Today in
History ~ September 16
Independence Day, celebrated in
Mexico.
Events
1620 - 102
passengers and crew set sail on the Mayflower from Plymouth,
England [H]
1630 - Mass village of Shawmut changes name to Boston
1668 - King John II Casimir of Poland resigns, flees to France
1741 - George Frederick Handel's "The Messiah,"
premieres in Dublin
1782 - Great Seal of the United States is used for 1st time.
1810 - Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, a Catholic priest, launched the
Mexican War of Independence
1812 - Fire of Moscow, set during Napoleon's occupation there
1830 - Oliver Wendell Holmes writes "Old Ironsides"
1835 - Darwin Arrived at the Galapagos Archipelago
1857 - Mexican constitution of force (fiercely attacked by Pope
Pius IX (Pio Nono) soon to be a saint)
1857 - Typesetting machine patented
1864 - Battle of Coggin's Point, Virginia (Hampton-Rosser Cattle
Raid)
1906 - Roald Amundsen discovers Magnetic South Pole
1915 - Czar Nicolas II adjourns 4th Duma
1915 - One hundred and ten years after former slave Toussaint
L'Ouverture led a successful revolution against Napoleon
Bonaparte's colonial forces, Haiti became a U.S. protectorate
under the terms of a ten-year treaty. After Toussaint's death, a
succession of nineteenth-century dictatorships and a continual
state of bankruptcy encouraged U.S. intervention and the loss of
Haitian autonomy.
1919 [ The American Legion is incorporated.
1920 - Bomb explosion in Wall Street, kills 30
1920 - Enrico Caruso made his last recording for Victor Records
in Camden, NJ
1928 - Hurricane hits West Palm Beach-Lake Okeechobee Florida;
3,000 die
1931 - Blimp is moored to Empire State Building (NYC)
1938 - Tommy Dorsey and his orchestra recorded the swing classic,
"Boogie Woogie", for Victor Records.
1940 - FDR signs Selective Training & Service Act (1st
peacetime draft)
1940 - Leo Durocher suspended from Ebbetts Field for
"inciting a riot"
1940 - Luftwaffe attacks center of London
1940 - Samuel T Rayburn of Tx elected speaker of House
1941 - German armor troops surround Kiev Ukraine
1941 - Hitler orders for every dead German, 100 Yugoslavians will
be killed
1941 - Jews of Vilna Poland confined to Ghetto
1942 - Japanese attack on Port Moresby repelled
1950 - Viet Minh-offensive against French bases in Vietnam
1959 - President De Gaulle recognizes Algerian right of self
determination
1960 - Amos Alonzo Stagg retires as a football coach at 98
1963 - Malaysia formed from Malaya, Singapore, Br No Borneo &
Sarawak
1965 - Sobibor trial opens in Hagen West Germany
1966 - Metropolitan Opera opens its new home at NY's Lincoln
Center with Samuel Barber's "Cleopatra"
1968 - Richard Nixon appears on "Laugh-in" ("Sock
it to me?")
1971 - 6 Klansmen arrested in connection with bombing of 10
school buses
1973 - Buffalo Bill OJ Simpson rushes 250 yards (2 TDs), beating
NE 31-13
1974 - Charges against Russell Means and Dennis Banks, leaders of
the American Indian Movement (AIM), were dismissed by a federal
judge due to the U.S. government's unlawful handling of witnesses
and evidence. AIM was founded by Means, Banks, and other Native
leaders in 1968 as a militant political and civil rights
organization.
1974 - President Ford offered conditional amnesty to Vietnam draft evaders. He
said they could come home if they performed up to two years of public service.
1974 - US General Alexander Haig becomes NATO-supreme commander
in Europe
1976 - Episcopal Church approves ordination of women as priests
and bishop
1978 - 25,000 die in 7.7 earthquake in Tabar Iran
1978 - Filming on Monty Python's "Life of Brian" begins
1981 - Boxer "Sugar" Ray Leonard, at age 25, knocked
out Thomas "The Hit Man" Hearns. Leonard won the
welterweight boxing championship -- and the richest payday in
boxing history
1982 - Hundreds of Palestinian men, women, and children were
massacred by Lebanese Christian militiamen in west Beirut's Sabra
and Chatilla refugee camps
1984 - "Miami Vice" premieres
1986 - Fire and fumes in the Kinross mine killed 177 people in South Africa's
worst gold mine disaster.
