1513
In England, the Battle of Flodden Field is fought near Branxton in Northumberland. James IV of Scotland is defeated and killed by English troops commanded by Thomas Howard, Earl of Surrey.
1776
The Continental Congress in Philadelphia changes the name of the American nation from United Colonies to United States.
1850
California becomes the 31st State of USA - admitted to the Union as a 'Free State'.
1876
In Britain, the first greyhound race using a mechanical hare for the dogs to chase around the circuit..
1893
Frances Folsom Cleveland, the wife of President Grover Cleveland, gives birth to a daughter, Esther, in the White House.
On June 2, 1886, in an intimate ceremony held in the Blue Room of the White House, President Grover Cleveland married Frances Folsom, the daughter of Cleveland's late law partner and friend, Oscar Folsom. Fewer than 40 people were present to witness the 49-year-old president exchange vows with Frances, who at 21 years of age became the youngest first lady in U.S. history.
As a devoted family friend, Cleveland allegedly bought "Frank" her first baby carriage. After her father's death, he administered her estate. When Frances entered Wells College, Cleveland, then the governor of New York, asked Mrs. Folsom's permission to correspond with the young lady. After his inauguration as president in 1885, Frances visited Cleveland at the executive mansion. Despite a 27-year difference in age, their affection turned to romance, and in 1886 the couple were married in the White House.
Mrs. Cleveland, who replaced Cleveland's sister Rose Elizabeth as White House hostess, won immediate popularity for her good looks and unaffected charm. After the president's defeat in his 1888 reelection bid, the Clevelands lived in New York City, where their first child, Ruth, was born in 1891. In 1892, in an event unprecedented in U.S. political history, the out-of-office Cleveland was elected president again. Frances Cleveland returned to Washington and resumed her duties as first lady as if she had been gone but a day. On September 9, 1893, the first family saw the addition of a second child. Esther was the first child of a president to be born in the White House but not the first child ever to be born there. In 1806, James Madison Randolph was born to Martha Randolph, the daughter of President Thomas Jefferson.
When Grover Cleveland left the presidency in 1897, his wife had become one of the most popular first ladies in history. In 1908, she was at his side when he died at their home in Princeton, New Jersey. Five years later, she married Thomas J. Preston, Jr., a professor of archeology at Princeton University.
1893
Mao Zedong, Chinese revolutionary and statesman, dies in Beijing at the age of 82.
In 1934, during his long civil war with the Nationalists, he broke through enemy lines and led his followers on the Long March to northern China. There, he built up his Red Army and fought against the Japanese invaders. In 1945, civil war resumed, and in 1949 the Nationalists were defeated and Mao proclaimed the People's Republic of China. As leader of Communist China, Chairman Mao launched the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, programs that reformed the Chinese economy and society at the cost of millions of lives. Nevertheless, he maintained fanatical followers all across China and remains one of the most influential figures of the 20th century. After Mao's death, Deng Xiaoping emerged as China's leader.
1910
On this day in 1910, Alice B. Toklas becomes the lifetime house mate of avant-garde writer Gertrude Stein.
Stein, who shared a house with her brother Leo for many years, met Toklas in 1907. Toklas began staying with Stein and Leo in Paris in 1909, then moved in permanently in 1910. Stein's brother Leo moved out in 1914. Toklas' love and support of Stein was so important that when Stein wrote her autobiography in 1933, she titled it The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, adopting Toklas' persona as the narrator of her own memoirs.
The two women turned their Parisian home at 22 rue de Fleurus into an important artistic and literary salon, where they entertained Picasso, Matisse, Hemingway, Fitzgerald, and many others. Stein's own avant-garde writing attempted to create a Cubist literature that used words like the strokes of a paintbrush.
Stein was born in Pennsylvania in 1879 and traveled around Europe with her parents and four siblings. The family settled in Oakland when she was seven, and she spent much of her childhood raised by a governess. Very attached to her older brother, Leo, she followed him to Harvard and studied psychology with William James. She then followed Leo to Johns Hopkins, where she studied medicine for a year, then gave up. The siblings moved to Paris in 1903. Her best-known works include the novels Three Lives (1909) and The Making of Americans (1925), her autobiography, and the experimental work Tender Buttons (1914).
Stein and Toklas survived the German occupation of Paris and later befriended many American servicemen in the city. After the success of her opera, Four Saints in Three Acts (1934), Stein launched a successful U.S. lecture tour. Stein is considered one of the most influential thinkers and writers of the century. She died in France in 1946. Her last words, according to Toklas, were, "What is the answer? ... In that case, what is the question?"
1911
The launch of the first airmail service in England - between Hendon and Windsor.
