Post by farmgal on Sept 12, 2012 21:14:39 GMT -5
September 14th is the 258th day of this leap year in the Gregorian calendar.
There are 108 days remaining until the end of the year.
Days until Election Day, Tuesday November 6, 2012: 53
Countdown until Obama leaves Office www.obamaclock.org/
U.S. Debt Clock: www.usdebtclock.org/
1716 - Boston Light, the first lighthouse in America was first lighted just before sunset. Located on Little Brewster Island to mark the entrance to Boston, Massachusetts, harbour, has guided ships since then. Building it was authorized 23 Jul 1715 by the Boston Light Bill. In the 1600s, treacherous rocks caused countless loss of lives. False signal fires lit in the wrong places by "wreckers" lured ships aground to plunder. Boston Light was blown up by the British in 1776, but rebuilt in 1783 by Governor John Hancock. The lighthouse is also the last remaining manned station in the U.S.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Light
1741 - Composer George Frederick Handel finished Messiah after working on it non-stop for 23 days. Handel set to work composing on August 22 in his little house on Brook Street in London. He grew absorbed in the work that he rarely left his room, hardly stopping to eat. Within six days part one was complete. In nine days more he had finished part two, and in another six, part three. The orchestration was completed in another two days. In all 260 pages of manuscript were filled in the remarkable short time of 24 days.
1765 - Former slave ship captain, Anglican clergyman and hymnwriter (Amazing Grace) John Newton wrote in a letter: 'How unspeakable are our obligations to the grace of God.'
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Newton
www.hymntime.com/tch/bio/n/e/w/newton_j.htm
1779 - Brodhead completes Allegheny River expedition. On this day in 1779, American Colonel Daniel Brodhead concludes an ambitious assault against the Seneca Indians throughout the Allegheny Valley of Pennsylvania. Simultaneously, Major General John Sullivan had attacked the Iroquois of New York.
Brodhead had left Pittsburgh in August at the head of 600 men. Over the course of his mission, he destroyed 10 Indian villages, encountering only minimal resistance because the Seneca warriors had traveled to fight the Sullivan-led expedition, which had been ravaging native settlements in New York.
On August 29, 1779, at what is modern-day Elmira, New York, near New York’s southwestern border with Pennsylvania, Continental forces led by Sullivan and Brigadier General James Clinton defeated a combined force of Loyalists and Indians commanded by Captain Walter Butler and Chief Joseph Brant in the Battle of Chemung. Sullivan subsequently embarked on a scorched-earth campaign against the Iroquois in retaliation for their continued raids against frontier settlements. At least 40 of the tribe’s villages were destroyed, along with valuable supplies.
Later, Brodhead was charged with clearing the Lenape-Delaware out of the Ohio Valley. He was successful, but was replaced as the commander of the Western Department under charges of mishandling the department’s finances on September 17, 1781. Broadhead’s name was eventually cleared of most charges and he was made a brigadier general by George Washington later that year. Broadhead went on to become a founder of the Society of the Cincinnati, an association of Continental Army veterans; a member of Pennsylvania’s General Assembly; and the state’s surveyor general. In the latter position, he was tasked with mapping for settlement the land he had previously worked to empty of its original inhabitants.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Brodhead_IV
1848 Alexander Stewart opens the first US dept store. Between the years of 1846 and 1848, construction and fine details of one of Stewart's most famous buildings known as "The Marble Palace" had been finalized. This establishment officially set A.T. Stewart and Company to the top of being one of America's most successful retailers. The three-story building was located at Broadway and Chambers Street, just across from his first store, and offered imported European women's clothing. In addition to its merchandise, the second floor offered the first women's "fashion shows" as full length mirrors enabled women to view themselves from different angles.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A._T._Stewart_Company_Store
1862 - General Robert E. Lee's exhausted Confederate forces hold off the pursuing Yankees by closing two passes through Maryland's South Mountain, allowing Lee time to gather his forces further west along Antietam Creek near Sharpsburg.
After the Battle of Second Bull Run on August 29-30, Lee decided to invade Maryland to raise supplies; he also hoped a decisive win would earn the South foreign recognition. As he moved, he split his army into five sections while the hungry Rebels searched for supplies. A copy of the Confederate plans accidentally fell into Union hands when the orders were left in an abandoned campsite outside of Frederick, Maryland. McClellan now knew that Lee's force was in pieces, but he was slow to react.
