TODAY’S HISTORY LESSON: SEPT 11
1297 Scots under William Wallace defeat the English at Stirling Bridge.
1609 Henry Hudson discovers Manhattan island
1709 John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough, wins the bloodiest battle of the 18th century at great cost, against the French at Malplaquet.
1740 The first mention of an African American doctor or dentist in the colonies is made in the Pennsylvania Gazette.
1773 Benjamin Franklin writes “There never was a good war or bad peace.”
1776 A Peace Conference was held between British General Howe and three representatives of the Continental Congress (Benjamin Franklin, John Adams and Edward Rutledge). The conference failed and the American war for independence continued for seven years.
1777 General George Washington and his troops are defeated by the British under General Sir William Howe at the Battle of Brandywine in Pennsylvania.
1789 Alexander Hamilton was appointed the first Secretary of the Treasury.
1814 U.S. forces led by Thomas Macdonough route the British fleet on Lake Champlain.
1842 1,400 Mexican troops captured San Antonio, TX. The Mexicans retreated with prisoners.
1847 Stephen Foster’s “Oh! Susanna” is first performed in a saloon in Pittsburgh.
1857 Indians incited by Mormon John D. Lee kill 120 California-bound settlers in the Mountain Meadows Massacre.
1864 A 10-day truce is declared between generals William Sherman and John Hood so civilians may leave Atlanta, Georgia.
1897 A ten-week strike of coal workers in Pennsylvania, WV, and Ohio came to an end. The workers won and eight-hour workday, semi-monthly pay, and company stores were abolished.
1910 1st commercially successful electric bus line opens (Hollywood)
1916 The “Star Spangled Banner” is sung at the beginning of a baseball game for the first time in Cooperstown, New York.
1919 US marines invade Honduras
1941 Charles A. Lindbergh brought on charges of anti-Semitism with a speech in which he blamed “the British, the Jewish and the Roosevelt administration” for trying to draw the United States into World War II.
1950 Dick Tracy TV show sparks uproar concerning violence
1952 West German Chancellor Adenauer signs a reparation pact for Jews
1977 The Atari 2600 was released. It was originally sold as the Atari VCS. The system was discontinued on January 1, 1992.
1990 U.S. President Bush vowed “Saddam Hussein will fail” while addressing Congress on the Persian Gulf crisis. In the speech Bush spoke of an objective of a new world order – “freer from the threat of terror, stronger in the pursuit of justice, and more secure in the quest for peace”.
1997 In Scotland, voters approved the establishment of a parliament to run their domestic affairs, after 290 years of union with England
1998 Independent counsel Kenneth Starr sent a report to the U.S. Congress accusing President Clinton of 11 possible impeachable offenses.
1999 The Wall Street Journal reported that Bayer Corp. had quit putting a wad of cotton in their bottles of aspirin. Bayer had actually stopped the practice earlier in the year.
2001 In an unprecedented, highly coordinated attack, terrorists hijack four U.S. passenger airliners, flying two into the World Trade Center towers in New York and one into the Pentagon, killing thousands. The fourth airliner, headed toward Washington likely to strike the White House or Capitol, is crashed just over 100 miles away in Pennsylvania after passengers storm the cockpit and overtake the hijackers.
2005 Israel completes its unilateral disengagement of all Israeli civilians and military from the Gaza Strip.
2007 Russia Tests Father of All Bombs. The world’s most powerful non-nuclear bomb was a thermobaric bomb – it detonated mid-air and uses the oxygen in the air to create an explosion
2011 Occupy Wall Street movement begins
2012 US consulate in Benghazi, Libya, is attacked and burned down; 4 Americans are killed including the US ambassador, J. Christopher Stevens.
REFERENCE: HISTORY.NET, ONTHISDAY.COM, TIMEANDDATE.COM, INFOPLEASE.COM, FACTMONSTER.COM, SCOPESYS.COM, ON-THIS-DAY.COM, THEPEOPLEHISTORY.COM