1914
World War I: the end of the First Battle of the Marne. German casualties are estimated at 800,000.
1919
The infamous Boston Police Strike of 1919 begins, causing an uproar around the nation and confirming the growing influence of unions on American life. Using the situation to their advantage, criminals took the opportunity to loot the city.
As society changed in the 20th century, police were expected to act more professionally. Some of their previous practices were no longer countenanced. Explanations such as that given by the Dallas chief of police in defense of their unorthodox tactics-"Illegality is necessary to preserve legality"-was no longer acceptable to the public. Police forces were brought within the civil service framework and even received training for the first time. Soon, the American Federation of Labor (AFL) began to create local police unions.
When the Boston Police went on strike on September 9, the country's leading newspapers sounded the alarm bells. Some falsely reported that gangs were running wild and attacking women throughout the city. Others saw it as evidence of the spread of communism. In actuality, the strike prompted a lot of property damage but did not seriously endanger the safety of the community-partly due to the quick response of the government.
Calvin Coolidge, governor of Massachusetts at the time, called out the militia to assist Harvard students and faculty who were acting as a volunteer force. (He later used the incident to boost himself to the presidency.) While the Boston Police Strike proved disastrous for unions in the short term, police were eventually allowed to form unions. However, it is illegal for police to go on strike, and even informal work actions such as the "Blue Flu," whereby large numbers of police officers call in sick at the same time, are seriously discouraged.
1939
Audiences at the Fox Theater in Riverside, California, get a surprise showing of Gone with the Wind, which the theater manager shows as a second feature. David O. Selznick sat in the back and observed the audience reaction to his highly anticipated film. The movie was released a few months later.
In the summer of 1936, Selznick had bought the film rights to Margaret Mitchell's novel of the Civil War South for an unprecedented $50,000. He hired director George Cukor immediately, and casting began in the fall. Selznick launched a nationwide talent search, hoping to find a new actress to play Scarlett. Meanwhile, he put writers to work on the script.
A year later, Selznick still hadn't found an actress or received a satisfactory script. In May 1938, running low on funds, Selznick struck a deal with MGM. He sold the worldwide distribution rights for the film to the studio for $1.5 million, and MGM agreed to lend Clark Gable to Selznick.
Filming finally began on December 10, 1938, with the burning of Atlanta scene, although Scarlett still hadn't been cast. British actress Vivien Leigh, newly arrived from London, dropped by the set to visit her agent, Myron Selznick, brother of the producer. David O. Selznick asked her to test for Scarlett. In January, Leigh signed as Scarlett, and Leslie Howard as Ashley Wilkes, and at last, principal filming began. By February, however, there was trouble on the set. Gable clashed with the director, and by February 14 Victor Fleming had replaced George Cukor. Principal filming ended on June 27, 1939.
The film debuted in Atlanta on December 15, 1939, and became an instant hit, breaking all box office records. The film was nominated for more than a dozen Oscars and won nine, including Best Picture, Best Screenplay, Best Actress, and Best Supporting Actress (which went to Hattie McDaniel, the first African American actress to win the award). The movie was digitally restored and the sound remastered for its 1998 rerelease by New Line Pictures.
1939
Leading movie studios, including Biograph, Vitagraph, and the Edison Studio, create the Motion Picture Patents Co. to consolidate their control over the fledgling movie industry. The Patents Company refused to let other companies use their patented film equipment and distributed films only to theater owners who agreed to their terms. Kodak agreed to sell raw film stock only to members of the company. This made it extremely difficult for independent film companies to survive. By 1912, however, the U.S. government had started cracking down on the company for unfair trade practices. By 1917, the company's power had dissolved.
1939
Elvis Presley sings "Don't Be Cruel" and "Hound Dog" on Ed Sullivan's immensely popular show Toast of the Town. Presley scandalized audiences with his suggestive hip gyrations, and Sullivan swore he would never book the singer on his show. However, Presley's tremendous popularity and success on other shows changed Sullivan's mind. Although Elvis had appeared on a few other programs already, his appearance on Ed Sullivan's show made him a household name.
1942
World War II: incendiary bombs are dropped on Oregon in one of the few bombing raids made by Japan on the United States of America.
1942
On this day in 1942, a Japanese floatplane drops incendiary bombs on an Oregon state forest-the first and only attack on the U.S. mainland in the war.
Launching from the Japanese sub I-25, Nobuo Fujita piloted his light aircraft over the state of Oregon and firebombed Mount Emily, alighting a state forest--and ensuring his place in the history books as the only man to ever bomb the continental United States. The president immediately called for a news blackout for the sake of morale. No long-term damage was done, and Fujita eventually went home to train navy pilots for the rest of the war.
