Today is: September 12

Boast not thyself of tomorrow; for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth.
Proverbs 27:1

September 2000 is:

Children's Books Month Children's Eye Health and Safety Month National Childhood Injury Prevention Month National Honey Month National Piano Month National Rice Month National School Success Month National Sewing Month National Sickle Cell Month National Youth Pastors Appreciation Month Ovarian Cancer Awareness Month Southern Gospel Music Month

Celebrate September 12

Defenders Day - This is a public holiday in Maryland. It commemorates the 1814 bombing of Fort McHenry in Baltimore. (I'm not sure of the date for this holiday - If you know -- please send me the info).

Birthday of the Great Seal of the United States - The Great Seal was first used on this day in 1782.

Born on this Day

• 1494: Francis I, King of France (1515-47)
  
  

• 1559: Italian painter and architect Lodovico Cardi da Cigoli
  
  

• 1575: Explorer Henry Hudson (Hudson River)
  
  

• 1655: Composer Sebastien de Brossard
  
  

• 1761:Composer Georg Friedrich Theodor Wolf
  
  

• 1768:Composer Bemnjamin Carr, composer
  
  

• 1788: Alexander Campbell, US founder of the Disciples of Christ.
  
  

• 1803: Composer Frantisek Matej Hilmar
  
  

• 1818: Richard Jordan Gatling, US inventor of hand-cranked machine gun
  
  

• 1829: Newspaperman Charles Dudley Warner (With Mark Twain he wrote The Guilded Age)
  
  

• 1851: Francis E. Clark, American Congregationalist clergyman. In 1881, at age 29, Clark organized the world's first church "youth fellowship" in Portland, Maine. Clark's original name for this Christian group concept was "The Young People's Society of Christian Endeavor."
  
  

• 1852: H.H. Asquith, British prime minister (1908-16)
  
  

• 1880: Author and journalist H.L. Mencken (The American Language)
  
  

• 1888: French entertainer Maurice Chevalier
  
  

• 1892: US publisher, Alfred A. Knopf
  
  

• 1898: Artist Ben Schahn in Lithuania.
  
  

• 1913: U.S. Olympic track star Jesse Owens. He won four medals at the Berlin Olympics in 1936
  
  

• 1920: Actress Irene Dailey
  
  

• 1925: Actor Dickie Moore ("Our Gang")
  
  

• 1927: Actor Freddie Jones
  
  

• 1931: Country singer George Jones
  
  

• 1931: Actor Ian Holm
  
  

• 1940: Actress Linda Gray
  
  

• 1943: Singer Maria Muldaur
  
  

• 1944: Singer Barry White
  
  

• 1951: Actor Joe Pantoliano
  
  

• 1952: Singer-musician Gerry Beckley (America)
  
  

• 1952: Rock musician Neil Peart (Rush)
  
  

• 1954: Actor Peter Scolari
  
  

• 1957: Actress Rachel Ward
  
  

• 1965: Rock musician Norwood Fisher (Fishbone)
  
  

• 1966: Rock singer-musician Ben Folds (Ben Folds Five
  
  

• 1966: Actor Darren E. Burrows ("Northern Exposure")
  
  

• 1968: Rock musician Larry LaLonde (Primus)
  
  

• 1972: Rock singer Liam Gallagher (Oasis)
  
  

Events in History on this day
  

• 0490 BC: Athenian and Plataean hoplites commanded by General Miltiades drive back a Persian invasion force under General Datis at Marathon.
  
  

• 1021: Death of St, Guy of Anderlecht
  
  

• 1213: Simon de Montfort defeats Raymond of Toulouse and Peter II of Aragon at Muret, France.
  
  

• 1294: Mongol paper money introduced in Persia
  
  

• 1609: English explorer Henry Hudson sailed into the river that now bears his name.
  
  

• 1642: Execution of the Marquis of Cinq Mars, for treason
  
  

• 1654: 1st Jewish congregational service in Manhattan held
  
  

• 1662: Governor Berkley of Virginia is denied his attempts to repeal the Navigation Acts.
  
  

• 1683: A combined Austrian and Polish army defeats the Turks at Kahlenberg and lifts the siege on Vienna, Austria.
  
  

• 1687: John Alden, the last Mayflower passenger, died. According to history and Longfellow, he courted Priscilla Mullen in the name of his friend Miles Standish and won her himself.
  