As Lee moved into western Maryland, he left detachments to guard Crampton's Gap and Turner's Gap through South Mountain. If McClellan had penetrated the passes, he would have found Lee's army scattered and vulnerable. South Mountain, a 50-mile long ridge, contained several passes, but Crampton's Gap and Turner's Gap were the most important. The National Road ran through Turner's Gap to the north, and Crampton's Gap connected western Maryland to Harpers Ferry, Virginia.
The Union troops drove the Confederates away at Crampton's Gap, but were initially unable to expel the Confederates from Turner's Gap. However, the Rebels did retreat the next morning. Union losses for the day amounted to 2,300 dead and wounded, including the death of Major General Jesse Reno. The Confederates lost 2,700.
These engagements were a mere prelude to the Battle of Antietam. Although costly, they allowed Lee time to assemble his scattered bands at Sharpsburg.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maryland_Campaign#South_Mountain
1865 Northwestern College (Watertown, Wisconsin) opened. The school, operated by the Wisconsin Synod, was amalgamated in 1995 with Dr. Martin Luther College (New Ulm, Minnesota) into Martin Luther College on the New Ulm campus.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther_College
1886 - The first U.S. patent for a typewriter ribbon was issued to George Kerr Anderson of Memphis, Tennessee (No. 349,026). His invention was to provide portions near the ends of a ribbon with a colour contrasting from that of the body of the ribbon. This was intended to notify the operator of the machine to manually change the direction of the ribbon feed. Although the typed result near the end of a ribbon would be in a different colour, it was not lost. Before, in uses such as stenographic work, if a ribbon stopped at the end of its reel, the result gave a rapidly fading imprint while there may still be a need to finish a line before stopping to reverse the ribbon.
1891 - "Empire State Express" train goes from NYC to East Buffalo
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empire_State_Express
1901 - McKinley dies of infection from gunshot wounds. On this day in 1901, U.S. President William McKinley dies after being shot by a deranged anarchist during the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York.
McKinley won his first Congressional seat at the age of 34 and spent 14 years in the House, becoming known as the leading Republican expert on tariffs. After losing his seat in 1890, McKinley served two terms as governor of Ohio. By 1896, he had emerged as the leading Republican candidate for president, aided by the support of the wealthy Ohio industrialist Mark Hanna. That fall, McKinley defeated his Democratic rival, William Jennings Bryan, by the largest popular margin since the Civil War.
As president, McKinley became known--controversially--as a protector of big businesses, which enjoyed unprecedented growth during his administration. He advocated the protective tariff as a way of shielding U.S. business and labor from foreign competition, and he successfully argued for using the gold standard of currency.
Above all, however, McKinley's presidency was dominated by his foreign policy. In April 1898, he was pushed by Congress and American public opinion to intervene in Cuba's struggle for independence from Spanish colonial rule. In the first American war against a foreign power since 1812, the United States handily defeated Spain in just three months, freeing Cuba--although the island became a U.S. protectorate--and annexing Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philippines. For the first time, the United States had become a colonialist power.
America's growing interests in the Pacific led McKinley's administration to greatly increase its involvement in Asian politics. In 1900, McKinley sent thousands of U.S. troops to China to help put down the Boxer Rebellion, aimed at driving out foreigners. His aggressive "Open Door" policy declared U.S. support for an independent China and argued that all nations with commercial interests in China should be able to compete on equal footing.
The popular McKinley won a second term by even greater margins over Bryan, who attacked him on his "imperialism" in the Pacific and, domestically, on the growth of illegal monopolies, or trusts. There was little time to see what his second term would bring, however. On September 6, 1901, while standing in a receiving line at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, McKinley was approached by Leon Czolgosz, a Polish-American anarchist carrying a concealed .32 revolver in a handkerchief. Drawing his weapon, Czolgosz shot McKinley twice at close range. One bullet deflected off a suit button, but the other entered his stomach, passed through the kidneys, and lodged in his back. When he was operated on, doctors failed to find the bullet, and gangrene soon spread throughout his body. McKinley died eight days later. Czolgosz was convicted of murder and executed soon after the shooting.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_McKinley
1901 - An adoptive westerner becomes president of the United States On this day in 1901, the 42-year-old Theodore Roosevelt is suddenly elevated to the White House when President McKinley dies from an assassin's bullet. But while McKinley's untimely death brought Roosevelt the presidency, 17 years earlier two other deaths had sent the young Roosevelt fleeing to the far West where his political ambitions were almost forgotten.