1942
On this day in 1943, Operation Avalanche, the Allied land invasion of Salerno, and Operation Slapstick, the British airborne invasion of Taranto, both in southern Italy, are launched.
The U.S. 5th Army under Lt. Gen. Mark Clark landed along the Salerno coastline while British Commando units and their American counterparts, the U.S. Rangers, landed on the peninsula itself. Salerno had been chosen as the first site for invasion of the peninsula because it was the northern-most point to which the Allies could fly planes from its bases in Sicily, which they had already invaded and occupied. Rockets launched from landing craft provided cover, and the beach landings went relatively smoothly. It wasn't until two days later that the Germans, with some Italian troops coerced into service, mounted a heavy counterattack on the beachhead. But Clark called in the 82nd Airborne for support, and by the 15th, Salerno was in Allied hands.
Meanwhile, the British 1st Airborne Division, having successfully landed at Taranto, captured the airfield at Foggia.
1943
World War II: Allied troops, commanded by US Lieutenant General Mark Clark, land at Salerno in Italy.
1950
In Britain, the end of soap rationing - introduced in 1942.
1958
Race riots in London's Notting Hill Gate - with television crews accused of encouraging the rioting by staging reconstructions in the streets.
1963
Scottish driver Jim Clark becomes the world's youngest motor racing champion.
1966
In response to the national uproar over automobile safety prompted by Ralph Nader's book Unsafe at Any Speed, the National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act was signed into law on this day. Nader's book targeted the American automobile industry's neglect of safety issues, using General Motors' dangerous Corvair model as a focus for his criticism. Congress responded to the nation's concern by passing a new bill, which established federal safety standards with strict penalties for violations. At the signing of the bill, President Johnson assured Nader and a crowd of several hundred that safety was "no luxury item, no optional extra."
1966
The first long-distance car race began in New York City on this day, ending five days and 464 miles later in Buffalo, New York. However, in these early days of automobile racing, the determining factor was not speed or endurance, but reliability. David Bishop's winning Panhard only averaged a speed of 15mph, but it managed to make the entire journey without breaking down - a remarkable feat.
1966
When Henry Ford II, grandson and namesake of Henry Ford, succeeded his father as president of the Ford Motor Company in 1945, the firm, still recovering from the unexpected death of its president Edsel Ford, was losing money at the rate of several million dollars a month. The automotive giant was crumbling. Fortunately for the company, Henry Ford II turned out to be a genius of industrial management. He quickly set about reorganizing and modernizing the company, firing the powerful Personnel Chief Harry Bennett, whose strong-arm tactics and anti-union stance had made Ford notorious for its bad labor relations. He also brought in new talent, including a group of former U.S. Air Force intelligence officers, among them Robert McNamara, who quickly became known as the "Whiz Kids." During his tenure as president, Henry Ford II nursed the Ford Motor Company back to health, greatly expanding its international operations and introducing two classic models, the Mustang and the Thunderbird. Still, even an industrial management genius could grow tired of a president's demanding schedule. On this day, Henry Ford II retired once and for all, swearing off all involvement with the Ford Motor Company.
1969
Funeral services, attended by 250,000 mourners, are held for Ho Chi Minh in Hanoi's Ba Dinh Square. Among those in attendance were Soviet Premier Aleksei Kosygin, Chinese Vice-Premier Li Hsien-nien and Prince Norodom Sihanouk of Cambodia. Ho had established the Indochinese Communist Party in 1929. In September 1945, as the defeated Japanese prepared to leave Vietnam, Ho declared Vietnamese independence from French colonial rule and announced the formation of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. The French, attempting to reimpose colonial rule, soon clashed with Ho and his Viet Minh forces.
After a bloody nine-year war, the French were finally driven from the country after they suffered a humiliating defeat by the Viet Minh at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu in May 1954. The Geneva Accords subsequently divided Vietnam into two countries. Ho then led a battle to reunite Vietnam under communist rule. When the United States intervened militarily, Ho directed his forces in a protracted war against the Americans and the Saigon regime. He served as the spiritual leader of the North Vietnamese people, exhorting them to continue the struggle until the Americans were defeated and Vietnam was reunited as one nation. His death resulted in a tremendous emotional outpouring and his successors used the life and teachings of "Uncle Ho" to motivate the people to continue the fight. Today, he is enshrined in central Hanoi in a public mausoleum that attracts thousands of visitors every year.
1969
Sergeant Duane D. Hackney is presented with the Air Force Cross for bravery in rescuing an Air Force pilot in Vietnam. He was the first living Air Force enlisted man to receive the award, the nation's second highest award for bravery in action.
