TODAY’S HISTORY LESSON – SEPT 20
451 Roman General Flavius Aetius defeats Attila the Hun at The Battle of the Catalaunian Plains (Chalons-sur-Marne), halting Hun invasion of Roman Gaul
480 Themistocles and his Greek fleet win one of history’s first decisive naval victories over Xerxes’ Persian force off Salamis.
622 Islamic Prophet Muhammed/Abu Bakr arrives in Jathrib (Medina)
1378 The election of Robert of Geneva as anti-pope by discontented cardinals creates a great schism in the Catholic church.
1519 Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan left Spain to find a route to the Spice Islands of Indonesia. Magellan was killed during the trip, but one of his ships eventually made the journey.
1664 Maryland enacts 1st anti-amaglmation law to prevent widespread intermarriage of English women & black men
1784 Packet and Daily, the first daily publication in America, appears on the streets.
1853 The Allies defeat the Russians at the Battle of Alma on the Crimean Peninsula.
1881 Chester A. Arthur was sworn in as the 21st president of the United States, succeeding James A. Garfield, who had been assassinated.
1884 Equal Rights Party nominates female candidates for Pres & VP
1921 KDKA in Pittsburgh, PA, started a daily radio newscast. It was one of the first in the U.S.
1933 The Pittsburgh Steelers make their first appearance in the National Football League. In their first game, they played the New York Giants and lost with a score of 23-2.
1952 Scientists confirm that DNA holds hereditary data.
1958 Martin Luther King Jr stabbed in chest by a deranged black woman in NYC
1962 James Meredith, a black student, was blocked from enrolling at the University of Mississippi by Governor Ross R. Barnett. Meredith was later admitted.
1967 Israeli Tank gunners sank three Egyptian patrol boats carrying armed soldiers travelling down the blocked Suez Canal heightening tension in the area.
1973 Billy beats Bobby… Billie Jean King beat Bobby Riggs in a battle of the sexes tennis match.
1982 U.S. President Ronald Reagan announced that the U.S., France, and Italy were going to send peacekeeping troops back to Beirut.
1982 NFL players begin a 57 day strike
1984 Suicide car bomber attacks US embassy in Beirut, Lebanon, killing 22.
2000 Independent Counsel Robert Ray announced the end of the Whitewater investigation, saying there was insufficient evidence to charge President Clinton and his wife, Hillary.
2000 British MI6 Secret intelligence Service building in London attacked by unidentified group using RPG-22 anti-tank missile.
2001 In an address to a joint session of Congress and the American people, US President George W. Bush declares a “war on terror”
2008 A truck loaded with explosives detonates by Marriott hotel in Islamabad, Pakistan, killing 45 and injuring 226.
2011 US military ends its “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy and allows gay men and women to serve openly.
** history.net, onthisday.com, infoplease.com, timeanddate.com, thepeoplehistory.com, on-this-day.com **
