Today in History - onthisday.com

 

Sept 20

622 Prophet Muhammad arrives in Yathrib (Medina) 

1498 A huge tsunami hit Japan on this day, killing up to 31,000 people. It was not the first, nor the last, nor the most deadly. Nor was it the work of an angry god

1519 Spanish expedition led by Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan sets off on the first successful circumnavigation of the globe (Magellan is killed en route)

1604 Siege of Ostend ends after Dutch and English forces surrender the city, allowing Ambrosio Spinola's Spanish army to recapture the devastated city and end one of the bloodiest sieges in history that caused an estimated 100,000 casualties

1664 Maryland passes the first anti-amalgamation law to stop the intermarriage of English women and Black men

1854 Battle of the Alma: British, French, and Ottoman alliance defeats the Russian Empire in the first major battle of the Crimean War

1870 Rome is captured by the Italian army after Pope Pius IX surrenders to King Victor Emmanuel II, unifying Italy and ending the 1,116-year reign of the Papal States 

1904 Orville and Wilbur Wright fly a circle in their Flyer II

1969 Virtual cartoon band The Archies' single "Sugar, Sugar" hits #1

1973 Billie Jean King defeats Bobby Riggs in the Battle of the Sexes tennis match

1984 Sitcom "The Cosby Show," starring Bill Cosby and Phylicia Rashad, premieres on NBC-TV

1990 East Germany and West Germany both ratify the reunification plan 

2001 In an address to a joint session of Congress and the American people, US President George W. Bush declares a "war on terror" 

2019 Students from 185 countries stage the world's largest-ever protest on climate change, culminating in a Manhattan rally led by Greta Thunberg

Today in History - onthisday.com

 

Sept 19

1356 English forces under Edward the Black Prince defeat the French at the Battle of Poitiers and capture French King John II during the Hundred Years' War 

1870 Siege of Paris by Prussian forces begins (lasts until January 28, 1871)

1893 New Zealand becomes the first country to grant all women the right to vote

1960 Chubby Checker's cover version of "The Twist" hits #1 on the Billboard Hot 100

1970 Sitcom "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" premieres on CBS

1985 Magnitude 8.0 earthquake rocks Mexico City, killing an estimated 10,000 people and leaving 250,000 homeless 

1986 US Federal health officials announce the first antiretroviral medication (AZT) to prevent and treat HIV/AIDS will be available to patients

1988 One of the first known modern beauty contests is held in Spa, Belgium

1991 Ötzi the Iceman, a five-thousand-year-old mummy, is discovered by German tourists in the Italian Alps and is the oldest known natural human mummy in Europe

2017 Kansas City Royal Alex Gordon hits home run #5,694, setting a MLB record for the most home runs in a season

For a full list of Historical Events on September 19

https://www.onthisday.com/events/september/19

Today in History - onthisday.com

 

Sept 18

1793 US President George Washington lays the cornerstone of the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C.

1809 The Royal Opera House opens in London

1811 British East India Company force led by Baron Minto conquers Java, then part of the Dutch East Indies. Stamford Raffles is appointed lieutenant-governor.

1812 Great Fire of Moscow burns out after five days, destroys 75% of the city and kills 12,000 people

1837 Charles Lewis Tiffany and John B. Young co-found a "stationery and fancy goods emporium" in New York City, renamed in 1853 as "Tiffany & Co."

1873 Government bond agent Jay Cooke & Co collapses, causing panic on Wall Street and the start of the Panic of 1873 and the Long Depression 

1879 Arc Lamps Light the Way to World-Beating Display "Artificial sunshine" came to a Northern England holiday resort, dazzling the visitors and showing the world the possibilities of outside electricity.

https://www.onthisday.com/articles/arc-lamps-light-the-way-to-world-beating-display

1914 Irish Home Rule Bill receives Royal Assent 

1931 Mukden Incident: To create a pretext for the invasion of Chinese Manchuria, Japanese forces detonate a small quantity of dynamite near a railway line owned by Japan's South Manchuria Railway 

