September 11


Today's:


1297 - Scotsman William Wallace defeated the English forces of Sir Hugh de Cressingham at the Battle of Stirling Bridge.

1499 - French forces took over Milan, Italy.

1609 - Explorer Henry Hudson sailed into New York harbor and discovered Manhattan Island and the Hudson River.

1695 - Imperial troops under Eugene of Savoy defeated the Turks at the Battle of Zenta.

1709 - An Anglo-Dutch-Austrian force defeated the French in the Battle of Malplaquet.

1714 - Spanish and French troops broke into Barcelona and ended Catalonia's sovereignty after 13 months of seige.

1776 - A Peace Conference was held between British General Howe and three representatives of the Continental Congress (Benjamin Franklin, John Adams and Edward Rutledge). The conference failed and the American war for independence continued for seven years.

1777 - American forces, under General George Washington, were forced to retreat at the Battle of Brandywine Creek by British forces under William Howe. The Stars and Stripes (American flag) were carried for the first time in the battle.

1786 - The Convention of Annapolis opened with the aim of revising the articles of the confederation.

1789 - Alexander Hamilton was appointed by U.S. President George Washington to be the first secretary of the treasury.

1814 - The U.S. fleet defeated a squadron of British ships in the Battle of Lake Champlain, VT.

1842 - 1,400 Mexican troops captured San Antonio, TX. The Mexicans retreated with prisoners.

1855 - The siege of Sevastopol ended when French, British and Piedmontese troops captured the main naval base of the Russian Black fleet in the Crimean War.

1875 - "Professor Tidwissel's Burglar Alarm" was featured in the New York Daily Graphic and became the first comic strip to appear in a newspaper.

1877 - The first comic-character timepiece was patented by the Waterbury Clock Company.

1883 - The mail chute was patented by James Cutler. The new device was first used in the Elwood Building in Rochester, NY.

1897 - A ten-week strike of coal workers in Pennsylvania, WV, and Ohio came to an end. The workers won and eight-hour workday, semi-monthly pay, and company stores were abolished.

1904 - The U.S. battleship Connecticut was launched in New York.

1910 - In Hollywood, the first commercially successful electric bus line opened.







1926 - In Honolulu Harbor, HI, the Aloha Tower was dedicated.

1936 - Boulder Dam in Nevada was dedicated by U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt by turning on the dam's first hydroelectric generator. The dam is now called Hoover Dam.

1941 - U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt gave orders to attack any German or Italian vessels found in U.S. defensive waters. The U.S. had not officially entered World War II at this time.

1941 - Charles A. Lindbergh brought on charges of anti-Semitism with a speech in which he blamed "the British, the Jewish and the Roosevelt administration" for trying to draw the United States into World War II.

1941 - In Arlington, VA, the groundbreaking ceremony for the Pentagon took place.

1951 - Florence Chadwick became the first woman to swim the English Channel from both directions.

1952 - Dr. Charles Hufnagel successfully replaced a diseased aorta valve with an artificial valve made of plastic.

1954 - The Miss America beauty pageant made its network TV debut on ABC. Miss California, Lee Ann Meriwether, was the winner.

1959 - The U.S. Congress passed a bill authorizing the creation of food stamps.

1964 - "Friday Night Fights" was seen for the last time.

1965 - The 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile) arrived in South Vietnam and was stationed at An Khe.

1967 - The Carol Burnett Show premiered on CBS.

1970 - The last "Get Smart" episode aired on CBS-TV.

1974 - "Little House On The Prairie" made its television debut.

1974 - The St. Louis Cardinals and the New York Mets set a National League record when they played 25 innings. It was the second longest game in professional baseball history.

1977 - The Atari 2600 was released. It was originally sold as the Atari VCS. The system was discontinued on January 1, 1992.

1985 - Pete Rose (Cincinnati Reds) achieved hit number 4,192 to break the record held by Ty Cobb.

1985 - A U.S. satellite passed through the tail of the Giacobini-Zinner comet. It was the first on-the-spot sampling of a comet.







1990 - U.S. President Bush vowed "Saddam Hussein will fail" while addressing Congress on the Persian Gulf crisis. In the speech Bush spoke of an objective of a new world order - "freer from the threat of terror, stronger in the pursuit of justice, and more secure in the quest for peace".

1991 - Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev announced that thousands of troops would be drawn out of Cuba.

1997 - John Lee Hooker received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

1997 - Scotland voted to create its own Parliament after 290 years of union with England.

1998 - Independent counsel Kenneth Starr sent a report to the U.S. Congress accusing President Clinton of 11 possible impeachable offenses.

1999 - The Wall Street Journal reported that Bayer Corp. had quit putting a wad of cotton in their bottles of aspirin. Bayer had actually stopped the practice earlier in the year.

2001 - In the U.S., four airliners were hijacked and were intentionally crashed. Two airliners hit the World Trade Center, which collapsed shortly after, in New York City, NY. One airliner hit the Pentagon in Arlington, VA. Another airliner crashed into a field in Pennsylvania. About 3,000 people were killed.

2012 - Terrorists attacked the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya. Four Americans were brutally murdered and ten others were injured.















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