September 9
Today's:

490 B.C. - The Battle of Marathon took place between the invading Persian army and the Athenian Army. The marathon race was derived from the events that occurred surrounding this battle.

1776 - The second Continental Congress officially made the term "United States", replacing the previous term "United Colonies."

1836 - Abraham Lincoln received his license to practice law.

1850 - California became the 31st state to join the union.

1898 - In Omaha, NE, Tommy Fleming of Eau Claire, WI won the first logrolling championship.

1890 - Harland Sanders was born. He was the founder of Kentucky Fried Chicken.

1893 - U.S. President Grover Cleveland's wife, Frances Cleveland, gave birth to a daughter, Esther. It was the first time a president's child was born in the White House.

1904 - Mounted police were used for the first time in the City of New York.

1911 - Italy declared war on the Ottoman Turks and annexed Libya, Tripolitania, and Cyrenaica in North Africa.

1919 - The majority of Boston's police force went on strike. The force was made up of 1,500 men.

1919 - Alexander Graham Bell and Casey Baldwin's HD-4, a hydrofoil craft, set a world marine speed record.

1926 - The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) was created by the Radio Corporation of America (RCA).

1942 - Japan dropped incendiaries over Oregon in an attempt to set fire to the forests in Oregon and Washington. The forest did not ignite.

1943 - During World War II Allied forces landed at Taranto and Salerno.

1946 - Ben Alexander hosted "Heart’s Desire" for the first time on the Mutual Broadcasting System.

1948 - North Korea became the People's Democratic Republic of Korea.

1950 - Sal Maglie of the New York Giants pitched a fourth consecutive shutout. Only four other pitchers in the National League had ever accomplished this feat.

1957 - The first civil rights bill to pass Congress since Reconstruction was signed into law by U.S. President Eisenhower.

1965 - French President Charles de Gaulle announced that France was withdrawing from NATO to protest the domination of the U.S. in the organization.

1965 - Sandy Koufax of the Los Angeles Dodgers pitched the eighth perfect game in major league baseball history.

1971 - Inmates seized control of the Attica Correctional Facility near Buffalo, NY. Nine prisoners were held hostage and died along with their 32 captors when the prison was stormed four days later.

1971 - Gordie Howe of the Detroit Red Wings retired from the National Hockey League (NHL).

1976 - Communist Chinese leader Mao Tse-tung died at the age of 82.

1979 - Tracy Austin, at 16, became the youngest player to win the U.S. Open women’s tennis title.

1981 - Nicaragua declared a state of economic emergency and banned strikes.

1983 - The Soviet Union announced that the Korean jetliner the was shot down on September 1, 1983 was not an accident or an error.

1984 - Walter Payton of the Chicago Bears broke Jim Brown’s combined yardage record when he reached 15,517 yards.

1986 - Frank Reed was taken hostage in Lebanon by pro-Iranian kidnappers. The director of a private school in Lebanon was released 44 months later.

1986 - Ted Turner presented the first of his colorized films on WTBS in Atlanta, GA.

1986 - Gennadiy Zakharov was indicted by a New York jury on espionage charges. Zakharov was a Soviet United Nations employee.

1987 - Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer aired for the last time on CBS.

1990 - Liberian President Samuel K. Doe was captured and killed by rebels.

1993 - Israeli and PLO leaders agreed to recognize each other.

1993 - Former Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos was buried in his homeland. The event occurred about four years after his death in exile.

1993 - U.S. and Pakistani peacekeepers opened fire on Somalis that were attacking other peacekeepers. About a hundred Somali gunmen and civilians were killed.

1994 - The U.S. agreed to accept about 20,000 Cuban immigrants a year. This was in return for Cuba's promise to halt the flight of refugees.

1994 - Los Angeles prosecutors announced that they would not seek the death penalty against O.J. Simpson.

1994 - The space shuttle Discovery blasted off on an 11-day mission.

1995 - Amtrak's Broadway Limited service made its final run between New York City, NY and Chicago, IL.

1997 - Sinn Fein, the IRA's political ally, formally renounced violence as it took its place in talks on Northern Ireland's future.

1998 - Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr delivered to the U.S. Congress 36 boxes of material concerning his investigation of U.S. President Clinton.

1998 - Four tourists who had paid $32,500 each were taken in submarine to view the wreckage of the Titanic. The ship is 2 miles below the Atlantic off Newfoundland.

1999 - At least 93 people were killed when a bomb exploded in an apartment building in Moscow, Russia.

1999 - The Sega Dreamcast game system went on sale. By 1:00pm all Toys R Us locations in the U.S. had sold out.

2008 - The iTunes Music Store reached 100 million applications downloaded.

2009 - The iTunes Music Store reached 1.8 billion applications downloaded. Today's: