Today is:
September 17
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Today is:
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 September 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 |
Citizenship Day - In 1787, the U.S. Constitution
was completed and signed.
National Constitution Day - In 1787, the U.S. Constitution was completed and
signed. Today we recognize our civic rights and responsibilities and the
freedoms we prize so much. Sponsor: National Constitution Center.
Saint Lambert of Maastricht Feast Day - Murdered when he was pierced by a
javelin, he is the patron saint of surgeons.
Whole Body Prayer Day - Commemorates the saintly Rabbi Mordecai of Lekhovitz who
died in 1811. He taught that you should pray so deeply that each word arises
from your heels upward. sponsor: A Pilgrim's Almanac.
Born on this Day
0879: Charles III, "The Simple" of France (893-923)
1271: King of Bohemia & Poland Wenceslas II (1278-1305)
1552: Pope Paul V born as Camillo Borghese (1605-21)
1580: Countess of Nassau and daughter of Willem of Orange Charlotte
Brabantia.
1580: Poet and satirist Francisco Gomez de Quevado y Villegas (Vida del
BuscĒn)
1605: Composer Francesco Sacrati
1619: English general and parliament leader John Lambert
1643: Bishop of Salisbury Gilbert Burnet
1709: Lexicographer and writer Samuel Johnson (Boswell's Tour Guide)
1711: Composer Ignaz Jakob Holzbaue
1730: Baron Frederick von Steuben, made the Continental Army winners.
1743: Marquis Marie Jean de Condorcet, French mathematician and
philosopher, a leading thinker in the Enlightenment.
1868: Walter Gowans, Canadian missions pioneer. In 1893 he helped found
the Sudan Interior Mission in Toronto.
1874: Actor comedian Ben Turpin (Burlesque of Carmen, Yankee Doodle in
Berlin, Mack Sennett comedies, When Comedy was King)
1879: Andrew "Rube" Foster, father of the Negro baseball
leagues.
1883: William Carlos Williams, poet, playwright, essayist and writer who
won a Pulitzer prize for Pictures from Brueghel and Other Poems
1884: Charles Tomlinson Griffes (Elmira, New York). Griffes, who only
lived to be 35, is remembered today mainly for one brief work, "Poem for Flute and
Orchestra." It's an impressionistic piece of great delicacy.
1890: 1940's radio news commentator Gabriel Heatter
1900: Hotel magnate J. (John) Marriott
1902: Actress Esther Ralston (Tin Pan Alley, We're in the Legion Now,
Oliver Twist, Shadows of the Orient, To the Last Man)
1904: Comedian actor Jerry Colonna (Meet Me in Las Vegas, Kentucky
Jubilee, The Road to Singapore; TV host: The Jerry Colonna Show)
1904: Actress Dolores Costello (The Magnificent Ambersons)
1907: Former U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Warren Burger 1
1908: The first fatality in an airplane accident. History Focus for Today
1923: Country music pioneer Hank Williams Sr.(I'll Never Get Out of this
World Alive, I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry, Cold, Cold Heart, Take These Chains from My
Heart, Honky Tonkin', Jambalaya, Kaw-Liga, Your Cheatin' Heart; 1st country musician whose
music crossed over into pop; wrote 125 compositions)
1928: Actor Roddy McDowall
1929:Actress Pat Crowley (Joe Forrester, Please Don't Eat the Daisies,
Red Garters, Return to Fantasy Island)
1930: Actor David Huddleston
1931: Actress Anne Bancroft (Annemarie Italiano)
1933: Actress Dorothy Loudon (The Garry Moore Show)
1935: Author Ken Kesey (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest)
1938: Actor Paul Benedict (The Jeffersons, The Freshmen)
1939: Supreme Court Justice David H. Souter
1939: Singer LaMonte McLemore (The Fifth Dimension)
1947: Cartoonist Jeff MacNelly
1948: Actor John Ritter
1950: Singer Fee Waybill
1951: Actress Cassandra Peterson ("Elvira, Mistress of the
Dark")
1956: Comedian Rita Rudner
1962: Bebe Winans
1965: Actor Kyle Chandler
1966: Rapper Doug E. Fresh
1967: Actor Malik Yoba ("New York Undercover")
1969: Rock musician Keith Flint (Prodigy)
1969: Actor Matthew Settle
1970: Rapper Vinnie (Naughty By Nature)
1973: Rhythm-and-blues singer Marcus Sanders (Hi-Five)
0853: Death of St. Columba of Cordoba
1179: Death of St. Hildegarde
1374: Compact of Kassa
1397: Arundel, Gloucester and Warwick accused of treason
1397: Parliament of England meets
1621: Death of St. Robert Bellarmine, theologian
1630: The town of Boston is founded by John Winthrop as an
extension of the colony at Salem.
1656: Massachusetts enacted severe laws against Quakers.
1717: The first synod of the Presbyterian Church in
America met in Philadelphia.
1776: Along the western coast of North America, a party of
247 Spanish colonists consecrated their newly-founded mission, known as San Francisco. The
Presidio of San Francisco was founded as a Spanish fort.
1762: The violinist and composer Francesco Geminiani
collapsed in Dublin upon learning that the only copy of his book on how to play the violin
had been stolen by the maid.
1787: The United States Constitution, completed in
Philadelphia, was signed by a majority of the 55 delegates to the Constitutional
Convention.
1796: President George Washington delivers his
"Farewell Address" to Congress before concluding his second term in office. When
George Washington announced that he would retire from office he set the stage for the
nation's first two party presidential campaign.
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. New York Tribune reporter George Smalley scooped the world with his vivid
account of the Battle of Antietam.
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.
1872: Phillip W. Pratt, of Abington, MA, patented his
version of the sprinkler system.
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
Greece (Macedonia),
killing 10,000 civilians.
1911: The first transcontinental airplane flight, from New
York City to Pasadena, California, was completed. It only took C.P. Rogers 82 hours to fly
across the U.S.
1917: The German Army recaptures the Russian Port of Riga
from Russian forces.
1920: The American Professional Football Association
— a precursor of the NFL — was formed in Canton, Ohio (my hometown and the
geographical site of the Daily Miscellany).
1939: The Soviet Union invaded Poland, more than two weeks
after Nazi Germany launched its assault.
1942: British Prime Minister Winston Churchill meets with
Soviet Premier Josef Stalin in Moscow as the German Army rams into Stalingrad.
1944: British airborne troops parachute into Holland to
capture the Arnhem bridge as part of Operation Market-Garden. The plan called for the
airborne troops to be relieved by British troops, but they were left stranded and
eventually surrendered to the Germans.
1947: James V. Forrestal was sworn in as the first US
Secretary of Defense as a new National Military Establishment unified America's armed
forces.
1948: The United Nations mediator for Palestine, Count
Folke Bernadotte, was assassinated in Jerusalem by Jewish extremists.
1953: Ernie Banks became the first black baseball player
to wear a Chicago Cubs uniform. Banks was the Cubs' outstanding shortstop from 1954 to
1960. In 1969, Ernie Banks was voted the Cub's best player ever by Chicago fans. 'Mr. Cub'
retired in 1971.
1954: Rocky Marciano retained possession of the world
heavyweight boxing title after knocking out Ezzard Charles in the eighth round of their
championship bout.
1957: The Thai army seizes power in Bangkok.
1959: The X-15 rocket plane makes its first flight.
1962: The first federal suit to end public school
segregation is filed by the U.S. Justice Department.
1963: "The Fugitive," starring David Janssen,
premiered on ABC TV.
1972: "M*A*S*H" premiered on CBS TV.
1976: "NASA" publicly unveiled the space shuttle
"Enterprise" at ceremonies in Palmdale, California.
1978: After meeting at Camp David, Israeli Prime Minister
Menachem Begin and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat signed a framework for a peace treaty.
1980: Former Nicaraguan president Anastasio Somoza was
assassinated in Paraguay.
1983: Vanessa Williams of New York became the first black
to be named Miss America. (She resigned the crown 11 months later when Penthouse magazine
published nude photos of her, but later became famous again as a singer and actress.)
1984: The largest group of immigrants to become
naturalized citizens of the U.S., 9,706 people, were sworn in by Vice-President George
Bush in Miami, Florida.
1986: The Senate confirmed the nomination of William H.
Rehnquist to become the 16th chief justice of the United States.
1987: The city of Philadelphia, birthplace of the US
Constitution, threw a big party to celebrate the 200th annivetsary of the historic
document.
1988: Opening ceremonies for the Summer Olympics took
place in Seoul, South Korea.
1988: Haitian President Henri Hamphy was ousted in a coup;
Lieutenant General Prosper Avril declared himself president the following day.
1989: Hurricane "Hugo" slammed into several
Caribbean islands, including St. Croix, which was the hardest hit.
1990: Defense Secretary Dick Cheney sacked Air Force chief
of staff General Mike Dugan for openly discussing contingency plans to launch massive air
strikes against Baghdad and target Iraqi President Saddam Hussein personally.
1999: Supreme Court nominee David H. Souter concluded
three days of testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee.
1992: A federal judge overturned the impeachment of former
US District Judge Alcee Hastings, saying he did not receive a fair trial by the Senate,
which convicted him in 1989 of perjury and conspiracy.
1992: Special prosecutor Lawrence Walsh called a halt to
his five-and-a-half-year probe of the Iran-Contra scandal.
1993: President Clinton urged China to cancel an
underground nuclear test, assuring the Beijing government it had nothing to fear from the
world's other atomic powers.
1994: Heather Whitestone of Alabama was crowned "Miss
America," the first deaf woman to win the title.
1994: As some 20 warships sat off the coast of Haiti,
former President Jimmy Carter, Senator Sam Nunn (Democrat, Georgia) and retired General
Colin Powell arrived in the Caribbean nation in an eleventh-hour bid to avert a US-led
invasion.
1995: Hong Kong held its last legislative election before
the 1997 takeover by China, with some of Beijing's fiercest critics the big winners.
1996: A nonpartisan commission recommended that Ross Perot
be denied a spot in presidential debates, saying he had no realistic shot at winning the
White House; Perot vowed to sue.
1996: Former Vice President Spiro T. Agnew died in Berlin,
Maryland, at age 77.
1997: A UN helicopter slammed into a fog-shrouded mountain
in central Bosnia and burst into flames, killing German diplomat Gerd Wagner, five
Americans and six others.
1997: President Clinton rejected a ban on land mines
endorsed by 89 countries.
1997: Comedian Red Skelton died in Rancho Mirage,
California, at age 84.
1998: In Mexico, gunmen apparently sent by a drug lord
yanked three families from their beds before dawn and opened fire, killing 19 men, women
and children near a popular Baja California resort.
1999: President Clinton lifted restrictions on trade, travel and banking imposed on North Korea a half-century earlier, rewarding it for agreeing to curb missile tests.
Soul Food for September 16 & 17 |
All the Rest September 16 & 17 |
Send Mail to pbower@neo.rr.com
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Past quotes from the Daily
Miscellany can be found here!