In February 1884, Roosevelt's young wife died after giving birth to their daughter; a mere 12 hours later his much-beloved mother also died. Devastated by this cruel double blow, Roosevelt sought solace in the wide open spaces of the West, establishing himself on two ranches in the Badlands of Dakota Territory and writing to friends that he had given up politics and planned to make ranching "my regular business." Despite this, three years later he returned to New York City and resumed the political career that would eventually take him to the White House. Even after he had returned to the civilized East, Roosevelt always credited his western interlude with restoring his mental and physical vitality.
From an early age, Roosevelt had been convinced of the benefits of living the "strenuous life," arguing that too many American males had succumbed to the ease and safety of modern industrialized society and become soft and effeminate. Roosevelt thought more men should follow his example and embrace the hard, virile, pioneer life of the West, a place where "the qualities of hardihood, self-reliance, and resolution" were essential for survival. Roosevelt's own western experience was hardly as harsh and challenging as he liked to claim, yet the eastern tenderfoot did adapt quickly to the rougher ways of ranch life. He earned the respect of Dakotans by tracking down a gang of bandits who had stolen a riverboat and once knocked out a barroom bully who had taunted him. Though he spent the vast majority of his life in the East, Roosevelt thereafter always thought of himself as a westerner at heart, and he did more than any president before him to conserve the wild western lands he loved.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore_Roosevelt
Italian troops entrenched along the Isonzo River.
1916 - Seventh Battle of the Isonzo On September 14, 1916, Italian troops during World War I launch a short, concentrated attack on Austro-Hungarian positions on the Italian Front, near the Isonzo River.
Italy’s entrance into the Great War on May 23, 1915, had opened up a new front stretching 600 kilometers—most of them mountainous—along Italy’s much-contested border with Austria-Hungary in the Trentino region. Upon declaring war, the relatively ill-equipped Italian army immediately advanced into the South Tyrol region and to the Isonzo River, where Austro-Hungarian troops met them with a stiff defense. The snowy and treacherous terrain made the region poorly suited for offensive operations, and after several quick Italian successes, combat settled into a stalemate.
Luigi Cadorna, the chief of staff of the Italian army, determined that his forces could most easily make territorial gains against the enemy in the region of the Isonzo, a 60-mile-long river running north to south just inside the Austro-Hungarian border with Italy (present-day Slovenia) and flanked on either side by mountains. The Italians launched their first offensive in the region, known as the First Battle of the Isonzo, in June 1915.
The Seventh Battle of the Isonzo, fought between September 14 and 17, 1916, attempted to repeat the successes of the sixth and most successful Italian offensive, fought one month earlier. In that battle, the Italians had forced the Austrian forces back some five kilometers before Cadorna called off the offensive, claiming success. Unfortunately for the Italians, the follow-up attack in September was less effective: though the Italians captured several mountain peaks, including the 7,723-foot Mount Cardinal in the Trentino, the Austrians managed to hold the line, and actual Italian advances were minimal, at a cost of heavy casualties.
The treacherous terrain surrounding the Isonzo River would see no fewer than 12 battles from June 1915 to November 1917; these battles, culminating in the disastrous Battle of Caporetto, or the Twelfth Battle of the Isonzo, cost the Italians some 300,000 casualties—fully half their casualty total during the entire war.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seventh_Battle_of_the_Isonzo
1918 - The Evangelical Lutheran Joint Synod of Wisconsin, Ohio and Other States was formed from the merger of several smaller synods. In 1930 this denomination merged with two other synods to form the American Lutheran Church (ALC).
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Lutheran_Church
Emblem of Bob Jones University
1927 - Bob Jones University opened in Greenville, South Carolina, and eighty-eight students registered for the first fall term.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Jones_University
1927 - Gene Austin recorded "My Blue Heaven", for Victor Records
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Blue_Heaven_(song)
1937 - The mercury soared to 92 degrees at Seattle, WA, a record for September. (The Weather Channel)
1938 - Graf Zeppelin II, world's largest airship, makes maiden flight
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graf_Zeppelin_II
Routes of Allied landings on Peleliu, 15 September 1944.
1944 - Americans launch Operation Stalemate-at extraordinary cost. On this day in 1944, the U.S. 1st Marine Division lands on the island of Peleliu, one of the Palau Islands in the Pacific, as part of a larger operation to provide support for Gen. Douglas MacArthur, who was preparing to invade the Philippines. The cost in American lives would prove historic.
