This Day in History

[GordMay]

September 22

1692: In what was to be the last executions, during the Salem witch trials, eight people were hanged.

1791: Michael Faraday, English physicist, inventor of the dynamo, the transformer and the electric motor, born Newington [or London], England.

1862: President Abraham Lincoln issues a preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, which sets a date for the freedom of more than 3 million, enslaved in the United States, and recasts the Civil War as a fight against slavery.

1888: The first issue of ‘National Geographic’ Magazine was published.

1902: Ruhollah Khomeini, Iranian religious leader, politician, 1st Supreme Leader of Iran, born.

1914: German submarine, “U-9" sinks three British cruisers, the “Aboukir”, the “Hogue”, and the “Cressy”, in just over one hour. About 1,400 sailors die.

1959: Saul Perlmutter, astrophysicist; shared 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics for providing evidence the expansion of the universe is accelerating, born.

1961: President John Kennedy signs a congressional act, establishing the Peace Corps.

1971: US Captain Ernest Medina is acquitted of all My Lai Massacre [murder of over 200 Vietnamese civilians] charges. There were 13 others charged with various crimes, in conjunction with the My Lai Massacre, but only one, Lt. William Calley, was found guilty.

1980: ‘Solidarity’, the Polish trade union and political party, that became a hotbed of resistance to Soviet control, was founded, when delegates of 36 unions met and united, under the leadership of Lech Wałęsa.
1980: The Iran-Iraq War began, when Iraqi armed forces invaded western Iran, along the countries' joint border; fighting continued until 1988, and a formal peace agreement was signed in 1990.

[GordMay]

September 23

0063: Augustus Caesar, first Roman Emperor born. Introduced Pax Romana, the era of peace.

1215: Mongolian Emperor Kublai Khan was born.

1779: The U.S. ship “Bonhomme Richard”, commanded by John Paul Jones, wins a hard-fought engagement against the British ships of war “Serapis” and “Countess of Scarborough”, off the eastern coast of England.
“I have not yet begun to fight”

1806: American explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark return to St. Louis, Missouri, from the first recorded overland journey from the Mississippi River to the Pacific coast, and back.

1846: German astronomer Johann Gottfried Galle discovers the planet Neptune. Neptune, the eighth planet from the sun, was postulated by the French astronomer Urbain-Jean-Joseph Le Verrier [with British astronomer John Couch Adams], who calculated the approximate location of the planet, by studying gravity-induced disturbances in the motions of Uranus. On September 23, 1846, Le Verrier informed Galle of his findings, and the same night Galle, and his assistant Heinrich Louis d’Arrest, identified Neptune at their observatory in Berlin.

1857: Russian warship “Leffort” disappears in a storm, in the Gulf of Finland; 826 die.

1869: Mary Mallon, who later became known as Typhoid Mary, accused of causing multiple outbreaks of typhoid fever while working as a domestic servant in the United States, was born, in Ireland.

1877: Hurricane strikes Curacao & Bonaire, kills 200.

1884: American Herman Hollerith patents his mechanical tabulating machine, the beginning of data processing.

1889: The Japanese gaming company, ‘Nintendo’, was created by entrepreneur Fusajiro Yamauchi as a playing card company [Hanafuda], called Nintendo Koppai, which was based in Kyoto.

1932: By royal decree, of Abdulaziz Ibn Saud, the dual kingdom of the Hejaz and Najd, along with its dependencies, was unified, under the name of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

1939: Sigmund Freud, the founder of modern psychoanalysis, died in London.

1941: The first gas murder experiments are conducted, at Auschwitz concentration camp.

1949: President Truman announces evidence that the Soviets have exploded a nuclear device.

1952: A televised speech was made, by then-Vice Presidential candidate Richard Nixon, as a response to accusations of corruption, and use of campaign funds for private expenses. The speech received its name due to the mention of Checkers, a dog he had received as a gift for his children. In the speech, he emphasized that he intended to keep Checkers.

1955: All white jury finds Roy Brant and John William Milam not guilty, of the brutal murder of black teenager Emmett Till, in Sumner, Mississippi, in landmark case that would help inspire civil rights movement, in the US.

1957: White mob forces 9 black students, enrolled at Little Rock's Central High School, in Arkansas, to withdraw. The intervention of President Dwight D. Eisenhower proved decisive: he ordered the National Guard be federalized, taking them out of the Governor's [Orval Faubus] control, and ordered the US Army to support the integration of the school. The students were successfully integrated on September 23, 1957.

