September 21
1823:
Joseph Smith's vision of Moroni.
According to the teachings of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Moroni was an angel or resurrected being who appeared to Joseph Smith on this day in 1823 and instructed him to restore God's church on earth.
2001:
In stock market trading in the United States, the Dow Jones industrial average posted its largest weekly loss (14.3 percent) since the Great Depression.
1931:
The Bank of England dropped the gold standard, and the pound sterling promptly lost 28 percent of its value, undermining the solvency of countries in eastern Europe and South America.
1867:
Henry L. Stimson, an American statesman who exercised a strong influence on U.S. foreign policy in the 1930s and '40s and served in the administrations of five presidents between 1911 and 1945, was born.
1840:
While experimenting with gallic acid, a chemical he was informed would increase the sensitivity of his prepared paper, William Henry Fox Talbot discovered that the acid can be used to develop a latent image on paper, leading to a revolution in photography.
1435:
In the French kingdom, the Treaty of Arras was signed, ending the long quarrel between Duke Philip of Burgundy and King Charles VII.
19:
The Roman poet Virgil, best known for his national epic the Aeneid, died.
September 22
1980:
Solidarity formed.
Solidarity, the Polish trade union and political party that became a hotbed of resistance to Soviet control, was founded this day in 1980 when delegates of 36 unions met and united under the leadership of Lech Wałęsa.
2002:
Hundreds of thousands of rural protesters converged on London to demonstrate in favour of foxhunting, which two years later the House of Commons banned in England and Wales.
1989:
American composer Irving Berlin died in New York City.
1980:
The Iran-Iraq War began when Iraqi armed forces invaded western Iran along the countries' joint border.
1940:
Jean Decoux, the French governor-general of Indochina appointed by the Vichy government after the fall of France, concluded an agreement with the Japanese that permitted the stationing of 30,000 Japanese troops in Indochina.
1927:
Gene Tunney successfully defended his world heavyweight boxing title by defeating Jack Dempsey after the controversial “long count” in the seventh round.
1922:
Chinese-born American theoretical physicist Chen Ning Yang, corecipient with Tsung-Dao Lee of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1957, was born.
1776:
American officer Nathan Hale was hanged by the British for spying during the American Revolution.
1609:
Spain's Philip III issued a royal order for deportation of the Moriscos (Christians of Moorish ancestry).
530:
Pope Felix IV died, having named Boniface II as his successor.
September 23
1846:
Neptune observed.
This day in 1846, astronomer Johann Gottfried Galle became the first person ever to observe the planet Neptune, the existence of which had been mathematically predicted by Urbain-Jean-Joseph Le Verrier and John Couch Adams.
1939:
Sigmund Freud, the founder of modern psychoanalysis, died in London.
1868:
A small group of Puerto Rican radicals committed to independence attempted an uprising, El Grito de Lares; the revolt was crushed by the Spanish.
1862:
Otto von Bismarck was appointed prime minister of Prussia by William I.
1806:
Lewis and Clark arrived in St. Louis, Missouri, at the end of their daring expedition to the Pacific Northwest.
1779:
During the American Revolution, in the midst of a naval engagement between the warships Bonhomme Richard and Serapis off the east coast of England, American commander John Paul Jones answered a call to surrender from his English counterpart with the famous quotation, “I have not yet begun to fight!”
September 24
1957:
Federal troops sent into Little Rock, Arkansas.
On this day in 1957 racial desegregation took centre stage when federal troops were dispatched to Little Rock, Arkansas, to maintain order and enforce the right of black students to attend the local public high school.
1993:
Norodom Sihanouk was crowned king of Cambodia for the second time.
1960:
The first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, the Enterprise, was launched by the United States.
1938:
Don Budge won the U.S. Open, becoming the first player to win a grand slam title in tennis.
1934:
Babe Ruth played in his last baseball game for the New York Yankees at Yankee Stadium.
1877:
Saigo Takamori, a hero of the Meiji Restoration, was killed after reluctantly leading a rebellion against the Meiji government.
