge.

1695 Imperial troops under Eugene of Savoy defeat the Turks at the Battle of Zenta.

1709 John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough, wins the bloodiest battle of the 18th century at great cost, against the French at Malplaquet.

1740 The first mention of an African American doctor or dentist in the colonies is made in the Pennsylvania Gazette.

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

1786 The Convention of Annapolis opens with the aim of revising the articles of confederation.

1802 Piedmont, Italy, is annexed by France.

1814 U.S. forces led by Thomas Macdonough route the British fleet on Lake Champlain.

1847 Stephen Foster's "Oh! Susanna" is first performed in a saloon in Pittsburgh.

1850 Soprano opera singer Jenny Lind, the "Swedish Nightingale," makes her American debut at New York's Castle Garden Theater.

1864 A 10-day truce is declared between generals Sherman and Hood so civilians may leave Atlanta, Georgia.

1857 Indians incited by Mormon John D. Lee kill 120 California-bound settlers in the Mountain Meadows Massacre.

1904 The battleship Connecticut, launched in New York, introduces a new era in naval construction.

1916 The "Star Spangled Banner" is sung at the beginning of a baseball game for the first time in Cooperstown, New York.

1944 American troops enter Luxembourg.

1962 Thurgood Marshall is appointed a judge of the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals.

1965 The 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile) arrives in South Vietnam and is stationed at An Khe.

1974 Haile Selassie I is deposed from the Ethiopian throne.

2001 In an unprecedented, highly coordinated attack, terrorists hijack four U.S. passenger airliners, flying two into the World Trade Center towers in New York and one into the Pentagon, killing thousands. The fourth airliner, headed toward Washington likely to strike the White House or Capitol, is crashed just over 100 miles away in Pennsylvania after passengers storm the cockpit and overtake the hijackers.

[dlbpharmd]

September 12

490 BC Athenian and Plataean Hoplites commanded by General Miltiades drive back a Persian invasion force under General Datis at Marathon.

1213 Simon de Montfort defeats Raymond of Toulouse and Peter II of Aragon at Muret, France.

1609 Henry Hudson sails into what is now New York Harbor aboard his sloop Half Moon.

1662 Governor Berkley of Virginia is denied his attempts to repeal the Navigation Acts.

1683 A combined Austrian and Polish army defeats the Turks at Kahlenberg and lifts the siege on Vienna, Austria.

1722 The Treaty of St. Petersburg puts an end to the Russo-Persian War.
1786 Despite his failed efforts to suppress the American Revolution, Lord Cornwallis is appointed governor general of India.

1836 Mexican authorities crush the revolt which broke out on August 25.

1918 British troops retake Havincourt, Moeuvres, and Trescault along the Western Front.

1919 Adolf Hitler joins German Worker's Party.

1939 In response to the invasion of Poland, the French Army advances into Germany. On this day they reach their furthest penetration-five miles.

1940 Italian forces begin an offensive into Egypt from Libya.

1940 The Lascaux Caves in France, with their prehistoric wall paintings, are discovered.

1944 American troops fight their way into Germany.

1945 French troops land in Indochina.

1969 President Richard Nixon orders a resumption in bombing North Vietnam.

[Damelon]

Sept. 13, 1899: New Yorker Becomes First U.S. Pedestrian Killed by Car

1899: Henry Bliss becomes the first pedestrian known to be killed by an automobile in North America.
Bliss, a Manhattan real estate salesman, had just stepped off a streetcar at West 74th Street and Central Park West when he was struck by a passing taxicab. It knocked him unconscious, crushing his skull and chest. He died the following morning.
The driver of the cab, an electric-powered vehicle, was arrested and charged with manslaughter. The charges were dropped after it was determined that Bliss' death was unintentional.
On the centennial of his death, a plaque was placed at the site by Citystreets, a safety-awareness organization:
Here at West 74th Street and Central Park West, Henry H. Bliss dismounted from a streetcar and was struck and knocked unconscious by an automobile on the evening of September 13, 1899. When Mr. Bliss, a New York real estate man, died the next morning from his injuries, he became the first recorded motor vehicle fatality in the Western Hemisphere. This sign was erected to remember Mr. Bliss on the centennial of his untimely death and to promote safety on our streets and highways.
Bliss was not the first pedestrian traffic fatality ever recorded anywhere, however. At least two other people are known to have died before him, including Irish scientist Mary Ward, who was run over by a steam-powered car in 1869 in County Down, possibly making her the first auto-traffic victim in history.

[dlbpharmd]

September 13

1515 King Francis of France defeats the Swiss army under Cardinal Matthias Schiner at Marignano, northern Italy.

1549 Pope Paul III closes the first session of the Council of Bologna.

1564 On the verge of attacking Pedro Menendez's Spanish settlement at San Agostin, Florida, Jean Ribault's French fleet is scattered by a devastating storm.

