TODAY’S HISTORY LESSON: SEPTEMBER 12
1609 Henry Hudson sails into what is now New York Harbor aboard his sloop Half Moon.
1649 Drogheda, Ireland falls to Puritan troops; inhabitants massacred
1722 The Treaty of St. Petersburg puts an end to the Russo-Persian War.
1758 French astronomer Charles Messier mistakenly identifies the Crab Nebula so begins his Messier Catalogue
1786 Despite his failed efforts to suppress the American Revolution, Lord Cornwallis is appointed governor general of India.
1878 Patent litigation involving the Bell Telephone Company against Western Union Telegraph Company and Elisha Gray began. The issues were over various telephone patents.
1909 World’s first patent for synthetic rubber granted to German chemist Fritz Hofmann
1922 The Episcopal Church removed the word “Obey” from the bride’s section of wedding vows.
1933 Leó Szilárd, waiting for a red light on Southampton Row in Bloomsbury, conceives idea of a nuclear chain reaction
1940 Four teens, following their dog down a hole near Lascaux, France discover 17,000 year old drawings now known as the Lascaux Cave Paintings
1943 The Gran Sasso Raid is conducted by the German paratroopers at the behest of Hitler to rescue Italian dictator Benito Mussolini from his Italian captors
1958 US Supreme Court orders the all-white Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas to integrate
1966 “The Monkees,” premier on NBC
1969 President Richard Nixon orders a resumption in bombing North Vietnam.
1974 Violence occurred on the opening day of classes in Boston, MA, due opposition to court-ordered school “busing.”
1977 South African anti-apartheid activist Stephen Biko died at the age of 30. The student leader died while in police custody which triggered an international outcry.
1980 The latest census figures released for Detroit confirm what many have believed and confirmed the worst fears showing that the population of the city has decreased by 23% in just 10 years.
1983 USSR vetoes UN resolution deploring its shooting down of Korean plane
1990 East and West Germany, along with the UK, US and USSR—the Allied nations that had occupied post-WWII Germany—sign the final settlement for reunification of Germany.
1997 Figures just released show that more Americans were declaring bankruptcy in an attempt to leave credit cards debts behind them
2001 Following the Terrorist attacks on the United States President George W. Bush calls the attacks “acts of war” against the United States and announced a war against terrorism
2002 The chairman of the US Federal Reserve Alan Greenspan has urged Congress and the administration it must balance the federal budget and restrain the desire to cut taxes while raising levels of public spending
2003 UN lifts sanctions against Libya in exchange for that country accepting responsibility for the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 in 1988 and paying recompense to victims’ families.
2008 The highest ranking judge in Saudi Arabia stated that it is acceptable to kill owners of certain satellite television channels while being interviewed on a radio program. He said that the owners of channels that show immoral or evil programs should be killed if they are not punished in other ways. ( Saudi judge calls for murder of satellite channel owners | Saudi Arabia | The Guardian )
REFERENCE: history.net, onthisday.com, thepeopleshistory.com, timeanddate.com, scopesys.com, on-this-day.com