1959: Australia's first passenger roll on/roll off diesel ferry, the MS “Princess of Tasmania” makes her maiden voyage, across Bass Strait.

2002: The first public version of ‘Mozilla Firefox’ browser released; originally called ‘Phoenix 0.1', its name was changed, due to trademark issues with Phoenix Technologies.

2004: At least 1,070 reported killed by floods, in Haiti, due to Hurricane ‘Jeanne’.

2019: 178 year old British travel company, Thomas Cook, goes into liquidation, stranding 600,000 travellers worldwide, prompting largest postwar repatriation effort by UK government.

2020: President Donald Trump refuses to commit to a peaceful transfer of power after the US November election, at a White House press conference.

[GordMay]

September 23

0063: Augustus Caesar, first Roman Emperor born. Introduced Pax Romana, the era of peace.

1215: Mongolian Emperor Kublai Khan was born.

1779: The U.S. ship “Bonhomme Richard”, commanded by John Paul Jones, wins a hard-fought engagement against the British ships of war “Serapis” and “Countess of Scarborough”, off the eastern coast of England.
“I have not yet begun to fight”

1806: American explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark return to St. Louis, Missouri, from the first recorded overland journey from the Mississippi River to the Pacific coast, and back.

1846: German astronomer Johann Gottfried Galle discovers the planet Neptune. Neptune, the eighth planet from the sun, was postulated by the French astronomer Urbain-Jean-Joseph Le Verrier [with British astronomer John Couch Adams], who calculated the approximate location of the planet, by studying gravity-induced disturbances in the motions of Uranus. On September 23, 1846, Le Verrier informed Galle of his findings, and the same night Galle, and his assistant Heinrich Louis d’Arrest, identified Neptune at their observatory in Berlin.

1857: Russian warship “Leffort” disappears in a storm, in the Gulf of Finland; 826 die.

1869: Mary Mallon, who later became known as Typhoid Mary, accused of causing multiple outbreaks of typhoid fever while working as a domestic servant in the United States, was born, in Ireland.

1877: Hurricane strikes Curacao & Bonaire, kills 200.

1884: American Herman Hollerith patents his mechanical tabulating machine, the beginning of data processing.

1889: The Japanese gaming company, ‘Nintendo’, was created by entrepreneur Fusajiro Yamauchi as a playing card company [Hanafuda], called Nintendo Koppai, which was based in Kyoto.

1932: By royal decree, of Abdulaziz Ibn Saud, the dual kingdom of the Hejaz and Najd, along with its dependencies, was unified, under the name of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

1939: Sigmund Freud, the founder of modern psychoanalysis, died in London.

1941: The first gas murder experiments are conducted, at Auschwitz concentration camp.

1949: President Truman announces evidence that the Soviets have exploded a nuclear device.

1952: A televised speech was made, by then-Vice Presidential candidate Richard Nixon, as a response to accusations of corruption, and use of campaign funds for private expenses. The speech received its name due to the mention of Checkers, a dog he had received as a gift for his children. In the speech, he emphasized that he intended to keep Checkers.

1955: All white jury finds Roy Brant and John William Milam not guilty, of the brutal murder of black teenager Emmett Till, in Sumner, Mississippi, in landmark case that would help inspire civil rights movement, in the US.

1957: White mob forces 9 black students, enrolled at Little Rock's Central High School, in Arkansas, to withdraw. The intervention of President Dwight D. Eisenhower proved decisive: he ordered the National Guard be federalized, taking them out of the Governor's [Orval Faubus] control, and ordered the US Army to support the integration of the school. The students were successfully integrated on September 23, 1957.

1959: Australia's first passenger roll on/roll off diesel ferry, the MS “Princess of Tasmania” makes her maiden voyage, across Bass Strait.

2002: The first public version of ‘Mozilla Firefox’ browser released; originally called ‘Phoenix 0.1', its name was changed, due to trademark issues with Phoenix Technologies.

2004: At least 1,070 reported killed by floods, in Haiti, due to Hurricane ‘Jeanne’.

2019: 178 year old British travel company, Thomas Cook, goes into liquidation, stranding 600,000 travellers worldwide, prompting largest postwar repatriation effort by UK government.

2020: President Donald Trump refuses to commit to a peaceful transfer of power after the US November election, at a White House press conference.