1947 Central Intelligence Agency officially comes into existence after being established by President Truman in July 

1951 "A Streetcar Named Desire," a film directed by Elia Kazan and based on Tennessee Williams' 1947 play of the same name, starring Marlon Brando and Vivien Leigh, premieres at the Warner Theatre, NYC

1965 Mickey Mantle Day takes place at Yankee Stadium to honor Mickey Mantle's 2,000th game

1976 Chinese Communist Party Chairman Mao Zedong's funeral takes place in Beijing, China

For a full list of Historical Events on September 18

https://www.onthisday.com/events/september/18

Today in History - onthisday.com

 

Sept 17

642 Arab forces under Amr ibn al-'As conquer Alexandria 

1683 Dutch scientist Antonie van Leeuwenhoek is the first to report the existence of bacteria

1787 US Constitution is signed by delegates at the Philadelphia Convention

1859 Joshua Abraham Norton, an English-born resident of San Francisco, proclaims himself His Imperial Majesty Emperor Norton I, Emperor of the United States of America

1862 Battle of Antietam [Battle of Sharpsburg]: Bloodiest day in the American Civil War with 22,000 dead, wounded, or missing in the first major battle on Union soil 

1916 World War I flying ace, the Red Baron of the German Luftstreitkräfte, wins his first aerial combat near Cambrai, France 

1916 The Diary of a Dead Officer Mud and blood were features of the First World War trenches, and soldier Arthur Graeme West’s vivid descriptions of it all were captured in his diaries.

1940 Adolf Hitler indefinitely postpones Operation Sealion, the planned German invasion of Great Britain 

1941 Stan Musial makes his major league debut for the St. Louis Cardinals, going 2-for-4

1964 The Beatles are paid a record $150,000 by baseball team owner Charles Finley for a concert at Municipal Stadium in Kansas City, Missouri, on a scheduled day off; the group adds the song "Kansas City"/"Hey, Hey, Hey, Hey" to their standard setlist, much to the delight of the crowd

1972 TV comedy series "M*A*S*H", adapted from the movie, starring Alan Alda, Loretta Swit, Wayne Rogers, and McLean Stevenson, debuts on CBS in the US and runs for 11 years, garnering 14 Emmy Awards and 1 Peabody

1976 NASA publicly unveils the Space Shuttle Enterprise in Palmdale, California, named after the starship Enterprise from the "Star Trek" TV series, with members of the cast attending

1978 Anwar Sadat, Menachem Begin, and Jimmy Carter sign the Camp David Accords, frameworks for peace in the Middle East and between Egypt and Israel

2025 Disney-ABC indefinitely suspends production of late night television talk show "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" after complaints about his political jokes, and threat of broadcast license revocation by FCC chairman Brendan Carr [1]

For a full list of Historical Events on September 17

www.onthisday.com/events/september/17

Today in History - onthisday.com

 

Sept 16

1620 The Mayflower departs Plymouth, England, with 102 Pilgrims and about 30 crew for the New World

1795 British capture Cape Town, South Africa, from the Dutch 

1810 Priest Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla rings the church bells in Dolores, Mexico, issuing a call to arms known as the "Grito de Dolores" (Cry of Dolores), calling for the end of Spanish rule. Celebrated today as Mexican Independence Day

1848 Slavery is abolished in all French territories

1869 Golf's first recorded hole-in-one is scored by Tom Morris at Prestwick's 8th hole in Scotland

1908 Carriage maker William C. Durant founds General Motors in Flint, Michigan

1920 The "Wall Street bombing" occurs at 12:01 when a horse-drawn wagon explodes on Wall Street, New York, killing 38 and injuring 143

1957 Los Angeles City Council approves a 300-acre site in Chavez Ravine for the Dodgers

1963 Federation of Malaysia formed by Malaya, Singapore, British North Borneo (Sabah) and Sarawak 

1966 Metropolitan Opera House opens in Lincoln Center, New York City, with Leontyne Price as Cleopatra in "Antony and Cleopatra" by Samuel Barber

1989 14th Toronto International Film Festival: "Roger & Me" directed by Michael Moore wins the People's Choice Award

1997 Apple Computer Inc. names co-founder Steve Jobs as interim CEO

2015 700 million malaria cases prevented in Africa since 2000, according to a report by the University of Oxford in the "Nature" journal