1869:
Plummeting gold prices led to a panic known as Black Friday, when U.S. President Ulysses S. Grant, after learning of an attempt by Jay Gould and James Fisk to drive up the gold market, ordered $4 million of government gold to be sold on the market.
1755:
John Marshall, the fourth chief justice of the United States and principal founder of the U.S. system of constitutional law, including the doctrine of judicial review, was born.
September 25
1513:
Pacific Ocean sighted by Balboa.
On this day (or two days later) in 1513, Spanish conquistador and explorer Vasco Nú馿z de Balboa, standing “silent, upon a peak in Darién,” on the Isthmus of Panama, became the first European to sight the Pacific Ocean.
1970:
Hostilities came to an end during Black September, the brief but violent civil war between the Palestine Liberation Organization and Jordan.
1962:
Sonny Liston became world heavyweight boxing champion with a first-round knockout of Floyd Patterson in Chicago.
1799:
André Masséna, French nobleman and general under Napoleon, defeated Russian forces in the Second Battle of Zürich.
1777:
Philadelphia, then the American capital, was occupied by British forces during the American Revolution.
1066:
Tostig, earl of Northumbria, and Harald III, king of Norway, were killed in an attempt to depose Tostig's brother, King Harold II of England.
September 26
1960:
First televised U.S. presidential debate.
The first in a series of historic televised debates (seen by some 85 to 120 million viewers) between U.S. presidential candidates John F. Kennedy and Vice President Richard M. Nixon was broadcast this day in 1960.
1969:
The Beatles released Abbey Road, their last-recorded album (Let It Be, though recorded earlier than Abbey Road, was released in 1970).
1898:
George Gershwin, one of the most significant and popular of American composers, was born.
1820:
American frontiersman and hero Daniel Boone died in St. Charles, Missouri.
1815:
The Holy Alliance of Russia, Austria, and Prussia was formed, after the final defeat of Napoleon.
1687:
During the bombardment of the Acropolis by Venetian forces, part of the Parthenon was destroyed in a powder explosion.
September 27
1066:
Norman Conquest begun.
On this day in 1066, after being delayed by bad weather, William, duke of Normandy, embarked his army and set sail for the southeastern coast of England in what would be known in history as the Norman Conquest.
1996:
Taliban leaders seized the capital city of Kabul, declaring all of Afghanistan an Islamic state.
1964:
Following months of investigation into the assassination of U.S. President John F. Kennedy, the Warren Commission released its findings.
1954:
The landmark late-evening talk show and variety program The Tonight Show premiered (as Tonight!), with Steve Allen as host.
1918:
British forces attacked the Hindenburg Line in the final offensive on the Western Front during World War I.
1601:
Louis XIII, king of France from 1610 to 1643, was born.
1540:
The Jesuit order, founded by St. Ignatius of Loyola, was approved by Pope Paul III.
September 28
1542:
California “discovered”.
Explorer Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo, known as the “discoverer” of California, landed this day in 1542 near what is now San Diego and became the first European to set foot on the west coast of what would become the United States.
1958:
Madagascar voted for autonomy within the French Community.
1920:
In what became known as the Black Sox Scandal, eight members of the Chicago White Sox baseball team were indicted by a grand jury on charges that they had thrown the 1919 World Series to the Cincinnati Reds in return for a bribe.
1911:
Using the pretext of infringement of Italian interests in the Turkish provinces of Tripolitana and Cyrenaica (Libya), the Italian government issued an ultimatum to Turkey and declared war the next day.
1781:
The Siege of Yorktown began, eventually leading on October 19 to the British surrender by General Lord Cornwallis and the end of the American Revolution.
351:
Roman Emperor Constantius II defeated the usurper Magnentius in the Battle of Mursa, the bloodiest battle of the 4th century.
September 29
1923:
British mandate in Palestine.
Set in motion by the Balfour Declaration of 1917, the British mandate for the establishment of a Jewish homeland in Palestine was finally approved by the Council of the League of Nations and came into force this day in 1923.