[El Pinguino]

Princess of Tasmania ( I saw her arriving in Melbourne on her maiden voyage from the builders having been delayed for a few days as she sheltered from an equinoctial gale in the lee of Wilsons Prom / Waterloo Bay - a brilliant sunny morning) was sold to Canada in 1972 as 'Coastal Cruiser'. (Canadian Ministry Of Transport and then Rideau Shipping Co Ltd)
Soldiered on for 46 years - we don't make ships like that any more - in fact we don't make ships anymore.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MS_Princess_of_Tasmania

[GordMay]

September 24

0622: The prophet Muhammad completes his Hegira [Hijrah], or “flight,” from Mecca to Medina, to escape persecution. The Hegira would later mark the beginning (year 1), of the Muslim calendar.

1493: Christopher Columbus embarks on his second expedition to the New World, setting sail with a fleet of 17 ships.

1501: Gerolamo Cardano, mathematician, author of Games of Chance, the first systematic computation of probabilities, was born.

1789: The Judiciary Act of 1789 is passed by Congress and signed by President George Washington, establishing the Supreme Court of the United States as a tribunal made up of six justices who were to serve on the court until death or retirement.

1853: 1st round-the-world trip, by yacht (Cornelius Vanderbilt), aboard his 213-foot diesel yacht "Ara".

1920: Babe Ruth becomes first to hit 50 home runs in a MLB season, with a 1st inning blast off Jose Acosta, in a 2-1 loss to the Washington Senators.

1929: The first flight, using only instruments, is completed, by U.S. Army pilot James Doolittle.

1934: Babe Ruth played in his last baseball game, for the New York Yankees, at Yankee Stadium.

1948: Motorcycle builder Soichiro Honda incorporates the Honda Motor Company, in Hamamatsu, Japan.

1960: The first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, the “Enterprise”, was launched by the United States.

1964: Warren Commission report, on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy [November 22, 1963] delivered to President Johnson. It concluded that Oswald had acted alone, and that the Secret Service had made poor preparations for JFK’s visit to Dallas, and had failed to sufficiently protect him.

1969: The "Chicago Eight," charged with conspiracy, and crossing state lines with the intent to incite a riot, go on trial for their part in the mayhem, during the 1968 Democratic Party National Convention.

1979: CompuServe (CIS) offers one of the first online services to consumers; it will dominate among Internet service providers for consumers through the mid-1990s.

2005: Hurricane ‘Rita’, the 4th-most intense Atlantic hurricane ever recorded, comes ashore in Texas, causing extensive damage there, and in Louisiana, which was devastated by Hurricane Katrina, less than a month earlier.

2009: LRAD (Long Range Acoustic Device) "sonic cannon," a non-lethal device that utilizes intense sound, is used in the United States for the first time, to disperse protestors at the G20 summit, in Pittsburgh, Penn.

[GordMay]

September 25

1396: The last great Christian crusade, led jointly by John the Fearless of Nevers, and King Sigismund of Hungary, ends in disaster, at the hands of Sultan Bayezid I's Ottoman army, at Nicopolis.

1513: Spanish conquistador and explorer Vasco Núñez de Balboa, standing “silent, upon a peak in Darién,” on the Isthmus of Panama, became the first European to sight the Pacific Ocean.

1777: Philadelphia, then the American capital, was occupied by British forces, during the American Revolution.

1775: After aborting a poorly planned, and ill-timed attack on the British-controlled city of Montreal, Continental Army Colonel Ethan Allen [the hero of Ticonderoga] is captured, by the British.

1789: The first Congress of the United States approves 12 amendments, known as the ‘Bill of Rights’, to the U.S. Constitution, and sends them to the states for ratification.

1804: Twelfth Amendment to the US Constitution, establishing the procedure for electing the President and Vice President, becomes effective.

1820: French Physicist François Arago announces electromagnetism, in his discovery that a copper wire, between the poles of a voltaic cell, could laterally attract iron filings to itself.

1911: 1911 French battleship “Liberte” explodes, at Toulon Harbor, 285 killed.

1923: In one of the worst colliery disasters, in Scottish history, the pit wall, between an old abandoned pit, and the pit the miners were in, gave way, allowing the water from the old pit to flood into the pit where the miners were working, the collapse was so quick that the pit flooded almost instantly drowning 70 miners.

1946: 75 ships have been quarantined, until tests for radioactive contamination are completed, they are suspected to have high radio activity, due to the nuclear atom bomb testing, at Bikini Atoll.

1956: The first underwater telephone service, from the United States to Europe, begins, using two 2,250 mile cables under the Atlantic Ocean, to provide the all wire voice link, between the two continents.

