The History Shack

  OTD September 30th is the two hundred seventy-third day of the year, and there are 92 days remaining until the end of the year.   Event 1541 – Spanish conquistador Hernando de Soto and his forces enter Tula territory in present-day western Arkansas, encountering fierce resistance. 1791 – The first performance of Mozart's opera The Magic Flute occurred two months before his death. 1882 – Thomas Edison's first commercial hydroelectric power plant (later known as Appleton Edison Light Company) begins operation. 1888 – Jack the Ripper kills his third and fourth victims, Elizabeth Stride and Catherine Eddowes. 1907 – The McKinley National Memorial, the final resting place of assassinated U.S. President William McKinley and his family, is dedicated in Canton, Ohio. 1939 – NBC broadcasts the first televised American football game. 1947 – The 1947 World Series begins. It is the first to be televised, to include an African American player, to exceed $2 million in ...

  OTD September 29th is the two hundred seventy-second day of the year, and there are 93 days remaining until the end of the year.   Event 1011 – Danes capture Canterbury after a siege, taking Ælfheah, archbishop of Canterbury, as a prisoner. 1714 – The Cossacks of the Russian Empire killed about 800 people overnight in Hailuoto during the Great Wrath. 1789 – The United States Department of War first established a regular army with a strength of several hundred men. 1829 – The Metropolitan Police of London, later known as the Met, was founded. 1885 – The first practical public electric tramway opened in Blackpool, England. 1918 – Germany's Supreme Army Command tells Kaiser Wilhelm II and Imperial Chancellor Georg Michaelis to open negotiations for an armistice to end World War I. 1954 – The convention establishing CERN (the European Organization for Nuclear Research) is signed. 1990 – The YF-22, which would later become the F-22 Raptor, flies for the firs...

  OTD September 28th is the two hundred seventy-first day of the year, and there are 94 days remaining until the end of the year.   Event 48 BC – Pompey disembarks at Pelusium upon arriving in Egypt, at which point he is assassinated by order of King Ptolemy XIII. 1542 – Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo of Portugal arrives in San Diego, California. He is the first European in California. 1787 – The Congress of the Confederation votes to send the newly written United States Constitution to the state legislatures for approval. 1867 – Toronto becomes the capital of Ontario, having also been the capital of Ontario's predecessors since 1796. 1871 – The Brazilian Parliament passes a law that frees all children born to slaves and all government-owned slaves. 1912 – Corporal Frank S. Scott of the United States Army becomes the first enlisted man to die in an airplane crash. 1928 – Alexander Fleming notices a bacteria-killing mold growing in his laboratory, discovering what ...

  OTD September 27th is the two hundred seventieth day of the year, and there are 95 days remaining until the end of the year.   Event 1066 – William the Conqueror and his army set sail from the mouth of the Somme River, beginning the Norman conquest of England. 1540 – The Society of Jesus (Jesuits) receives its charter from Pope Paul III. 1777 – American Revolution: Lancaster, Pennsylvania, became the capital of the United States one day after Congress evacuated Philadelphia. 1825—The Stockton and Darlington Railway, the world's first public railway to use steam locomotives, is ceremonially opened. 1903 – "Wreck of the Old 97": an American rail disaster in which 11 people are killed; it later becomes the subject of a popular ballad. 1908 – Production of the Model T automobile begins at the Ford Piquette Avenue Plant in Detroit. 1930 – Bobby Jones wins the (pre-Masters) Grand Slam of golf. 1942 – Last day of the Matanikau action on Guadalcanal as Uni...

  OTD September 26th is the two hundred sixty-ninth day of the year, and there are 98 days remaining until the end of the year.   Event  46 BC – Julius Caesar dedicates a temple to Venus Genetrix, fulfilling his vow at the Battle of Pharsalus. 1580 – Francis Drake finishes his circumnavigation of the Earth in Plymouth, England. 1789 – George Washington appointed Thomas Jefferson the first United States Secretary of State. 1905 – Albert Einstein published the third of his Annus Mirabilis papers, introducing the particular theory of relativity. 1918—World War I: The Meuse-Argonne Offensive began, which lasted until the total surrender of German forces. 1933 – As gangster Machine Gun Kelly surrenders to the FBI, he shouts, "Don't shoot, G-Men!" which becomes a nickname for FBI agents. 1959 – Typhoon Vera, the strongest typhoon to hit Japan in recorded history, makes landfall, killing 4,580 people and leaving nearly 1.6 million others homeless. 1969 – Ab...