1938:
The American harness racehorse Greyhound established a trotting record for 1 mile in 1:551/4.
1938:
Poland demanded the cession of Teschen, a rich region that had been contested and then divided between Poland and Czechoslovakia following World War I.
1918:
German Chancellor Georg von Hertling tendered his resignation on the day of the Bulgarian armistice and the British attack of the Western Front during World War I.
1906:
The United States occupied Cuba after the rebellion surrounding the reelection of Tomás Estrada Palma.
1833:
King Ferdinand VII of Spain died, and his two-year-old daughter, Isabella II, was proclaimed queen.
642:
Arab General ʿAmr ibn al-ʿĀṣ marched into Alexandria, and the Arab conquest of Egypt, which had begun with an invasion three years earlier, ended in peaceful capitulation.
September 30
1938:
Munich Agreement signed.
The notorious Munich Agreement, in which Britain's Neville Chamberlain encouraged Britain and France to appease Adolf Hitler's demands in the hope of preventing World War II, was reached on this day in 1938.
1965:
In Indonesia a group of army conspirators kidnapped and murdered six army generals, and the following morning the 30th September Movement announced that it had seized power to forestall a coup against the president by a council of generals.
1955:
American motion-picture actor James Dean died in an automobile crash in Paso Robles, California.
1895:
French troops occupied Antananarivo, Madagascar, after the refusal of Rainilaiarivony, the prime minister, to submit to French suzerainty.
1870:
French physicist Jean Perrin, who received the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1926 for his studies of the Brownian motion of minute particles, was born.
1791:
The opera The Magic Flute by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart premiered in Vienna.
1773:
The Polish Sejm (legislature) ratified the treaty that led to the First Partition of Poland by Russia, Prussia, and Austria.
October 1
1949:
People's Republic of China established.
In Beijing, with most of the Chinese mainland held by the communist People's Liberation Army, its dynamic leader, Mao Zedong, proclaimed the establishment of the People's Republic of China on this day in 1949.
1982:
Congress established the U.S. Claims Court (now the U.S. Court of Federal Claims) to handle cases in which the United States is a defendant.
1960:
Nigeria gained its independence from Britain but remained a member of the Commonwealth.
1946:
The verdict was handed down on 22 of the original 24 defendants in the Nürnberg trials, a series of trials held after World War II in which the International Military Tribunal indicted and tried former Nazi leaders as war criminals.
1936:
Francisco Franco became head of the new Nationalist regime of Spain at the beginning of the Spanish Civil War.
1800:
Napoleon induced a reluctant King Charles IV of Spain to cede Louisiana back to France.
331:
Alexander the Great of Macedonia defeated Darius III of Persia at the Battle of Gaugamela, spelling the end of the Persian empire.
October 2
1836:
Charles Darwin's return to England.
Naturalist Charles Darwin returned to England this day in 1836 after a five-year journey on the HMS Beagle, on which he gathered the specimens and observations that led to his theory of evolution by natural selection.
1935:
Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie ordered mobilization upon learning that Italian forces had crossed the frontier to begin the Italo-Ethiopian War.
1879:
American poet Wallace Stevens, whose work explores the interaction of reality and what man can make of reality in his mind, was born in Reading, Pennsylvania.
1780:
British army officer John André was executed by the Americans as a spy after conducting secret meetings with American General Benedict Arnold during the American Revolution.
October 3
1990:
Germany reunified.
After four decades of Cold War division and with pressure from the German chancellor Helmut Kohl, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev agreed to a unified Germany within NATO, leading to Germany's reunification this day in 1990.
1952:
The first British atomic weapons test, called Hurricane, was successfully conducted aboard the frigate HMS Plym.
1945:
The May-Johnson bill, keeping the atomic bomb a secret and establishing security regulations, was introduced into the U.S. Congress.
1935:
Italian forces led by Emilio De Bono, under orders from Benito Mussolini, invaded Abyssinia (Ethiopia) in hopes of building a “new Roman Empire.”