1957: Under escort from the U.S. Army’s 101st Airborne Division, nine Black students enter all-white Central High School, in Little Rock, Arkansas. Three weeks earlier, Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus had surrounded the school with National Guard troops, to prevent its federal court-ordered racial integration. After a tense standoff, President Dwight D. Eisenhower federalized the Arkansas National Guard, and sent 1,000 army paratroopers to Little Rock, to enforce the court order.

1962: “Weatherly” (US) beats “Gretel” (Aust), in 19th running of America's Cup.

1974: Scientists warn that continued use of aerosol sprays [freon gases] will cause ozone depletion, which will lead to an increased risk of skin cancer, and global weather changes.

1996: Taliban opposition fighters have reached the eastern suburbs of the countries capital, Kabul, and are poised to take control. The country is run by President Burhanuddin Rabbani, who is kept in power by a coalition of Mujahideen factions. Two days later the Taliban did seize control of Kabul, and established the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.

2005: The Irish Republican Army (IRA) gives up its weapons, in front of independent weapons inspectors.

2009: The second ‘G20' Summit, to discuss Global Credit Crisis and Financial Meltdown, convenes in Pittsburgh, in addition to the G20 countries which consists of Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Turkey, United Kingdom, United States, and The European Union, additional representatives from Spain, the Netherlands, (New Partnership for Africa's Development) NEPAD, (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) ASEAN, the UN, the World Bank, the IMF, the WTO, (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation) APEC, and the (Financial Stability Forum) FSF bankers, and the like. The size and scope of the meeting provides an indication of how worried world leaders were, over the World's Economy, and also set the tone for future meetings, by expanding meetings on important world events, to include emerging economies, in addition to the original G8 countries.

2013: “Oracle Team USA” defeats “ Emirates Team New Zealand”, 9-8, to win the 34TH America's Cup, racing AC72 wing-sail catamarans.


2018: Comedian Bill Cosby sentenced to 3-10 years in jail, for 2004 sexual assault, first celebrity to be jailed in the #MeToo era.
2018: Instagram’s co-founders, Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger, resign from Instagram, and parent company Facebook.

[GordMay]

The 1998 Atlantic hurricane season was one of the deadliest and costliest at the time.

The season included 10 hurricanes, three of which were major (Category 3 or greater). In total, more than 12,010 people died, and the storms caused US$17.079 billion (1998) worth of damage.

The two most significant storms from the season were Hurricanes “Georges” and Hurricane “Mitch”.
Georges, which was a Category 3 and 4 storm, devastated Caribbean areas including Saint Kitts and Nevis, Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic.
Mitch, a Category 5 hurricane, impacted a lot of Central America and eventually made landfall in Florida.

Georges started as Tropical Depression Seven on Sept. 15. Warm sea surface temperature and upper-level outflow caused Georges to quickly strengthen into a powerful hurricane. On Sept. 21, the hurricane made landfall on Antigua, Saint Kitts and Nevis, and Puerto Rico, with winds up to 185 km/h. The next day, Georges made landfall in the Dominican Republic, with 195 km/h winds.

On Sept. 25, Georges hit Key West, with winds up to 165 km/h. After heading northwestward for three days, Georges struck Biloxi, at the same intensity. The storm eventually weakened into a tropical depression on Sept. 29, and dissipated by Oct. 1.

Georges caused widespread damage across areas of the Caribbean and the United States. In total, the hurricane caused approximately 615 deaths, and around $9.37 billion.

Mitch was a deadlier storm. It originated on Oct. 22 as Tropical Depression Thirteen. Between Oct. 29 and Nov. 5, Mitch made landfall across areas in the Caribbean, Mexico, and the U.S.

The hurricane devastated the areas it hit, including causing at least 7,000 fatalities in Honduras. Mitch killed 3,800 people in Nicaragua and 268 in Guatemala. In total, Hurricane Mitch led to 11,374 losses of life, and $6.08 billion in damages.

The World Meteorological Organization retired both “Georges” and “Mitch”, from Atlantic hurricane names.

[GordMay]

September 26

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.

1580: After 33 months at sea, English seaman Francis Drake returns to Plymouth, England, in the “Golden Hind”, becoming the first British navigator to circumnavigate the earth.

1590: Twelve days after being elected pope, Urban VII died, making his papacy the shortest in history.

1665: Height of the Great Plague of London, as 7,165 people die throughout the previous week.