1759 British troops defeat the French on the plains of Abraham, in Quebec.

1774 Tugot, the new controller of finances, urges the king of France to restore the free circulation of grain in the kingdom.

1782 The British fortress at Gibraltar comes under attack by French and Spanish forces.

1788 The Constitutional Convention authorizes the first federal election resolving that electors in all the states will be appointed on January 7, 1789.

1789 Guardsmen in Orleans, France, open fire on rioters trying to loot bakeries, killing 90.

1846 General Winfield Scott takes Chapultepec, removing the last obstacle to U.S. troops moving on Mexico City.

1862 Union troops in Frederick, Maryland, discover General Robert E. Lee's attack plans for the invasion of Maryland wrapped around a pack of cigars. They give the plans to General George B. McClellan who does nothing with them for the next 14 hours.

1863 The Loudoun County Rangers route a company of Confederate cavalry at Catoctin Mountain in Virginia.

1905 U.S. warships head to Nicaragua on behalf of American William Albers, who was accused of evading tobacco taxes.

1918 U.S. and French forces take St. Mihiel, France in America's first action as a standing army.

1945 Iran demands the withdrawal of Allied forces.

1951 In Korea, U.S. Army troops begin their assault in Heartbreak Ridge. The month-long struggle will cost 3,700 casualties.

1961 An unmanned Mercury capsule is orbited and recovered by NASA in a test.

1976 The United States announces it will veto Vietnam's UN bid.

[dlbpharmd]

September 14

1146 Zangi of the Near East is murdered. The Sultan Nur ad-Din, his son, pursues the conquest of Edessa.

1321 Dante Alighieri dies of malaria just hours after finishing writing Paradiso.

1544 Henry VIII's forces take Boulogne, France.

1773 Russian forces under Aleksandr Suvorov successfully storm a Turkish fort at Hirsov, Turkey.

1791 Louis XVI swears his allegiance to the French constitution.

1812 Napoleon Bonaparte's invasion of Russia reaches its climax as his Grande Armee enters Moscow--only to find the enemy capital deserted and burning, set afire by the few Russians who remained.

1814 Francis Scott Key writes the words to the "Star-Spangled Banner" as he waits aboard a British launch in the Chesapeake Bay for the outcome of the British assault on Fort McHenry during the War of 1812.

1847 U.S. forces under Gen. Winfield Scott capture Mexico City, bringing the two-year Mexican War to a close.

1853 The Allies land at Eupatoria on the west coast of Crimea.

1862 At the battles of South Mountain and Crampton's Gap, Maryland Union troops smash into the Confederates as they close in on what will become the Antietam battleground.

1901 Vice President Theodore Roosevelt is sworn in as the 26th President of the United States upon the death of William McKinley, who was shot eight days earlier.

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

1943 German troops abandon the Salerno front in Italy.

1960 Iraq, Iran, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia form OPEC.

1966 Operation Attleboro, designed as a training exercise for American troops, becomes a month-long struggle against the Viet Cong.

1975 Mother Elizabeth Ann Seton becomes the first native-born American saint in the Roman Catholic Church.

[Damelon]

September 15: Ganesh Chaturthi in Hinduism (2007); Independence Day for Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and El Salvador; Battle of Britain Day in the United Kingdom.

* 1831 – The John Bull (pictured), currently the oldest operable steam locomotive in the world, ran for the first time in New Jersey on the Camden and Amboy Railroad.
* 1835 – Aboard the second voyage of HMS Beagle, Charles Darwin reached the Galápagos Islands, where he further developed his theories of evolution.
* 1935 – Nazi Germany enacted the Nuremberg Laws, which deprived German Jews of citizenship, and adopted a new national flag emblazoned with a swastika.
* 1950 – American troops landed at Incheon, Korea in an amphibious assault, starting the Battle of Inchon, a decisive United Nations military forces victory during the Korean War.
* 1963 – A bomb planted by members of the Ku Klux Klan exploded in the 16th Street Baptist Church, an African American Baptist church in Birmingham, Alabama, USA, killing four children and injuring at least 22 others.

[dlbpharmd]

September 15

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

1776 The British occupy Manhattan.

1788 An alliance between Britain, Prussia and the Netherlands is ratified at the Hague.

1858 The Butterfield Overland Mail Company begins delivering mail from St. Louis to San Francisco. The company's motto is: "Remember, boys, nothing on God's earth must stop the United States mail!"

1862 Confederates capture Harpers Ferry, securing the rear of Robert E. Lee's forces in Maryland.

1891 The Dalton gang holds up a train and takes $2,500 at Wagoner, Oklahoma.

1914 President Woodrow Wilson orders the Punitive Expedition out of Mexico. The Expedition, headed by General John Pershing, had been searching for Pancho Villa, a Mexican revolutionary.