For a full list of Historical Events on September 16

www.onthisday.com/events/september/16

Today in History - onthisday.com

 

Sept 15

1616 First non-aristocratic, free public school in Europe is opened in Frascati, Italy 

1821 Act of Independence of Central America: Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua declare their independence from the Spanish Empire 

1835 HMS Beagle, with Charles Darwin on board, reaches the Galápagos Islands

1916 First use of tanks in warfare, Britain's Mark I "Little Willies" at the Battle of Flers-Courcelette, part of the Battle of the Somme

1940 Battle of Britain Day: Royal Air Force repulses a major Luftwaffe attack, losing 29 aircraft to the Germans' 57-61 as the tide begins to turn

1949 "Lone Ranger," starring Clayton Moore and Jay Silverheels, premieres on ABC-TV; Hi-yo, Silver! Away!

1960 Maurice Richard announces his retirement; he finishes his career with 544 goals, an NHL record at the time

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.

1992 George Soros' Quantum Fund begins selling large amounts of pound sterling, helping force the pound out of the European Exchange Rate Mechanism the next day and earning him the label, "the man who broke the Bank of England"

1997 Google.com is registered as a domain name

2005 "Be Without You" single is released by Mary J. Blige (Billboard Song of the Year 2006, Grammy Award for Best R&B Song, Best Female R&B Vocal Performance 2007)

For a full list of Historical Events on September 15

www.onthisday.com/events/september/15

Today in History - onthisday.com

 

                                                                    Sept 14

1741 George Frideric Handel finishes his "Messiah" oratorio after working on it nonstop for 24 days

1752 Britain and the British Empire, including the American colonies, adopt the Gregorian Calendar after skipping 11 days between September 3 and September 13 

1814 Francis Scott Key pens the poem "Defence of Fort M'Henry," later known as "The Star-Spangled Banner," while witnessing the bombardment of Fort McHenry from a ship in Baltimore Harbor

1914 Lord Kitchener: "Your Country Needs You" appears as the front cover design for London Opinion magazine

1922 Burning of Smyrna, the Asia Minor Catastrophe to Greeks: Ottoman army expels Greeks and other non-Turks from Asia Minor, destroying much of the port city of Smyrna (August 13 OS) 

1923 Jack Dempsey recovers after being knocked through the ropes in the first round to knock out Argentine challenger Luis Firpo in the second round in front of more than 80,000 at the Polo Grounds in NYC

1936 First prefrontal lobotomy in America performed by Walter Freeman and James W. Watts at George Washington University Hospital in Washington, D.C.

1939 World's first practical helicopter, the VS-300, designed by Igor Sikorsky, takes a short tethered flight in Stratford, Connecticut 

1949 India's Constituent Assembly adopts Hindi as an official language, celebrated today as Hindi Day

1956 IBM introduces the RAMAC 305, the first commercial computer with a hard drive featuring magnetic disk storage, which weighs over a ton 

1960 Iraq, Iran, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Venezuela form the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) 

1982  Two famous American women – Grace Kelly and Isadora Duncan, both died after tragic motoring accidents in the same area on this day, though half a century apart.

1985 "The Golden Girls," starring Bea Arthur, Betty White, Rue McClanahan, and Estelle Getty, debuts on NBC

1987 Cal Ripken Jr.'s record streak of 8,243 consecutive innings (908 games) is finally broken

2020 Astronomers report a possible sign of life on Venus after detecting phosphine in the planet's atmosphere through a telescope 

2021 One in 500 Americans has died of COVID-19 as the nation's known death toll reaches 663,913 (Johns Hopkins)

Today in History - onthisday.com

 

Sept 13

509 BC Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus on Rome's Capitoline Hill is dedicated on the Ides of September 

122 Construction begins on Hadrian's Wall in Northern England, on orders from Roman Emperor Hadrian

335 Church of the Holy Sepulchre is consecrated in Jerusalem 

1224 Francis of Assisi is afflicted with stigmata after a vision while praying on Mount La Vernaonthisday.com/day/september/13

1501 Michelangelo begins work on his statue of David, a masterpiece of Renaissance sculpture

1782 The Grand Assault on Gibraltar by the allied French and Spanish fleets, including ten floating batteries and land forces, is heavily defeated by the British garrison, with all floating batteries destroyed and allied casualties of 1,473 compared to only 83 for the British

1813 The national anthem of the United States, the Star Spangled Banner, is set to music written by a British composer and was originally an old drinking song. 