1969
U.S. Air Force Capt. Charles B. DeBellevue (Weapons Systems Officer) flying with his pilot, Capt. John A. Madden, in a McDonnell Douglas F-4D, shoots down two MiG-19s near Hanoi. These were Captain DeBellevue's fifth and sixth victories, which made him the leading American ace (an unofficial designation awarded for having downed at least five enemy aircraft in air-to-air combat) of the war. All of his victories came in a four-month period. Captain Madden would record a third MiG kill two months later.
1971
Prisoners riot and seize control of the maximum-security Attica Correctional Facility near Buffalo, New York. Later that day, state police retook most of the prison, but 1,281 convicts occupied an exercise field called D Yard, where they held 39 prison guards and employees hostage for four days. After negotiations stalled, state police and prison officers launched a disastrous raid on September 13, in which 10 hostages and 29 inmates were killed in an indiscriminate hail of gunfire. Eighty-nine others were seriously injured.
By the summer of 1971, the state prison in Attica, New York, was ready to explode. Inmates were frustrated with chronic overcrowding, censorship of letters, and living conditions that limited them to one shower per week and one roll of toilet paper each month. Some Attica prisoners, adopting the radical spirit of the times, began to perceive themselves as political prisoners rather than convicted criminals.
On the morning of September 9, the eruption came when inmates on the way to breakfast overpowered their guards and stormed down a prison gallery in a spontaneous riot. They broke through a faulty gate and into a central area known as Times Square, which gave them access to all the cellblocks. Many of the prison's 2,200 inmates then joined in the rioting, and prisoners rampaged through the facility beating guards, acquiring makeshift weapons, and burning down the prison chapel. One guard, William Quinn, was severely beaten and thrown out a second-story window. Two days later, he died in a hospital from his injuries.
Using tear gas and submachine guns, state police regained control of three of the four cellblocks held by the rioters without loss of life. By 10:30 a.m., the inmates were only in control of D Yard, a large, open exercise field surrounded by 35-foot walls and overlooked by gun towers. Thirty-nine hostages, mostly guards and a few other prison employees, were blindfolded and held in a tight circle. Inmates armed with clubs and knives guarded the hostages closely.
Riot leaders put together a list of demands, including improved living conditions, more religious freedom, an end to mail censorship, and expanded phone privileges. They also called for specific individuals, such as U.S. Representative Herman Badillo and New York Times columnist Tom Wicker, to serve as negotiators and civilian observers. Meanwhile, hundreds of state troopers arrived at Attica, and New York Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller called in the National Guard.
In tense negotiations, New York Correction Commissioner Russell Oswald agreed to honor the inmates' demands for improved living conditions. However, talks bogged down when the prisoners called for amnesty for everyone in D Yard, along with safe passage to a "non-imperialist country" for anyone who desired it. Observers pleaded with Governor Rockefeller to come to Attica as a show of good faith, but he refused and instead ordered the prison to be retaken by force.
On the rainy Monday morning of September 13, an ultimatum was read to the inmates, calling on them to surrender. They responded by putting knives against the hostages' throats. At 9:46 a.m., helicopters flew over the yard, dropping tear gas as state police and correction officers stormed in with guns blazing. The police fired 3,000 rounds into the tear gas haze, killing 29 inmates and 10 of the hostages and wounding 89. Most were shot in the initial indiscriminate barrage of gunfire, but other prisoners were shot or killed after they surrendered. An emergency medical technician recalled seeing a wounded prisoner, lying on the ground, shot several times in the head by a state trooper. Another prisoner was shot seven times and then ordered to crawl along the ground. When he didn't move fast enough, an officer kicked him. Many others were savagely beaten.
In the aftermath of the bloody raid, authorities said the inmates had killed the slain hostages by slitting thei
1975
An 18 year Czech tennis player, Martina Navratilova, defects to the west and asks for political asylum in the United States of America.
1976
Mao Zedong, who led the Chinese people through a long revolution and then ruled the nation's communist government from its establishment in 1949, dies. Along with V.I. Lenin and Joseph Stalin, Mao was one of the most significant communist figures of the Cold War.