1987 - Two dozen nations signed the Montreal Protocol designed to
save the earth's ozone layer
1991 - The Philippine Senate rejected a U.S. lease on the Subic Bay Naval
Station.
1992 - 900 die in flood in Pakistan
1992 - FCC votes to allow competition for local phone service
1994 - A federal court jury in Anchorage, Alaska, ordered Exxon to pay $5
billion dollars to the fishermen and natives
whose lives were affected by the Exxon Valdez oil spill in 1989. It was the
second largest assessment for punitive damages ever directed at one company, and
the largest ever in a pollution case.
1997 - Mark McGwire signs with the St Louis Cards for $26M
1999 - At least 18 people were killed and 200 more injured in the bombing of an
apartment building in Volgodonsk, Russia.
1999 - Congress gave a pay raise to future U.S. presidents, from $200,000 a year
to $400,000.
Birthdays
Today
1386 - Traversari Ambrosius, Italian humanist//sciencist/general
1387 - Henry V, king of England (1413-22)
1638 - Louis XIV, [Sun King], King of France (1643-1715)
1685 - John Gay, English poet (Beggar's Opera)
1822 - Charles S. Crocker, of Southern Pacific fame.
1823 - Francis Parkman (author: The Oregon Trail; passed away in 1893)
1832 - George Washington Custis Lee, Major General (Confederate Army)
1838 - James J Hill, Canada, RR entrepreneur (Great Northern Railroad)
1875 - J.C. (James Cash) Penney (merchant: founder: J.C. Penney Co.; passed away Feb 12, 1971)
1880 - Alfred Noyes, British poet/essayist (Loom of Years, Highwayman)
1890 - George Whitney Calhoun (sportswriter: Green Bay Press Gazette; cofounder [w/Earl Curly Lambeau] of Green Bay Packers [Calhoun named the team])
1891 - Karl Donitz, German grand admiral/"Weekend Fuhrer" (1945)
1893 - Albert Szent-Gyorgyi, Hungary, biochemist (Vitamin C, Nobel 1937)
1893 - Alexander Korda, British movie producer (Third Man)
1908 - Buster Mills (baseball)
1914 - Allen Funt (radio/TV producer, host: Candid Microphone, Candid Camera; films: What Do You Say to a Naked Lady?, Money Talks; passed away Sep 5, 1999)
1916 - Arleen Whelan (actress: Never Wave at a WAC, Ramrod)
1919 - Marvin Middlemark (inventor: rabbit ears TV antenna)
1923 - Janis Paige (Donna Mae Tjaden) (actress: The Pajama Game, Silk Stockings, Please Don't Eat the Daisies, Hero)
1924 - Lauren Bacall (Betty Perske) (actress: Key Largo, Applause, Woman of the Year, How to Marry a Millionaire, To Have and Have Not; married actor Humphrey Bogart)
[H]
1925 - B.B. (Riley B.) King (musician, singer: The Thrill Is Gone, I Like to Live the Love, Rock Me Baby; appeared in films: Into the Night, Amazon Women of the Moon; Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award [1987])
1925 - Charlie Byrd (musician: guitar: Meditation, Desafinado [w/Stan Getz]; passed away Nov 30, 1999)
1925 - Morgan Woodward (actor: Dark Before Dawn, The Longest Drive)
1926 - John Knowles (author: Backcasts: Memories & Recollections of Seventy Years as a Sportsman)
1926 - Robert Schuller, televangelist (Glass Cathedral, Hour of Power)
1927 - Jack Kelly (actor: Maverick, Dr. Hudson's Secret Journal, Get Christie Love, To Hell and Back; host: NBC Comedy Theater; mayor: Huntington Beach, California)