1845 English chemist Michael Faraday discovers the "Faraday effect," the influence of a magnetic field on polarized light 

1847 Battle of Chapultepec: American forces capture Chapultepec Castle during the Mexican–American War, allowing US General Winfield Scott to take Mexico City 

1922 Straw Hat Riot begins in New York City as youths aggressively taunt men wearing straw hats, getting an early jump on the unofficial season's end date of September 15; confrontations continue longer than usual, lasting eight days

1965 Beatles release their single "Yesterday"; just Paul, with strings arranged by George Martin

1969 "Scooby-Doo Where are You" by Hanna-Barbera debuts on CBS in the US

1993 Public unveiling of the Oslo Accords, an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement initiated by Norway, signed by Israeli Minister of Foreign Affairs Shimon Peres and PLO official Mahmoud Abbas

2015 Evian Championship Women's Golf, Evian Resort GC: Lydia Ko of New Zealand wins by 6 strokes over Lexi Thompson to become the youngest major winner at 18 years and 142 days

Today in History - onthisday.com

 

Sept 12

                                                          

1624 The first submarine is publicly tested in London on the Thames for King James I 

1758 French astronomer Charles Messier mistakes the Crab Nebula for a comet while searching for Halley's Comet, leading him to begin his Messier Catalogue 

1909 World's first patent for synthetic rubber is granted to German chemist Fritz Hofmann

1910 Gustav Mahler's 8th Symphony "Symphony of a Thousand" premieres in Munich with 1,028 musicians

United States' first known female police officer, Alice Stebbins Wells, is appointed by the LAPD

1940 Four teenagers follow their dog down a hole near Lascaux, France, and discover 17,000-year-old drawings now known as the Lascaux Cave Paintings

1958 US Supreme Court orders the all-white Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, to integrate

1959 Luna 2 is launched by the Soviet Union, becoming the first spacecraft to impact the Moon

1992 Stefan Edberg beats Michael Chang 6-7, 7-5, 7-6, 5-7, 6-4 in 5 hours and 26 minutes, the longest match in US Open history at the time (eclipsed in 2024)

Today in History - onthisday.com

 

                                                                                    Sept 11

1297 Battle of Stirling Bridge: Scottish rebel William Wallace defeats the English

1609 An expulsion order is issued against the Moriscos of Valencia, beginning the expulsion of all of Spain's Moriscos (former Muslims and their descendants) 

1697 Battle of Zenta: Holy League forces led by Prince Eugene of Savoy defeat an Ottoman army under Mustafa II near Zenta in the Kingdom of Hungary, ending Ottoman control over large parts of Central Europe 

1708 Great Northern War: Charles XII of Sweden stops his march to conquer Moscow outside Smolensk, the turning point in the war

1914 Father of the Blues, W. C. Handy, publishes "St. Louis Blues," his most famous composition

1916 First true self-service supermarket, Clarence Saunders' "Piggly Wiggly," opens in Memphis, Tennessee 

1783 Benjamin Franklin writes "There never was a good war or bad peace"

1928 First TV drama WGY's "The Queen's Messenger," starring Izetta Jewell, broadcasts in the New York area

1977 The Atari 2600, originally known as the Atari Video Computer System (Atari VCS), is released in North America, revolutionizing the video game industry

1985 Sri Lanka achieves its first Test cricket victory, defeating India by 149 runs

2001 Two passenger planes hijacked by Al-Qaeda terrorists crash into New York's World Trade Center towers, causing the collapse of both and the deaths of 2,606 people

2001 Passengers and crew of United Airlines Flight 93 attempt to retake control of their hijacked plane from terrorists, causing the plane to crash in a Pennsylvania field, killing all 44 people on board 

2001 Terrorists hijack a passenger plane and crash it into the Pentagon, killing 125 people