TODAY’S HISTORY LESSON – SEPT 14
1321 Dante Alighieri dies of malaria just hours after finishing writing Paradiso.
1791 Louis XVI swears his allegiance to the French constitution.
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 wrote the “Star-Spangled Banner,” a poem originally known as “Defense of Fort McHenry,” after witnessing the British bombardment of Fort McHenry, MD, during the War of 1812. The song became the official U.S. national anthem on March 3, 1931.
1847 U.S. forces under Gen. Winfield Scott capture Mexico City, virtually bringing the two-year Mexican War to a close
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.
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 Congress passed the Selective Service Act, providing for the first peacetime draft in U.S. history.
1956 1st prefrontal lobotomy performed in Washington, D.C.
1960 Iraq, Iran, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia form OPEC.
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.
1966 Operation Attleboro, designed as a training exercise for American troops, becomes a month-long struggle against the Viet Cong.
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.
2001 The FBI released the names of the 19 suspected hijackers that had taken part in the September 11 terror attacks on the U.S.
2001 Following the terrorist attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon 3 days ago, the President of the United States George W Bush has put the nation on maximum alert and approved the call up of thousands of reservists, congress has rushed through an emergency bill providing 40 billion dollars for the war on terrorism and the capture of Osama Bin Laden.
** history.net, onthisday.com, infoplease.com, timeanddate.com, thepeoplehistory.com, on-this-day.com **