1738: Scottish philosopher David Hume enters into a contract, to publish the first two volumes of his seminal work "A Treatise of Human Nature", with John Noon in London.

1820: Frontiersman Daniel Boone dies, quietly in his sleep [aged 86], at his son’s home, near present-day Defiance, Missouri.

1901: Leon Czolgosz, who murdered President William McKinley, is sentenced to death.

1907: New Zealand and Newfoundland each become dominions, within the British Empire.

1913: The first boat is raised in the locks of the Panama Canal.

1934: British liner “Queen Mary” is launched.

1954: Japanese ferry boat “Toya Maru” sinks, in Strait of Tsugaru, during a typhoon, 1,153 people die.

1958: “Columbia” (US) beats “Sceptre” (Britain) in 18th America's Cup.

1959: Typhoon ‘Vera’, hits Japanese island of Honshu, causing the deaths of 4,580 people, with 658 missing.

1960: The first in a series of historic televised debates (seen by some 85 to 120 million viewers) between U.S. presidential candidates Senator John F. Kennedy and Vice President Richard M. Nixon was broadcast.

1961: Roger Maris hits HR #60 off Jack Fisher, tying Babe Ruth's record.

1962: Rachel Carson's ‘Silent Spring’ was published, and it became one of the most-influential books in the modern environmental movement.

1972: Norway rejects membership in European Common Market.

1973: ‘Concorde’ makes its first non-stop crossing of the Atlantic (Washington, D.C. to Paris), in record-breaking time (3h33m).

1980: Cuban government closes Mariel Harbor, ending ‘freedom flotilla’ [Mariel boatlift].

1983: In the USSR Lt. Col. Stanislav Petrov disobeys procedures, and ignores electronic alarms indicating five incoming nuclear missiles, believing the US would launch more than five, if it wanted to start a war. His decision prevented a retaliatory attack that would have begun a nuclear war between the superpowers.
1983: John Bertrand, aboard “Australia II” [KA6], representing the Royal Perth Yacht Club of Australia, wins America's Cup yacht race [4-3], against Dennis Conner & “Liberty” - 1st non-US winner, after 132 years. “Australia II” was designed by Ben Lexcen, built by Steve Ward, and owned by Alan Bond.

2019: WHO announces 800,000 children, in DR Congo, will be vaccinated in nine days, in worlds's largest measles epidemic, that has taken over 3,500 lives.

2020: 108 pilot whales survive, while 350 die, in Australia's largest mass stranding, at Macquarie Harbour, Tasmania

[GordMay]

September, 1959:
Typhoon ‘Vera’ was the strongest, and deadliest, storm to hit Japan.

‘Vera’, also known as ‘Isewan’ Typhoon, formed on Sept. 20, 1959, and dissipated on Sept. 29, 1959. The powerful storm (modern-day Category 5) devastated areas of Japan, inflicting the island with wind speeds as high as 305 km/h. Vera caused over 5,000 deaths, and US$261 million (1959) in damages.

‘Vera/Isewan’ started between Guam and Chuuk State, reaching tropical storm strength by Sept. 21. The storm started to rapidly intensify and reached peak intensity on Sept. 23. Vera basically maintained its strength as it made landfall on Sept. 26 near Shionomisaki on Honshu.

The storm moved into the Sea of Japan, and curved back to make landfall, for the second time, on Honshu. On Sept. 27, ‘Vera’ weakened into an extratropical cyclone, with remnants lasting for two additional days.

Before Vera's landfall, forecasters saw the storm coming. Unfortunately, the Japanese media didn't provide enough coverage of the impending storm, so residents didn't have the chance to prepare or evacuate.

‘Vera’ brought extreme rainfall, which flooded the river basins. The storm surge destroyed defence systems, causing widespread flooding.

Immediately following ‘Vera’, the Japanese government started a disaster headquarters, in Tokyo, and established the Central Japan Disaster Relief Department, in Nagoya. The Japanese parliament introduced a supplementary national budget, to help cover Vera's damages. Starting Sept. 27, shelters were opened to support refugees.

In addition to the approximate 5,000 deaths, ‘Vera’ also injured 39,000 people, and caused around 1.5 million people to become homeless.

[PLANET EXPRESS]

We should have USSR Lt. Col. Stanislav Petrov day.
Thanks I have enjoyed the history and read this every day.