  OTD September 23rd is the two hundred-sixty-sixth day of the year, and there are 99 days remaining until the end of the year.   Event  1338 – The Battle of Arnemuiden, in which a French force defeats the English, is the first naval battle of the Hundred Years' War and the first naval battle in which gunpowder artillery is used. 1779 – American Revolution: John Paul Jones, naval commander of the United States, on board the USS Bonhomme Richard, wins the Battle of Flamborough Head. 1846—Astronomers Urbain Le Verrier, John Couch Adams, and Johann Gottfried Galle collaborated on the discovery of Neptune. 1884 – On the night of 23-24 September, the steamship Arctique runs aground near Cape Virgenes, leading to the discovery of nearby placer gold, beginning the Tierra del Fuego gold rush. 1905 – Norway and Sweden signed the Karlstad Treaty, peacefully dissolving the Union between the two countries. 1905 – Norway and Sweden signed the Karlstad Treaty, peacefu...

  OTD September 22nd is the two hundred-sixty-fifth day of the year, and there are 100 days remaining until the end of the year.   Event  1692 – The last hanging of those convicted of witchcraft in the Salem witch trials; others were eventually released. 1776 – Nathan Hale is hanged for spying during the American Revolution. 1857 – The Russian warship Lefort capsizes and sinks during a storm in the Gulf of Finland, killing all 826 aboard. 1896 – Queen Victoria surpasses her grandfather, King George III, as the longest-reigning monarch in British history. 1910 – The Duke of York's Picture House opens in Brighton, now Britain's oldest continually operating cinema. 1948 – Gail Halvorsen officially starts parachuting candy to children as part of the Berlin Airlift. 1979 – A bright flash, resembling the detonation of a nuclear weapon, is observed near the Prince Edward Islands. Its cause is never determined   Birthdays 1694 – Philip Stanhope, 4th...

  OTD September 21st is the two hundred-sixty-fourth day of the year, and there are 101 days remaining until the end of the year.   Event  1170 – The Kingdom of Dublin falls to Norman invaders. 1776 – Part of New York City is burned shortly after being occupied by British forces. 1780 – American Revolutionary War: Benedict Arnold gave the British the plans to West Point. 1792 – French Revolution: The National Convention abolishes the monarchy. 1843 – The crew of schooner Ancud, led by John Williams Wilson, takes possession of the Strait of Magellan on behalf of the Chilean government. 1933 – Salvador Lutteroth established Mexican professional wrestling. 1942 – The Boeing B-29 Superfortress makes its maiden flight. 1972 – Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos begins authoritarian rule by declaring martial law. 1981 – the U.S. Senate unanimously approved Sandra Day O'Connor as the first female Supreme Court justice. 2001 – America: A Tribute to Her...

  OTD September 20th is the two hundred-sixty-third day of the year, and there are 102 days remaining until the end of the year.   Event 1187 – Saladin begins the Siege of Jerusalem. 1498 – The Nankai tsunami washes away the building housing the Great Buddha at Kōtoku-in; it has been outside ever since. 1697 – The Treaty of Ryswick was signed by France, England, Spain, the Holy Roman Empire, and the Dutch Republic, ending the Nine Years' War. 1870 – The Bersaglieri corps entered Rome through the Porta Pia and completed the unification of Italy. 1893 – Charles Duryea and his brother road-test the first American-made gasoline-powered automobile. 1911 – The White Star Line's RMS Olympic collides with the British warship HMS Hawke. 1946—The first Cannes Film Festival was held after being delayed for seven years due to World War II. 1967 – The Cunard Liner Queen Elizabeth 2 is launched in Clydebank, Scotland. 1971 – Having weakened after landfall in Nicaragu...

  OTD September 19th is the two hundred-sixty-second day of the year, and there are 103 days remaining until the end of the year.   Event 85 – Nerva, suspected of complicity in the death of Domitian, is declared emperor by the Senate. The Senate then annuls laws passed by Domitian and orders his statues to be destroyed. 1676 – Jamestown is burned to the ground by the forces of Nathaniel Bacon during Bacon's Rebellion. 1777 – American Revolutionary War: British forces win a tactically expensive victory over the Continental Army in the First Battle of Saratoga. 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. 1870 – Franco-Prussian War: The siege of Paris begins. The city held out for over four months before surrendering. 1940 – World War II: Witold Pilecki is voluntarily captured and sent to Auschwitz concentration camp to gather...

  OTD September 17th is the two hundred-sixtieth day of the year, and there are 105 days remaining until the end of the year.   Event  1543 – The first Finnish-language book, the Abckiria by Mikael Agricola, is published in Stockholm. 1683 – Antonie van Leeuwenhoek writes a letter to the Royal Society describing "animalcules," later known as protozoa. 1776 – The Presidio of San Francisco was founded in New Spain. 1809 – Peace between Sweden and Russia in the Finnish War; the territory that will become Finland is ceded to Russia by the Treaty of Fredrikshamn. 1849 – American abolitionist Harriet Tubman escapes from slavery. 1908 – The Wright Flyer, flown by Orville Wright, with Lieutenant Thomas Selfridge as passenger, crashes, killing Selfridge, the first airplane fatality. 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 Nati...