TODAY’S HISTORY LESSON – SEPT 25
1066 Battle of Stamford Bridge: English army under King Harold II defeat invading Norwegians led by King Harald Hardrada and Harold’s brother Tostig, who were both killed
1396 The last great Christian crusade, led jointly by John the Fearless of Nevers and King Sigismund of Hungary, ends in disaster at the hands of Sultan Bayezid I’s Ottoman army at Nicopolis.
1513 Spanish explorer Vasco Nunez de Balboa crosses the Panama Isthmus becoming first European to see the Pacific Ocean
1690 One of America’s earliest newspapers published its first and last edition. The “Publik Occurences Both Foreign and Domestik” was published at the London Coffee House in Boston, MA, by Benjamin Harris.
1775 British troops capture Ethan Allen, the hero of Ticonderoga, when he and a handful of Americans try to invade Canada.
1789 The first Congress adopted 12 amendments to the Constitution and sent them to the states for ratification. The first ten became the Bill of Rights.
1804 The 12th Amendment is ratified, changing the procedure of choosing the president and vice-president.
1846 During the Mexican-American War, U.S. forces led by General Zachary Taylor captured Monterrey Mexico.
1890 Wilford Woodruff, president of the Mormon church, renounced the practice of polygamy. This paved the way for Utah’s acceptance as a state in 1896.
1890 Congress establishes Yosemite National Park (Calif)
1906 Leonardo Torres Quevedo successfully demonstrates the Telekino at Bilbao before a great crowd, guiding a boat from the shore, considered the birth of the remote control
1926 Henry Ford announces the 8 hour, 5-day work week
1942 The War Labor Board orders equal pay for women in the United States.
1974 Scientists warn that continued use of aerosol sprays will cause ozone depletion, which will lead to an increased risk of skin cancer and global weather changes.
1978 Melissa Ludtke, a writer for “Sports Illustrated”, filed a suit in U.S. District Court. The result was that Major League Baseball could not bar female writers from the locker room after the game.
1981 Women in the Supreme Court…. Sandra Day O’Connor was sworn in as the first female justice on the Supreme Court.
1983 A Soviet military officer, Stanislav Petrov, averted a potential worldwide nuclear war. He declared a false alarm after a U.S. attack was detected by a Soviet early warning system. It was later discovered the alarms had been set off when the satellite warning system mistakenly interpreted sunlight reflections off clouds as the presence of enemy missiles.
1983 Maze Prison escape, County Antrim, Northern Ireland; 38 IRA prisoners escape in the largest prison breakout in British history; known among Irish republicans as the Great Escape
1986 Antonin Scalia appointed to the Supreme Court
1996 Ireland’s last Magdalene laundry closes; begun as asylums to rehabilitate “fallen women,” they increasingly took on prison-like qualities.
2002 U.S. forces landed in Ivory Coast to aid in the rescue foreigners trapped in a school by fighting between government troops and rebel troops. Rebels had attempted to take over the government on September 19.
2009 US President Barack Obama, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, and French President Nicolas Sarkozy jointly accuse Iran of building a secrecy nuclear enrichment facility
2011 King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia grants women the right to vote and run for office in future elections.
** history.net, onthisday.com, infoplease.com, timeanddate.com, thepeoplehistory.com, on-this-day.com **
