TODAY’S HISTORY LESSON – SEPT 14
1321 Dante Alighieri dies of malaria just hours after finishing writing Paradiso.
1773 Russian forces under Aleksandr Suvorov successfully storm a Turkish fort at Hirsov, Turkey.
1791 Louis XVI swears his allegiance to the French constitution.
1807 Former U.S. Vice President Aaron Burr was acquitted of a misdemeanor charge. Two weeks earlier Burr had been found innocent of treason.
1812 Napoleon Bonaparte’s invasion of Russia reaches its climax as his Grande Armee enters Moscow–only to find the enemy capital deserted and burning, set afire by the few Russians who remained.
1814 Francis Scott Key writes the words to the “Star Spangled Banner” as he waits aboard a British launch in the Chesapeake Bay for the outcome of the British assault on Fort McHenry during the War of 1812.
1901 Vice President Theodore Roosevelt is sworn in as the 26th President of the United States upon the death of William McKinley, who was shot eight days earlier.
1911 Russian Premier Pyotr Stolypin is mortally wounded in an assassination attempt at the Kiev opera house.
1935 The US Secretary of State Hull apologized to the German Ambassador for a Judges insulting remarks about the Nazi Swastika flag, and assured the German Government these are not the views of the American Government who will respect a countries sovereign right to choose a flag.
1939 World’s 1st practical helicopter, the VS-300 designed by Igor Sikorsky takes (tethered) flight in Stratford, Connecticut
1940 The Selective Service Act was passed by the U.S. Congress providing the first peacetime draft in the United States.
1951 A seedless watermelon has been developed at Purdue University it is round and will weigh about 8 to 10 pounds, it could well be seen on sale in parts of the country by next year.
1956 1st prefrontal lobotomy performed in Washington, D.C.
1966 Operation Attleboro, designed as a training exercise for American troops, becomes a month-long struggle against the Viet Cong.
1966 The minimum wage is to a new rate of $1.40 an hour which would include State and local government workers at public schools and nursing homes, as well as the construction industry.
1975 Mother Elizabeth Ann Seton becomes the first native-born American saint in the Roman Catholic Church.1979 Nur Muhammad Taraki, president and former prime minister of Afghanistan, is assassinated in a coup in which prime minister Hafizullah Amin seizes power.
1982 Bachir Gemayel, president-elect of Lebanon, is killed along with 26 others in a bomb blast in Beirut.
1989 Joseph T. Wesbecker shot and killed eight people and wounded twelve others at a printing plant in Louisville, KY. Wesbecker, 47 years old, was on disability for mental illness. He took his own life after the incident.
1991 After meetings between the US secretary of State and President Gorbachev a joint announcement has been made that the US will no longer supply arms to the US backed Rebels and The Soviet Union would stop supplying weapons to the Government in hopes that a peace can be reached in the war torn country.
1994 Major League Baseball players strike over a salary cap and other proposed changes, forcing the cancellation of the entire postseason and the World Series.
2006 An outbreak of 200 Escherichia coli (E. coli) illnesses in 26 states is traced to the bacteria in organic bagged fresh spinach grown on a 50 acre farm in San Benito County, California.
** history.net, onthisday.com, infoplease.com, timeanddate.com, thepeoplehistory.com, on-this-day.com **