  

• 1722: The Treaty of St. Petersburg puts an end to the Russo-Persian War.
  
  

• 1740: The French philosopher Voltaire and the Prussian enlightened king Frederick the Great first met after corresponding for years. Voltaire spent 1850-52 at Frederick's court at Potsdam.
  
  

• 1764: The philosopher Rameau died. Rameau was also a musician. He fancied himself both a composer and a harpsichordist. One acquaintance said, "His heart was in his harpsichord... when he shut the lid there was no one at home."
  
  

• 1786: Despite his failed efforts to suppress the American Revolution, Lord Cornwallis is appointed governor general of India.
  
  

• 1836: Mexican authorities crush the revolt which broke out on August 25.
  
  

• 1864: The Brownings were secretly married at St Marylebone Church in London. They ran away to Italy together a week later.
  
  

• 1910: Mrs. Alice Stebbins Wells becomes the first policewoman with full powers of arrest and wearing a uniform.   History Focus for Today
  
  

• 1918: During World War One, US forces led by General John J. Pershing launched an attack on the German-occupied St. Mihiel salient north of Verdun, France.
  
  

• 1919: Adolf Hitler joins German Worker’s Party.
  
  

• 1922: The House of Bishops of the U.S. Protestant Episcopal Church voted 36-27 to delete the word "obey" from the vows of their denomination's official marriage service.
  
  

• 1928: Katharine Hepburn makes her New York stage debut in "Night Hostess."
  
  

• 1938: In a speech in Nuremberg, Adolf Hitler demanded self-determination for the Sudeten Germans in Czechoslovakia.
  
  

• 1940: Italian forces begin an offensive into Egypt from Libya. Italy's Breda Ba.65 was not the best ground-attack plane to see action in World War II--it may well have been the worst.
  
  

• 1943: German paratroopers took Benito Mussolini from the hotel where he was being held by the Italian government.
  
  

• 1944: During World War Two, US Army troops entered Germany for the first time, near Trier.
  
  

• 1945: French troops land in Indochina.
  
  

• 1953: Khrushchev becomes First Secretary of the Communist Party.
  
  

• 1954: "Lassie" made its television debut on CBS.
  
  

• 1958: Little Rock High School in Arkansas was ordered by the U.S. Supreme Court to admit blacks.
  
  

• 1959: "Bonanza" premieres on NBC and ran through 1973.
  
  

• 1959: Luna 1 launched by USSR; first spacecraft to impact on the moon.
  
  

• 1960: Democratic presidential candidate John F. Kennedy addressed the issue of his Roman Catholic faith, telling a Protestant group in Houston, "I do not speak for my church on public matters, and the church does not speak for me."
  
  

• 1966: The comedy-musical "The Monkees" made its debut on NBC television and the situation comedy "Family Affair" premiered on CBS television.
  
  

• 1969: Heavy bombing of Vietnam resumed under orders from President Nixon.
  
  

• 1974: Military officers deposed Emperor Haile Selassie from the Ethiopian throne he had occupied for more than a half-century.
  
  

• 1976: Chicago White Sox designated hitter Minnie Minoso became the oldest player (age 53) to collect a hit in a regulation game.
  
  

• 1977: It was announced that Charles Dutoit would become music director of the Montreal Symphony. The Montrealers had played under Otto Klemperer, Zubin Mehta, Franz-Paul Decker and Rafael Frubeck de Burgos. Charles Dutoit would benefit from that, and build on it.
  
  

• 1977: South African black student leader Steven Biko died while in police custody, triggering an international outcry.
  
  

• 1978: The critically acclaimed TV sitcom Taxi began and ran through 1982.
  
  

• 1982: Jimmy Connors won his fourth U.S. Open, defeating Ivan Lendl.
  
  

• 1983: The Soviet Union vetoed a U.N. Security Council resolution deploring the shooting-down of a Korean jetliner by a Soviet jet fighter on Sept. 1.
  
  

• 1985: A South African panel proposed the repeal of the country's "pass laws" that kept South Africa's blacks out of white areas.
  
  

• 1986: Joseph Cicippio, the acting comptroller at the American University in Beirut, was kidnapped; he was released in December 1991.
  