[GordMay]

Lewis Hamilton holds the record for the most race wins, in Formula One history, winning his 100TH F1 race [35.59% of starts], today in Sochi, Russia.
Michael Schumacher, the previous record holder, is second with 91 wins [29.55%], and Sebastian Vettel is third with 53 victories [19.41%].
Lewis Hamilton and Michael Schumacher currently share the record for the most World Drivers' Championships, both having won the title on seven occasions, to date.

[GordMay]

September 27

1290: Earthquake in the Gulf of Chihli (Bohai Sea), near China, reportedly kills 100,000 people.

1540: The ‘Society of Jesus’ [Jesuit Order], a Roman Catholic missionary organization, founded by St. Ignatius of Loyola, receives its charter, from Pope Paul III.

1694: Hurricane hits Carlisle Bay Barbados; 27 British ships sink & 3,000 die.

1822: French scholar Jean-François Champollion announces he has deciphered Egyptian hieroglyphics, using the ‘Rosetta Stone’.

1854: Sudden and heavy fog causes two ships, the “Arctic” and the “Vesta”, to collide, killing 322 people, off the coast of Newfoundland.

1905: The physics journal ‘Annalen der Physik’ publishes Albert Einstein's paper, "Does the Inertia of a Body Depend Upon Its Energy Content?", introducing the equation E=mc². [yes]
➥ https://www.fourmilab.ch/etexts/eins..._mc2/e_mc2.pdf

1937: Balinese Tiger declared extinct.

1940: The Axis powers are formed, as Germany, Italy, and Japan become allies, with the signing of the ‘Tripartite Pact’, in Berlin.

1941: US President Roosevelt launches the 1st ‘Liberty’ ship, freighter USS “Patrick Henry”.

1988: Canadian Finn class sailor, Lawrence Lemieux, abandons race 5, to assist injured competitor, after being in 2nd place; selfless act is awarded with the ‘Pierre de Coubertin medal’.

1996: The tanker skip “Julie N.” crashes into the ‘Million Dollar Bridge’, in Portland, Maine, spilling thousands of gallons of oil.

2012: The 2004 Japanese discovery of the 133th element, Nihonium [Nh], has been confirmed.
➥ https://www.livescience.com/41416-fa...ununtrium.html

2020: Details of President Donald Trump's tax returns released by the New York Times, showing he paid $750 in income tax (2016 & 2017), revealing "chronic losses and years of tax avoidance"
➥ https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/...gtype=Homepage

[GordMay]

September 28

0048 BCE: Roman general and politician Pompey is murdered, on the orders of King Ptolemy of Egypt.

0351: Roman Emperor Constantius II defeated the usurper Magnentius, in the Battle of Mursa, the bloodiest battle of the 4th century.

1528: Spanish fleet sinks, in Florida hurricane; about 380 die.

1542: The Spanish explorer Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo arrives in San Diego Bay, while searching for the Strait of Anian, a mythical all-water route across North America, becoming the first European to set foot on the west coast of what would become the United States, naming it ‘San Miguel’, and claiming it for Spain.

1607: Samuel de Champlain, and his colonists, return to France, from Port Royal, Nova Scotia.

1781: General George Washington, commanding a force of 17,000 French and Continental troops, begins the siege, known as the Battle of Yorktown, against British General Lord Charles Cornwallis, and a contingent of 9,000 British troops at Yorktown, Virginia. After three weeks of non-stop bombardment, both day and night, from artillery, Cornwallis surrendered to Washington, on October 17, 1781, effectively ending the War for Independence.

1785: Napoléon Bonaparte, aged 16, graduates from the elite École Militaire in Paris (42nd in a class of 51).

1820: Friedrich Engels, socialist who collaborated with Karl Marx on ‘The Communist Manifesto’, and ‘Das Kapital’, was born.

1850: US Navy abolishes flogging as punishment.

1887: Yellow River [Huáng Hé] floods in China, killing between 900,000 and 2 million people, one of the deadliest natural disasters in history.

1889: The first General Conference on Weights and Measures (CGPM) defines the length of a meter, as the distance between two lines on a standard bar of an alloy of platinum, with ten percent iridium, measured at the melting point of ice.

1918: A Liberty Loan parade, in Philadelphia, prompts a huge outbreak of Spanish flu in the city.

1920: A Chicago grand jury indicts eight members of the Chicago White Sox, on charges of fixing the 1919 World Series. White Sox owner Charles Comiskey immediately suspends Chick Gandil, Buck Weaver, Happy Felsch, Swede Risberg, Fred McMullin, Eddie Cicotte, Lefty Williams and "Shoeless" Joe Jackson, who are notorious for their involvement in the "Black Sox Scandal". All were acquitted on August 2 that year. A day after their acquittal, Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis, the Major League Baseball commissioner, suspended all eight from organized baseball, for life.