1916 Armored tanks are introduced by the British during the Battle of the Somme.

1928 Scottish bacteriologist Alexander Fleming discovers, by accident, that the mold penicillin has an antibiotic effect.

1935 In Berlin, the Reich under Adolf Hitler adopts the swastika as the national flag.

1937 Prime Minister of England Neville Chamberlain flies to Germany to discuss the future of Czechoslovakia with Adolf Hitler.

1939 The Polish submarine Orzel arrives in Tallinn, Estonia, after escaping the German invasion of Poland.

1950 U.N. Forces, lead by the U.S. Marine Corps, invade occupied Korea at the port of Inchon. Considered the greatest amphibious attack in history, it is the zenith of General Douglas MacArthur's career.

1963 Four young African-American girls are killed by the bombing of a church in Montgomery, Alabama.

1971 The environmental group Greenpeace is founded.

Damelon, you'll appreciate this:

1946 A swarm of gnats descends on Ebbets Field in NY, forcing postponement of the Brooklyn Dodgers vs. Chicago Cubs
baseball game.

[dlbpharmd]

September 16

1620 The Pilgrims sail from England on the Mayflower.

1668 King John Casimer V of Poland abdicates the throne.

1747 The French capture Bergen-op-Zoom, consolidating their occupation of Austrian Flanders in the Netherlands.

1789 Jean-Paul Marat sets up a new newspaper in France, L'Ami du Peuple.

1810 A revolution for independence breaks out in Mexico.

1864 Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest leads 4,500 men out of Verona, Miss. to harass Union outposts in northern Alabama and Tennessee.

1889 Robert Younger, in Minnesota's Stillwater Penitentiary for life, dies of tuberculosis. Brothers Cole and Bob remain in the prison.

1893 Some 50,000 "Sooners" claim land in the Cherokee Strip during the first day of the Oklahoma land rush.

1908 General Motors files papers of incorporation.

1920 Thirty people are killed in a terrorist bombing in New York's Wall Street financial district.

1934 Anti-Nazi Lutherans stage protest in Munich.

1940 Congress passes the Selective Service Act, which calls for the first peacetime draft in U.S. history.

1942 The Japanese base at Kiska in the Aleutian Islands is raided by American bombers.

1945 Japan surrenders Hong Kong to Britain.

1950 The U.S. 8th Army breaks out of the Pusan Perimeter in South Korea and begins heading north to meet MacArthur's troops heading south from Inchon.

1972 South Vietnamese troops recapture Quang Tri province in South Vietnam from the North Vietnamese Army.

1974 Limited amnesty is offered to Vietnam-era draft resisters who would now swear allegiance to the United States and perform two years of public service.

1975 Administrators for Rhodes Scholarships announce the decision to begin offering fellowships to women.

[dlbpharmd]

September 17

1630 The town of Boston is founded by John Winthrop as an extension of the colony at Salem. It is named after the town of the same name in Lincolnshire, England.

1787 The Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia approves the constitution for the United States of America.

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

1862 The Battle of Antietam in Maryland, the bloodiest day in U.S. history, commences. Fighting in the corn field, Bloody Lane and Burnside's Bridge rages all day as the Union and Confederate armies suffer a combined 26,293 casualties.

1868 The Battle of Beecher's Island begins, in which Major George "Sandy" Forsyth and 50 volunteers hold off 500 Sioux and Cheyenne in eastern Colorado.

1902 U.S. troops are sent to Panama to keep train lines open over the isthmus as Panamanian nationals struggle for independence from Colombia.

1903 Turks destroy the town of Kastoria in Bulgaria, killing 10,000 civilians.

1917 The German Army recaptures the Russian Port of Riga from Russian forces.

1939 With the German army already attacking western Poland, the Soviet Union launches an invasion of eastern Poland.

1942 British Prime Minister Winston Churchill meets with Soviet Premier Josef Stalin in Moscow as the German Army rams into Stalingrad.

1944 British airborne troops parachute into Holland to capture the Arnhem bridge as part of Operation Market-Garden. The plan called for the airborne troops to be relieved by British troops, but they were left stranded and eventually surrendered to the Germans.

1947 James Forestall is sworn in as first the U.S. Secretary of Defense.
1957 The Thai army seizes power in Bangkok.

1959 The X-15 rocket plane makes its first flight.

1962 The first federal suit to end public school segregation is filed by the U.S. Justice Department.

1976 The Space Shuttle is unveiled to the public.

[Cheval]

also...

1948: Count Folke Bernadotte, a U.N. mediator for Palestine, was assassinated in Jerusalem by Jewish extremists.