September 23




63 B.C. - Caesar Augustus was born in Rome.

1642 - The first commencement at Harvard College, in Cambridge, MA, was held.

1713 - King Ferdinand VI of Spain was born in Madrid. He was king from 1746 to 1759.

1779 - John Paul Jones, commander of the American warship Bon Homme, was quoted as saying "I have not yet begun to fight!"

1780 - John Andre, a British spy, was captured with papers revealing that Benedict Arnold was going to surrender West Point, NY, to the British.

1806 - The Corps of Discovery, the Lewis and Clark expedition, reached St. Louis, MO, and ended the trip to the Pacific Northwest.

1838 - Victoria Chaflin Woodhull was born. She became the first female candidate for the U.S. Presidency.

1845 - The Knickerbocker Base Ball Club of New York was formed by Alexander Joy Cartwright. It was the first baseball team in America.

1846 - Astronomer Johann Gottfried Galle discovered the planet Neptune.

1897 - The first recorded traffic fatality in Great Britain occurred. It happened 2 years before the first fatality in the U.S.

1912 - "Keystone Comedy" by Mack Sennett was released.

1930 - Flashbulbs were patented by Johannes Ostermeier.

1939 - Sigmund Freud died in London. He was recognized as the founder of psychoanalysis.

1951 - The first transcontinental telecast was received on the west coast. The show "Crusade for Freedom" was broadcast by CBS-TV from New York.

1952 - The first Pay Television sporting event took place. The Marciano-Walcott fight was seen in 49 theaters in 31 cities.

1952 - Richard Nixon gave his "Checkers Speech". At the time he was a candidate for U.S. vice-president.

1953 - "The Robe" premiered in Hollywood a week after its premiere in New York. The 20th Century Fox movie had been filmed using the Cinemascope wide screen process.

1957 - Nine black students withdrew from Little Rock Central High School in Arkansas due to the white mob outside.

1962 - New York's Philharmonic Hall opened. It was the first unit of the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. The hall was later renamed the Avery Fisher Hall.

1962 - "The Jetsons" premiered on ABC-TV. It was the first program on the network to be carried in color.

1964 - The new ceiling painting of the Paris Opera house was unveiled. The work was done by Russian-born artist Marc Chagall.

1973 - Overthrown Argentine president Juan Peron was returned to power. He had been overthrown in 1955. His wife, Eva Duarte, was the subject of the musical "Evita."

1981 - The Reagan administration announced its plans for what became known as Radio Marti.

1986 - Japanese newspapers quoted Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone as saying that minorities lowered the "intelligence level" of America.

1990 - Iraq publicly threatened to destroy Middle East oil fields and to attack Israel if any nation tried to force it from Kuwait.

1991 - U.N. weapons inspectors find documents detailing Iraq's secret nuclear weapons program. The find in Baghdad triggered a standoff with authorities in Iraq.

1993 - The Israeli parliament ratified the Israel-PLO accord.

1993 - Blacks were allowed a role in the South African government after a parliamentary vote.

1998 - Jamie Lee Curtis received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

1999 - In Bryan, TX, Lawrence Russell Brewer was sentenced to death for the dragging death of James Byrd Jr. John William King was sentenced to die on February 25, 1999.

1999 - A 17-month-old girl fell 230 feet from the Capilano Suspension Bridge in North Vancouver, British Columbia. The girl had bruises but no broken limbs from the fall onto a rocky ledge.

1999 - Siegfried & Roy received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

1999 - Jean-Claude Van Damme was arrested for drunk driving and driving without a license after he crashed his Mercedes-Benz into a restaurant. On July 10, 2000, Van Damme was given three years probation and fined $1,200.