1928: The mold ‘penicillium notatum’, is accidently discovered to kill staphylococcus bacteria, by [Sir] Alexander Fleming. In 1929, Fleming introduced his mold by-product, called penicillin, to cure bacterial infections. It remained for Howard Florey and Ernst Chain to isolate the active ingredient, allowing the "miracle drug" to be developed in the 1940s.
➥ https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/...rst-antibiotic

1934: French actress Brigitte Bardot born.

1939: German-Soviet Frontier Treaty is signed, by Joachim von Ribbentrop and Vyacheslav Molotov; redraws German and Soviet spheres of influence in central Europe, and transfers most of Lithuania to the USSR.

1941: Ted Williams becomes last player to hit over .400 [.406]. Williams retired with a lifetime batting average of .344.

1970: “Intrepid” (US) beats “Gretel II” (Australia) in 22nd America's Cup.

1980: Carl Sagan's 13 part series, "Cosmos", premieres on PBS.

1982: 1st reports appear, of death from cyanide-laced Tylenol capsules.

1994: The Car & Passenger ferry, “Estonia”, sinks in the Baltic Sea, killing 852.

1995: Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat sign accord, to transfer West Bank to the PLO.

2008: SpaceX successfully launched ‘Falcon 1', becoming the first privately owned company to send a liquid-fueled rocket into orbit.

2015: NASA scientists announce the discovery of flowing water on Mars.

2016: Hurricane ‘Matthew; forms near the Windward Islands, will go on to kill over 1000, in Haiti, the Caribbean and the US.

2018: A 7.5 magnitude earthquake hits, just off island of Sulawesi, Indonesia, setting off a tsunami that hits cities of Donggala and Palu, at least 1649 people killed.

2019: Hurricane ‘Lorenzo’ becomes 1st category 5 storm to be recorded so far north and east, 1,420 miles southwest of the Azores.

2020: COVID-19 recorded global death toll passes 1 million, with over 33 million known cases (Johns Hopkins)

[GordMay]

September 29

0480 BCE: Battle of Salamis: The Greek fleet under Themistocles defeats the Persian fleet under Xerxes I.

0061 BCE: Pompey the Great celebrates his third triumph, for victories over the pirates, and the end of the Mithridatic Wars, on his 45th birthday.

0642: Arab General ʿAmr ibn al-ʿĀ marched into Alexandria, and the Arab conquest of Egypt, which had begun with an invasion three years earlier, ended in peaceful capitulation.

1780: British spy John André [Benedict Arnold’s accomplice] is court-martialed, found guilty, and sentenced to death by hanging.

1853: Emigrant ship "Annie Jane" sinks off Scotland, drowning 348.

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.

1901: Enrico Fermi, Italian-American physicist, born.

1906: The United States occupied Cuba [ousts Estrada Palma], after the rebellion, surrounding the reelection of Tomás Estrada Palma.

1913: Rudolf Diesel, inventor of the engine that bears his name, disappears from the steamship Dresden while traveling from Antwerp, Belgium to Harwich, England. His body was found, floating in the water, on October 10, 2013.

1915: 1ST transcontinental radio telephone message sent by U.S. naval radio station, at Arlington, Virginia, to naval radio station, at Mare Island, San Francisco.
1915: Hurricane claims 275, in Mississippi Delta.

1916: American oil tycoon, John D. Rockefeller becomes the world's first billionaire.

1923: 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.

1927: American baseball player, Babe Ruth, became the first player to hit 60 home runs in a single season; his record stood until Roger Maris hit 61, in 1961.

1940: 1ST US merchant ship "Booker T. Washington", commanded by a black captain [Hugh Mulzac, launched at Wilmington Delaware.

1941: The Babi Yar massacre, of nearly 34,000 mostly Jewish, men, women and children begins, on the outskirts of Kiev, in the Nazi-occupied Ukraine.

1949: The Berlin airlift officially ended after the Western Allied powers delivered 2,323,738 tons of food, fuel, machinery, and other supplies to West Berlin, which had been cut off from the West during the Soviet blockade of Berlin.

1951: Seth Barnes Nicholson discovers ‘Ananke’, 12TH satellite of Jupiter, from Mount Wilson Observatory.

