TODAY’S HISTORY LESSON – SEPT 19
1356 – English forces under The Black Prince defeat French at Battle of Poitiers and capture the French King during the Hundred Years War
1692 – Giles Corey is pressed to death for standing mute and refusing to answer charges of witchcraft brought against him. He is the only person in America to have suffered this punishment
1783 – The first hot-air balloon is sent aloft in Versailles, France with animal passengers including a sheep, rooster and a duck.
1876 – Melville R. Bissell patented the carpet sweeper.
1881 – President James Garfield died of a gunshot wound inflicted by a disappointed office seeker the previous July 2.
1893 – In New Zealand, the Electoral Act 1893 was consented to giving all women in New Zealand the right to vote.
1900 – President Emile Loubet of France pardons Jewish army captain Alfred Dreyfus, twice court-martialed and wrongly convicted of spying for Germany.
1934 – Bruno Hauptmann was arrested for the Lindbergh baby kidnap-murder
1955 – Argentina’s President Juan Peron is overthrown by rebels.
1957 – The United States conducted its first underground nuclear test in the Nevada desert.
1959 – Nikita Khruschev was not allowed to visit Disneyland due to security reasons. Khrushchev reacted angrily.
1960 – Cuban leader Fidel Castro, in New York to visit the United Nations, checked out of the Shelburne Hotel angrily after a dispute with the management.
1962 – Gov. Ross Barnett blocked James Meredith from enrolling in the University of Mississippi.
1982 – The first documented emoticons, 🙂 and :-(, posted on Carnegie Mellon University Bulletin Board System by Scott Fahlman.
1985 – 8.1 earthquake in Mexico City kills an estimated 10,000 and leaves 250,000 homeless
1986 – U.S. health officials announced that AZT, though an experimental drug, would be made available to AIDS patients.
1990 – Iraq began confiscating foreign assets of countries that were imposing sanctions against the Iraqi government
1994 – U.S. troops entered Haiti to enforce the return of exiled president Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
1995 – The commander of American forces in Japan and the U.S. ambassador apologized for the rape of a schoolgirl committed by three U.S. servicemen.
2001 – The Pentagon ordered combat aircraft to the Persian Gulf following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
2010 – Oil rig Deepwater Horizon is declared sealed after a 3-month long spill in the Gulf of Mexico
** history.net, onthisday.com, infoplease.com, timeanddate.com, thepeoplehistory.com, on-this-day.com **