1918:
Prince Maximilian of Baden, internationally known for his moderation and honourability, was appointed chancellor of Germany.
1889:
German journalist and pacifist Carl von Ossietzky, recipient of the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1935, was born in Hamburg, Germany.
1866:
Through the mediation of Napoleon III, Italy obtained Venetia in the Treaty of Vienna.
1862:
The Battle of Corinth, an American Civil War conflict that ended in a decisive Union victory over Confederate forces in northeastern Mississippi, began.
October 4
1957:
Sputnik 1 launched by U.S.S.R..
On this day in 1957 the Soviet Union launched Sputnik 1, the first artificial satellite, which orbited the Earth until 1958, inaugurated the space age, and heightened Cold War competition between the U.S.S.R. and the U.S.
1822:
Rutherford B. Hayes, the 19th president of the United States (1877–81), who brought post-Civil War Reconstruction to an end in the South, was born.
1535:
The first complete English Bible, the work of Miles Coverdale, came off the press either in Zürich (Switzerland) or in Cologne (Germany).
1190:
Richard I (the Lion-Heart), on his way to Jerusalem during the Third Crusade, invaded a hostile Sicily and took the key city of Messina.
October 5
1813:
Battle of the Thames.
On this day in 1813, during the “War of 1812,” a British army with some 1,000 Indian allies under the famed leader Tecumseh was defeated by U.S. troops in the Battle of the Thames in what is now Ontario, Canada.
2001:
Barry Bonds of the San Francisco Giants broke Mark McGwire's single-season home-run record when he hit his 71st and 72nd home runs of the season and finished the season with 73.
1998:
The Judiciary Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives recommended impeachment hearings against President Bill Clinton.
1983:
Lech Wałęsa, leader of Poland's Solidarity union, received the Nobel Prize for Peace.
1918:
Allied forces broke through the Hindenburg Line in World War I.
1892:
The Dalton Brothers—famous American outlaws in the Old West—rode into Coffeyville, Kansas, intent upon robbing the town's two banks, but they were recognized and, coming out of one bank, were met by wild gunfire from vigilantes.
1882:
American educator and inventor Robert Hutchings Goddard, generally acknowledged to be the father of modern rocketry, was born.
1877:
A small band of Nez Percé warriors, under the leadership of Chief Joseph, surrendered to General Nelson A. Miles after holding off U.S. forces that had tracked them through Idaho, Yellowstone Park, and Montana.
October 6
1973:
Yom Kippur War.
On this day in 1973, on the Jewish holy day of Yom Kippur, Egypt and Syria attacked Israel, which suffered heavy casualties, but Israeli forces successfully fought back, and the war eventually ended inconclusively.
2000:
Near Sakaiminato, Japan, an earthquake of magnitude 7.3 struck, the most powerful earthquake since the devastating Great Hanshin Earthquake in 1995, but damage and casualties were relatively low because the epicentre was in a sparsely inhabited area.
1993:
Michael Jordan retired from professional basketball, saying “I don't have anything else to prove,” only to return in March 1995.
1981:
Anwar el-Sādāt was assassinated by members of the radical fringe of the Muslim opposition.
1927:
The Jazz Singer, starring Al Jolson, premiered in New York City, introducing the sound era of motion pictures.
1892:
The great English poet of the Victorian Age, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, died.
1849:
Thirteen Hungarian generals, “the martyrs of Arad,” were executed for their role in the Hungarian Revolution of 1848–49.
891:
Formosus was elected pope.
105:
The Roman army was defeated by Germanic tribes in the Battle of Arausio.
October 7
1949:
German Democratic Republic proclaimed.
On this day in 1949, a constitution went into effect in the Soviet occupation zone of Germany that formed the country of East Germany, which existed alongside West Germany until 1990, when the two Germanys reunited.
1985:
Members of the Palestine Liberation Front, a small faction headed by Abu Abbas within the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), hijacked an Italian cruise ship, the Achille Lauro.