1954: The USS “Nautilus”, the world's first nuclear-powered vessel, was commissioned by the U.S. Navy.
1954: Willie Mays famous over-the-shoulder catch, of Vic Wertz' 460' drive, during Game One, of the World Series.

1957: In the worst nuclear disaster you’ve never heard of, an explosion, at the Mayak plutonium production plant, in the Soviet Union, spreads radiation over 20,000 square miles [52,000 km2].
➥ https://bellona.org/news/nuclear-iss...-60th-birthday

1962: JFK authorized use of federal troops, to integrate U of Mississippi.

1971: Cyclone & tsunami, off Bay of Bengal, kills as many as 10,000.

1996: Nintendo 64 video game system debuts in USA [3 months after Japan].

2007: Calder Hall, the world's first commercial nuclear power station, consisting of 4 Magnox reactors, 2 turbine halls, and 4 cooling towers, was demolished, in a controlled explosion.

2008: After Congress failed to pass a $700 billion bank bailout plan, the Dow Jones Industrial Average falls 777.68 points; at the time, the largest single-day point loss, in its history. The Dow drop equaled a whopping $1.2 trillion loss in market value, contributing to the 18-month-long Great Recession. Down 7 percent, a greater loss than the 684.81 skid, on September 17, 2001 (the first trading day post-9/11), the S&P 500 also suffered its biggest one-day loss since the 1987 crash, dropping 8.8 percent, and the Nasdaq fell 9.1 percent, its biggest single-day point loss in eight years.
On March 16, 2020, the Dow suffered its largest single-day drop yet.

2005: The Danish newspaper, Jyllands-Posten, printed satiric cartoons, of the Prophet Muhammad, provoking violent protests, by Muslims worldwide.

2020: Scientists confirm the existence of three new underground lakes on Mars, using radar on ESA's ‘Mars Express’ spacecraft.
➥ https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02751-1

[GordMay]

September 30

1630: John Billington, one of the original pilgrims who sailed to the New World on the Mayflower, becomes the first man executed, in the English colonies. He is hanged for having shot another man, during a quarrel.

1659: Robinson Crusoe is shipwrecked (according to Daniel Defoe).

1787: 1st US voyage around the world begins, as “Columbia” leaves Boston.

1887: New York Yacht Club’s cutter “Volunteer” beats Scottish challenger “Thistle”, by 11:48.75 seconds on corrected time, to win 8th America's Cup series, 2-0, off Newport, RI

1927: George Herman [‘Babe’] Ruth hits his 60th home run of the season, off Tom Zachary, in 8th inning, of New York's 4-2 win over Washington Senators, at Yankee Stadium, and with it sets a record that would stand for 34 years.

1935: The Boulder Dam [later the Hoover Dam], astride the border of Arizona and Nevada, is dedicated, by US President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

1936: International Commission of Straits [Dardanelles & Bosphorus] ends.

1938: British and French prime ministers Neville Chamberlain and Edouard Daladier sign the Munich Pact with Nazi leader Adolf Hitler. Forces Czechoslovakia to give Sudetenland territory to Germany. Chamberlain infamously declares "Peace for our time", on his return to London.

1946: Twenty-two Nazi leaders, including Joachim von Ribbentrop and Hermann Goering, are found guilty of war crimes, and sentenced to death or prison, at the Nuremberg war trials.

1949: After 15 months, and more than 250,000 flights, the Berlin Airlift officially comes to an end.

1955: James Dean, 24, is killed in Cholame, California, when the Porsche he is driving hits a Ford Tudor sedan, at an intersection.

1961: Bill for ‘Boston Tea Party’ is paid, by Mayor Snyder of Oregon, who wrote a check for $196, the total cost of all tea lost.

1962: James H. Meredith, an African American student, is escorted onto the University of Mississippi campus, by U.S. Marshals, setting off a deadly riot. Two men were killed, before the violence was quelled, by more than 3,000 federal soldiers. The next day, Meredith successfully enrolled at U Miss, and began to attend classes, amid continuing disruption.

1980: Ethernet specifications published, by Xerox, working with Intel, and Digital Equipment Corporation.

1988: IBM announces shipment of 3 millionth ‘PS/2' personal computer.

1993: A 6.4 earthquake, at Latur, India, 28,000 killed.

1997: Microsoft releases ‘Internet Explorer 4'.

1999: Japan's second-worst nuclear accident occurs, at a uranium processing facility, in Tokaimura, killing two technicians.

2019: A 315 billion-tonne iceberg, named ‘D28', calves from Amery ice shelf, Antarctica.