1927 - Peter Falk (Emmy Award-winning actor: The Price of Tomatoes: The Dick Powell Show [1961-62]; Columbo [1971-72, 1974-75, 1975-76, 1989-90]; Murder by Death, Pocketful of Miracles, The Great Race, The In-Laws, The Princess Bride)
1930 - Anne Francis (actress: Funny Girl, Blackboard Jungle, Laguna Heat, Battle Cry, Bad Day at Black Rock, Born Again)
1933 - George Chakiris (Academy Award-winning actor, dancer: West Side Story [1961], Is Paris Burning, Dallas)
1934 - Elgin Baylor (basketball: LA Lakers: holds NBA Playoff Record for points scored in a game [61], and for points scored in a playoff series [284] [both in 1962])
1934 - Elgin Baylor (basketball: LA Lakers: holds NBA Playoff Record for points scored in a game [61], and for points scored in a playoff series [284] [both in 1962])
1934 - George Chakiris (Academy Award-winning actor, dancer: West Side Story [1961]; Is Paris Burning, Dallas)
1938 - Larry Grantham (football: NY Jets linebacker: Super Bowl III)
1943 - Bernie Calvert (musician: bass: group: The Hollies: The Air that I Breathe; group: The Dolphins)
1944 - Betty Kelly (singer: group: Martha and the Vandellas: Dancing in the Street)
1944 - Linda Henning (actress: Petticoat Junction)
1947 - Cartoonist Jeff MacNelly
1948 - Kenny Jones (musician: drums: group: Small Faces, Faces: Stay with Me; group: The Who)
1949 - Ed Begley, Jr. (actor: St. Elsewhere, Parenthood, She-Devil, The Applegates, The Accidental Tourist, The In-Laws)
1950 - David Bellamy (singer: duo: The Bellamy Brothers: Let Your Love Flow, If I Said You Had a Beautiful Body Would You Hold It Against Me; songwriter: Spiders and Snakes)
1950 - Susan Ruttan (actress: L.A. Law, Sweet 15, A Perfect Little Murder, Funny About Love, Fire and Rain, Chances Are, Bad Dreams, Eye of the Demon, Bad Manners)
1955 - Robin (R) Yount (baseball: Milwaukee Brewers outfielder [all-star: 1980, 1982, 1983/World Series: 1982/Baseball Writers' Award: 1982-shortstop, 1989-outfielder])
1956 - David Copperfield (Kotkin) (magician, illusionist)
1958 - Orel (Leonard Quinton) Hershiser (baseball: pitcher: LA Dodgers [all-star: 1987, 1988, 1989/World Series: 1988/Cy Young Award: 1988], Cleveland Indians [World Series: 1995])
1963 - Richard Marx (singer, songwriter: Hazard, Children of the Night, Too Late to Say Goodbye, Keep Coming Back, Angelia, Take This Heart, Right Here Waiting, Satisfied, Hold on to the Nights, Endless Summer Nights, Should've Known Better, Don't Mean Nothing)
1964 - Molly Shannon (actress: Saturday Night Live)
Famous
deaths
0096 - Titus Flavius Domitianus, emperor of Rome (81-96),
murdered at 45
0655 - Martinus I, bannished Pope (649-53)
1380 - Charles V (The Wise), King of France (1364-80),
1498 - Tomas de Torquemada, inquisitor who roasted 10,000
heretics, infidels, scoundrels, and freethnkers.
1542 - Diego de Almagro, Spanish captain-general of Peru,
beheaded
1824 - Louis XVIII, Duc de Provence/King of France (1814-24)
1925 - Leo Fall, Austria operetta composer (The Rose of Stambul)
1945 - John McCormack, Irish tenor
1946 - James Jeans, English physicist/mathematician/astronomer,
dies at 69
1977 - Maria Callas, American-born prima donna, dies in Paris at
53
1996 - McGeorge Bundy, US national security advisor (1961-66),
dies at 77
If
you have other Birthdays or events to add for this day please
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