TODAY’S HISTORY LESSON – SEPT 5
1664 After days of negotiation, the Dutch settlement of New Amsterdam surrenders to the British, who will rename it New York.
1698 Russia’s Peter the Great imposed a tax on beards.
1774 Twelve of the thirteen American colonies adopt a trade embargo against Great Britain at the first Continental Congress at Carpenters’ Hall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
1793 In France, the “Reign of Terror” began. The National Convention enacted measures to repress the French Revolutionary activities.
1804 US Navy lieutenant Richard Somers and members of his crew are buried at Tripoli; they died when USS Intrepid exploded while entering Tripoli harbor on a mission to destroy the enemy fleet there during the First Barbary War.
1816 Louis XVIII of France dissolves the chamber of deputies, which has been challenging his authority.
1836 Sam Houston is Elected President of Texas
1839 The First Opium War begins in China
1859 Harriot E. Wilson’s Our Nig, is published, the first U.S. novel by an African American woman.
1870 Author Victor Hugo returns to Paris from the Isle of Guernsey where he had lived in exile for almost 20 years.
1877 The great Sioux warrior Crazy Horse is fatally bayoneted at age 36 by a soldier at Fort Robinson, Nebraska.
1878 Bat Masterson, Wyatt Earp, Bill Tilghman and Clay Allison, four of the West’s most famous gunmen, meet in Dodge City, Kansas.
1905 The Russian-Japanese War ends as representatives of the combating empires, meeting in New Hampshire, sign the Treaty of Portsmouth. Japan achieves virtually all of its original war aims.
1910 Marie Curie demonstrates the transformation of radium ore to metal at the Academy of Sciences in France.
1917 Federal raids were carried out in 24 cities on International Workers of the World (IWW) headquarters. The raids were prompted by suspected anti-war activities within the labor organization.
1957 On the Road. The iconic book was written by American author Jack Kerouac and was based on his and his friends’ travels across America.
1958 Martin Luther King Jr. is arrested in an Alabama protest for loitering and fined $14 for refusing to obey police.
1960 Cassius Clay captures the olympic light heavyweight gold medal
1969 Charges are brought against US lieutenant William Calley in the March 1968 My Lai Massacre during Vietnam War.
1972 “Black September,” a Palestinian terrorist group take 11 Israeli athletes hostage at the Olympic Games in Munich; by midnight all hostages and all but 3 terrorists are dead.
1975 President Gerald Ford evades an assassination attempt in Sacramento, California.
1977 Hanns-Martin Schleyer, a German business executive who headed to powerful organization and had been an SS officer during WW2, is abducted by the left-wing extremist group Red Army Faction, who execute him on Oct. 18.
1980 World’s longest tunnel opens; Switzerland’s St. Gotthard Tunnel stretches 10.14 miles (16.224 km) from Goschenen to Airolo.
1983 The “MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour” on PBS (Public Broadcasting System) became the first hour-long network news show.
1986 Pan Am Flight 73 was hijacked by four armed men dressed as security guards demanding to be flown to Cyprus at Karachi International Airport in Pakistan.
1988 Following a number of smaller savings and loan bankruptcies the largest American Savings and Loan Association the Robert M. Bass Group signed off on a deal to acquire the nation’s largest bankruptcy backed by $2 billion in Federal aid.
1990 Iraqi President Saddam Hussein urged for a Holy War against the West and former allies.
1991 Soviet lawmakers created an interim government to usher in the confederation after dissolving the U.S.S.R. The new name the Union of Sovereign States was taken.
** history.net, onthisday.com, infoplease.com, timeanddate.com, thepeoplehistory.com, on-this-day.com **