1944:
The Dumbarton Oaks Conference, in which the United States, China, the Soviet Union, and the United Kingdom formulated proposals for a world organization that became the basis for the United Nations, concluded in Washington, D.C.
1934:
Playwright, poet, novelist, and essayist Amiri Baraka, who wrote of the experiences and anger of African Americans, was born.
1849:
American short-story writer, poet, and critic Edgar Allan Poe died in Baltimore, Maryland.
1826:
The Granite Railway, the first chartered railroad in the United States, began service.
1780:
American forces defeated British loyalists at the Battle of Kings Mountain during the American Revolution.
1765:
The Stamp Act Congress convened in New York City to frame resolutions of “rights and grievances” of the American colonies.
1571:
Allied Christian forces defeated the Ottoman Turks during a naval engagement at the Battle of Lepanto.
October 8
1809:
Metternich appointed minister of foreign affairs for Austria.
Named foreign minister of Austria this day in 1809 was the prince von Metternich, who revived Austria's standing in European affairs and whose organization of the Congress of Vienna maintained a balance of power in Europe.
2001:
In Italy's worst civilian air disaster in nearly 30 years, a Cessna took a wrong turn on a taxiway at Linate Airport in Milan and crashed into an SAS airliner about to take off, which exploded, killing 118 people, including 4 airport workers.
1970:
Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.
1967:
A prominent communist figure in the Cuban Revolution and a South American guerrilla leader, Che Guevara was captured and later shot to death by a Bolivian army.
1957:
An accident at the Windscale nuclear facility in northwestern England caused a fire that burned for 16 hours and left 10 tons of radioactive fuel melted in the reactor core.
1918:
Corporal Alvin Cullum York single-handedly captured 132 Germans and killed another 25 during the Meuse-Argonne offensive of World War I.
1871:
The city of Peshtigo, Wisconsin, burned to the ground in hours, killing 1,152 people. At the same time, the Great Chicago Fire destroyed 4 square miles (10 square km) of Chicago, killing 250 and leaving 90,000 homeless.
1604:
Jan Brunowski, Johannes Kepler's assistant, was the first to observe Kepler's nova.
October 9
2004:
First Afghan presidential elections.
On this day in 2004, for the first time in Afghanistan's history, voters went to the polls to choose a president, selecting Hamid Karzai, who had served as the interim president after the fall of the Taliban regime in 2001.
2001:
The United Service Organizations (USO) appointed entertainer Wayne Newton as its official celebrity front man, replacing Bob Hope, who had served in that capacity since the early 1950s.
1997:
Italian playwright Dario Fo was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.
1990: David H. Souter was sworn in as a U.S. Supreme Court associate justice.
1982:
Anna Freud, psychoanalyst, author, and daughter of Sigmund Freud, died in London.
1888:
Built between 1848 and 1884 and dedicated in 1885, the Washington Monument—a marble-faced granite obelisk that honours the first U.S. president, George Washington—opened to the public in Washington, D.C.
1635:
Roger Williams was banished from Massachusetts Bay Colony, and, as a result, he later founded the colony of Rhode Island.
1514:
Mary Tudor, sister of King Henry VIII of England, became the third wife of King Louis XII of France.
October 10
1845:
Founding of the U.S. Naval Academy .
To improve the then-unsatisfactory methods of instructing midshipmen, George Bancroft—historian, educator, and secretary of the navy—founded the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, on this day in 1845.
1985:
American motion-picture actor, director, producer, and writer Orson Welles died.
1973:
Vice President Spiro T. Agnew resigned from office and pleaded no contest to the charge of failing to report $29,500 in income while governor of Maryland.
1970:
Fiji gained independence from Great Britain.
1935:
George Gershwin's opera Porgy and Bess opened on Broadway.
1917:
American pianist and composer Thelonious Monk, among the first creators of modern jazz, was born.
1846:
English astronomer William Lassell discovered Triton, the largest satellite of the planet Neptune.