  

• 1986: The United States released Soviet physicist Gennadiy Zakharov and the Soviet Union released American journalist Nicholas Daniloff to the custody of their respective countries' embassies, pending their espionage trials.
  
  

• 1987: Reports surfaced that Democratic presidential candidate Joseph Biden had borrowed, without attribution, passages of a speech by British Labor Party leader Neil Kinnock for one of his own campaign speeches. (The Kinnock report, along with other damaging revelations, prompted Biden to drop his White House bid.)
  
  

• 1988: Hurricane "Gilbert" slammed into Jamaica with torrential rains and winds of 145 miles-an-hour, killing 45 people and causing damage estimated at up to $1-billion.
  
  

• 1989: Manhattan Borough President David N. Dinkins won New York City's Democratic mayoral primary, defeating incumbent Mayor Edward Koch and two other candidates on his way to becoming the city's first black mayor.
  
  

• 1990: Representatives of the World War II Allies and West and East Germany signed a treaty in Moscow giving international sanction to German unity.
  
  

• 1991: Saying Middle East peace negotiations might be in jeopardy, President Bush told reporters he would use his veto authority, if necessary, to delay action on Israel's call for $10 billion in housing loan guarantees.
  
  

• 1991: The space shuttle Discovery blasted off on a mission to deploy an observatory designed to study the Earth's ozone layer.
  
  

• 1992: The space shuttle "Endeavour" blasted off, carrying with it Mark Lee and Jan Davis, the first married couple in space; Mae Jemison, the first black woman in space; and Mamoru Mohri, the first Japanese citizen to fly on a US spaceship.
  
  

• 1992: Police in Peru captured Shining Path founder Abimael Guzman.
  
  

• 1992: Monica Seles won her sixth Grand Slam title, beating Arantxa Sanchez Vicario in the U.S. Open final.
  
  

• 1992: Actor Anthony Perkins died in Hollywood at age 60 of AIDS.
  
  

• 1993: The space shuttle "Discovery" blasted off from Cape Canaveral on a ten-day mission.
  
  

• 1993: Actor Raymond Burr died at his Northern California ranch at age 76.
  
  

• 1993: PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat arrived in Washington on the eve of the signing of a peace accord with Israel.
  
  

• 1994: A stolen, single-engine Cessna crashed into the South Lawn of the White House, the pilot, Frank Corder, was killed.
  
  

• 1994: In Canada, the separatist Parti Quebecois won a majority of seats in the province's legislature.
  
  

• 1994: In Poland, NATO soldiers and former Warsaw Pact nations held their first joint maneuvers.
  
  

• 1995: The Belarussian military shot down a hydrogen balloon during an international race, killing its two American pilots.
  
  

• 1996: Last-minute intervention by Republican ptesidential candidate Bob Dole led to Senate postponement of action on a treaty designed to eliminate chemical weapons. President Clinton said the agreement was threatened by "a bitter partisan debate."
  
  

• 1997: With little to show after three days of shuttle diplomacy, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright declared she wouldn't return to the Mideast until Israeli and Palestinian leaders made the "hard decisions" necessary to restart peace talks.
  
  

• 1997: Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Jesse Helms, exercising iron control, prevented any committee hearing on William Weld's nomination to be ambassador to Mexico.
  
  

• 1998: Leaders of striking pilots at Northwest Airlines ratified a new contract, ending a walkout that began August 28th.
  
  

• 1998: Sammy Sosa of the Chicago Cubs became the fourth player in major league baseball history to reach 60 homers in a single season.
  
  

• 1998: Lindsay Davenport won the U-S Open, defeating defending champion Martina Hingis, 6-3, 7-5.
  
  

• 1998: The White House, having no valid recourse, responded to Kenneth Starr's graphic report on President Clinton by calling it a "hit-and-run smear campaign." 
  

• 1999: Under intense international pressure, Indonesia announced it would allow an international peacekeeping force to restore order to the devastated territory of East Timor.
  

• 1999: Andre Agassi captured his second U.S. Open title, dominating Todd Martin 6-4, 6-7 (5-7), 6-7 (2-7), 6-3, 6-2.
  

• 1999: "The Practice" and "Ally McBeal," both created by writer-producer David E. Kelley, were named best drama series and best comedy series at the 51st Emmy Awards.
  

History Focus for Today

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