TODAY’S HISTORY LESSON – SEPT 11
1297 Scots under William Wallace defeat the English at Stirling Bridge.
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.
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.
1847 Stephen Foster’s “Oh! Susanna” is first performed in a saloon in Pittsburgh.
1850 Soprano opera singer Jenny Lind, the “Swedish Nightingale,” makes her American debut at New York’s Castle Garden Theater.
1864 A 10-day truce is declared between generals William Sherman and John Hood so civilians may leave Atlanta, Georgia.
1857 Indians incited by Mormon John D. Lee kill 120 California-bound settlers in the Mountain Meadows Massacre.
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.
1919 US marines invade Honduras
1939 President Franklin Delano Roosevelt dedicated Boulder Dam (now Hoover Dam) in Nevada.
1941 Charles Lindbergh, charges “the British, the Jewish & the Roosevelt administration” are trying to get the US into WW II
1959 The U.S. Congress passed a bill authorizing the creation of food stamps.
1960 Politicians have asked the people and businesses in West Germany to boycott all goods from communist East Germany in protest to the communist squeeze on West Germany.
1970 Calls for a significant cut in interest rates from the current 8% to 6% to boost the flagging economy appear to be losing ground to the banking sector who say any large cut would create an inflation cycle.
1973 President Salvador Allende was killed today during a military coup led by General Augusto Pinochet.
1978 Georgi Markov who had defected to the west has died of blood poisoning, four days after he said he was stabbed with an poisoned umbrella tip at a London bus stop.
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”.
2000 As oil prices continue to rise and the number of protests around the world increase, America the largest consumer of oil is now facing prices that may reach more than $1.70 per gallon causing concern over the effect on inflation.
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 detonates a nano-bomb; dubbed the “Father of All Bombs,” it is the largest non-nuclear weapon developed to date.
2011 The Occupy Wall Street movement began in Zuccotti Park in the Wall Street District of New York City
2012 US consulate in Benghazi, Libya, is attacked and burned down; 4 Americans are killed including the US ambassador, J. Christopher Stevens.
** history.net, onthisday.com, infoplease.com, timeanddate.com, thepeoplehistory.com, on-this-day.com **