Mao was born in China in 1893. During the 1910s, he joined the nationalist movement against the decadent and ineffective royal government of China and the foreigners who used it to exploit China. By the 1920s, however, Mao began to lose faith in the leaders of the nationalist movement. He came to believe that only a revolutionary change of Chinese society could bring freedom from Western domination and subjugation. In 1921, he became one of the founding members of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Mao's early years as a communist were not easy. He was constantly in danger of arrest and execution by Chinese government forces. More importantly, he often split with his communist colleagues, many of whom favored slavishly copying the Bolshevik Revolution that brought communism to power in Russia. Mao insisted that revolution in China would come from the country peasants, not the urban workers. In 1935, Mao took control of the CCP. On the verge of defeat by Chinese Nationalist forces, the CCP came under scathing attack by Mao for its lack of revolutionary zeal and poor military strategy. Desperate, a majority of the CCP members relinquished control to Mao. Throughout the 1930s and into World War II, Mao's forces continued their attacks on the Chinese government. They were ultimately victorious in 1949, and the communist People's Republic of China was declared in that year.
Mao made clear his dedication to constant battle with the West when, in 1950, he sent hundreds of thousands of Chinese troops into North Korea to battle U.S. troops during the Korean War. For nearly three years the war raged, ending with a cease-fire in 1953. In the late 1950s, Mao began to withdraw from an active role in the Chinese government, but he returned with a vengeance in the mid-1960s when he led the "Cultural Revolution," which was designed to reinvigorate what he saw as the nation's flagging revolutionary spirit. The "revolution" amounted to frenzied calls from Mao and his supporters for greater dedication to the true ideals of communism and increasingly vociferous verbal assaults against both the Soviet Union (because of its "revisionist" tendencies) and the "imperialism aggression" of the United States. Thousands of Chinese were killed or imprisoned by Mao's young supporters, called the Red Guards.
Internationally, forces were pushing Mao to seek a closer relationship with the United States. Since the early 1960s, relations between China and the Soviet Union deteriorated steadily, and there were frequent border clashes between their respective armed forces. By the late 1960s, Mao came to see the Soviet Union as a more dangerous threat to China than the United States. He therefore sought closer relations with the Americans, hoping to use them as allies in his battle with the Soviets. Mao's efforts resulted in a dramatic change in relations between the U.S. and China, climaxing in President Richard Nixon's historic visit to China in 1972.
The meeting with Nixon was one of Mao's last great public successes. Nearing 80 years of age, Mao began to make less frequent appearances. He also began to suffer the debilitating effects of Parkinson's disease. Mao died in 1976, still holding the position of Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party.
1987
The mere hint of a move from the Federal Reserve is usually enough to stir up anxiety on Wall Street. So, it's no surprise that when the Fed and its then-new Chairman, Alan Greenspan, raised the discount rates on September 9, 1987, the markets went into a frenzy. The Dow promptly dropped 62 points, though it did make a slight recovery by the end of the day. Bond prices spun through a similar cycle, plummeting and then rallying before ending the day with a loss of 1 3/4 points. While the half-point hike in the discount rate--the amount that the Fed charges on loans to banks and "savings institutions"--was officially deemed a reaction to "potential inflationary pressures," some analysts wondered if Greenspan wasn't more concerned with boosting the slumping bond markets. Others interpreted the raise as the Fed's attempt to show its resolve in maintaining the anti-inflation record of the previous Chairman, Paul Volcker. Still, the move did not succeed in quelling concerns about the dollar; analysts and brokers predicted that the Fed would make another move to bump up discount rates.
1987
By the turn of the century, the ever-expanding New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) had all but outgrown its old offices. On September 9 workers laid the cornerstone for a new NYSE building at 18 Broad Street. Finished in 1903 (and still open today), the new quarters included a trading floor that was over twice the size of its predecessor.
1987
After a life full of cash and controversy, financier and railroad kingpin Edward Harriman passed away in 1909. Harriman started his career as a broker's clerk in New York, eventually saving up enough money to purchase a seat on the New York Stock Exchange. Following this Alger-esque rise to wealth and power, Harriman turned his attention to the nation's rail lines and, along with a group of bankers, acquired the troubled Union Pacific Railroad Company. By the time of his death, Harriman's aggressive ways not only produced 60,000 miles of rail track, but also spawned a financial crisis and raised the ire of more than a few Americans, including President Teddy Roosevelt.
1987
A power outage on the lower floor forced the New York Stock Exchange to shut down early on September 9, 1981. Con Edison was called in to fix the problem and the Exchange was up and running the next day.
1987
After flirting with a move to Delaware, Wall Street mainstay Morgan Guaranty announced that it would stay in New York City. The company also announced that it would be relocating to a new office tower built by developer George Kline.
1993
After years of conflict, Israel and the PLO, the Palestinian Liberation Organisation agree to officially recognise the other's existence
1995
Aged 59, the former British champion jockey Lester Piggott announces his retirement having won more than 5,000 races around the world.
1997
Former South African President F.W. de Klerk, who was instrumental in scrapping his National Party's apartheid policy, retires from Parliament.