TODAY’S HISTORY LESSON – SEPT 16
1620 – The Mayflower departed from Plymouth, England. The ship arrived at Provincetown, MA, on November 21st and then at Plymouth, MA, on December 26th. There were 102 passengers onboard.
1782 – The Great Seal of the United States was impressed on document to negotiate a prisoner of war agreement with the British. It was the first official use of the impression.
1810 – Mexico issues Grito de Dolores, calling for the end of Spanish rule (Mexican Independence Day)
1893 – Some 50,000 “Sooners” claim land in the Cherokee Strip during the first day of the Oklahoma land rush.
1906 – Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen discovers the Magnetic South Pole
1908 – General Motors was founded by William C. Durant.
1919 – The American Legion was incorporated by an act of Congress.
1920 – Thirty people are killed in a terrorist bombing in New York’s Wall Street financial district.
1932 – Mahatma Gandhi begins his hunger strike in opposition to Britain’s new Caste Separation Laws.
1940 – U.S. President Roosevelt signed into law the Selective Training and Service Act, which set up the first peacetime military draft in U.S. history.
1974 – President Ford announced conditional amnesty for Vietnam War deserters and draft evaders.
1982 – Lebanese Christians massacred hundreds of Palestinian refugees in Beirut.
1990 – An eight-minute videotape of an address by U.S. President George H.W. Bush was shown on Iraqi television. The message warned that action of Saddam Hussein could plunge them into a war “against the world.”
2007 – Military contractors in the employ of Blackwater Worldwide allegedly kill 17 Iraqis in Baghdad’s Nisour Square, further straining relations between the US and the people of Iraq.
** history.net, onthisday.com, infoplease.com, timeanddate.com, thepeoplehistory.com, on-this-day.com **
