TODAY’S HISTORY LESSON – SEPT 17
642 Arab forces under Amr ibn al-‘As conquer Alexandria
1394 Jews are expelled from France by order of King Charles VI
1683 Dutch scientist Antonie van Leeuwenhoek is the first to report the existence of bacteria
1787 The Constitution was completed and signed by a majority of the delegates attending the constitutional convention in Philadelphia.
1862 The Battle of Antietam in Maryland, the bloodiest day in U.S. history, commences. Fighting in the corn field, Bloody Lane and Burnside’s Bridge rages all day as the Union and Confederate armies suffer a combined 26,293 casualties.
1868 The Battle of Beecher’s Island begins, in which Major George “Sandy” Forsyth and 50 volunteers hold off 500 Sioux and Cheyenne in eastern Colorado.
1902 U.S. troops are sent to Panama to keep train lines open over the isthmus as Panamanian nationals struggle for independence from Colombia.
1903 Turks destroy the town of Kastoria in Bulgaria, killing 10,000 civilians.
1916 Germany’s “Red Baron,” Manfred von Richthofen, wins his first aerial combat.
1933 New figures published for the New York area show the current average weekly wages for a number of employment types.
Physician $55.32 per week
Engineer $40.68 per week
Clerks $22.15 per week
Salesman $25.020 per week
Laborer $20.00 per week
Typists $15.09 per week
1942 British Prime Minister Winston Churchill meets with Soviet Premier Josef Stalin in Moscow as the German Army rams into Stalingrad.
1947 James Forestall is sworn in as first the U.S. Secretary of Defense.
1952 “I am an American Day” & “Constituion Day” renamed “Citizenship Day”
1962 The first federal suit to end public school segregation is filed by the U.S. Justice Department.
1966 FBI Agents today arrested 13 white men in Grenada, Mississippi on charges of savage attacks on young African-American school children using sticks, fists and a club earlier this week.
1972 “M*A*S*H,” premiers on TV
1976 The Space Shuttle is unveiled to the public.
1978 Egypt and Israel sign the Camp David Accords.
1986 US Senate confirms William Rehnquist as 16th chief justice
1991 North & South Korea joins the UN
2001 The New York Stock Exchange reopens for the first time since the September 11 terrorist attacks on the Twin Towers; longest period of closure since the Great Depression of the 1930s.
2006 Alaska’s Fourpeaked Mountain erupts for the first time in at least 10,000 years.
2011 Occupy Wall Street movement calling for greater social and economic equality begins in New York City’s Zuccotti Park, coining the phrase “We are the 99%.”
** history.net, onthisday.com, infoplease.com, timeanddate.com, thepeoplehistory.com, on-this-day.com **