The Palaus, part of the Caroline Islands, were among the mandated islands taken from Germany and given to Japan as one of the terms of the Treaty of Versailles at the close of World War I. The U.S. military lacked familiarity with the islands, and Adm. William Halsey argued against Operation Stalemate, which included the Army invasion of Morotai in the Dutch East Indies, believing that MacArthur would meet minimal resistance in the Philippines, therefore making this operation unnecessary, especially given the risks involved.
Peleliu was subject to pre-invasion bombardment, but it proved of little consequence. The Japanese defenders of the island were buried too deep in the jungle, and the target intelligence given the Americans was faulty. Upon landing, the Marines met little immediate resistance-but that was a ploy. Shortly thereafter, Japanese machine guns opened fire, knocking out more than two dozen landing craft. Japanese tanks and troops followed, as the startled 1st and 5th Marine regiments fought for their lives. Jungle caves disgorged even more Japanese soldiers. Within one week of the invasion, the Marines lost 4,000 men. By the time it was all over, that number would surpass 9,000. The Japanese lost more than 13,000 men. Flamethrowers and bombs finally subdued the island for the Americans-but it all proved pointless. MacArthur invaded the Philippines without need of Army or Marine protection from either Peleliu or Morotai.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Stalemate
1944 - A very destructive hurricane swept across Cape Hatteras and Chesapeake Bay, side swiped New Jersey and Long Island, and crossed southeastern Massachusetts. The hurricane killed more than four hundred persons, mainly at sea. The hurricane destroyed the Atlantic City NJ boardwalk. (David Ludlum) (The Weather Channel)
1948 - Groundbreaking ceremony for the UN world headquarters
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UN
1956 - The first U.S. prefrontal lobotomy surgery was performed. Surgeons J.W. Watts and Walter Freeman operated on a 63-year-old woman at the George Washington University Hospital.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prefrontal_lobotomy
1957 - "Have Gun Will Travel" debuted on CBS The hit CBS series aired from 1957 to 1963 and was centered on Paladin, an educated knight-errant gunslinger who, upon payment of $1,000, would leave his well-appointed suite in San Francisco's Hotel Carlton to pursue whatever mission of mercy or justice a well-heeled client commissioned. Paladin was played by Richard Boone.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Have_Gun_Will_Travel
1957 - "Diana" by Paul Anka topped the charts
1963 - Mary Ann Fischer, Aberdeen, SD, gave birth to America's first surviving quintuplets. The Fischer quintuplets are born in Aberdeen, South Dakota, the world's fourth surviving set of quints and the first in the United States. Jimmie, Cathy, Margie, Mary Ann and Maggie join five other siblings and are joined by a single baby sister, Cindy, born September 24, 1964.
1963 - "My Boyfriend's Back" by the Angels topped the charts
1964 - Walt Disney awarded the Medal of Freedom at the White House. Walt Disney's personal awards included honorary degrees from Harvard, Yale, the University of Southern California, and UCLA; the Presidential Medal of Freedom; France's Legion of Honor and Officer d'Academie decorations; Thailand's Order of the Crown; Brazil's Order of the Southern Cross; Mexico's Order of the Aztec Eagle; and the Showman of the World Award from the National Association of Theatre Owners
1964 - Steinbeck wins the Medal of Freedom On this day, writer John Steinbeck was presented the U.S. Medal of Freedom. Steinbeck had already received numerous other honors and awards for his writing, including the 1962 Nobel Prize and a 1939 Pulitzer Prize for Grapes of Wrath.
Steinbeck, a native Californian, studied writing intermittently at Stanford between 1920 and 1925 but never graduated. He moved to New York and worked as a manual laborer and journalist while writing his first two novels, which were not successful. He married in 1930 and moved back to California with his wife. His father, a government official in Salinas County, gave the couple a house to live in while Steinbeck continued writing.
His first novel, Tortilla Flat, about the comic antics of several rootless drifters who share a house in California, was published in 1935. The novel became a financial success.
Steinbeck's next works, In Dubious Battle and Of Mice and Men, were both successful, and in 1938 his masterpiece The Grapes of Wrath was published. The novel, about the struggles of an Oklahoma family who lose their farm and become fruit pickers in California, won a Pulitzer Prize in 1939.
After World War II, Steinbeck's work became more sentimental in such novels as Cannery Row and The Pearl. He also wrote several successful films, including Forgotten Village (1941) and Viva Zapata (1952). He became interested in marine biology and published a nonfiction book, The Sea of Cortez, in 1941. His travel memoir, Travels with Charlie, describes his trek across the United States in a camper. Steinbeck won the Nobel Prize in 1962 and died in New York in 1968.
1965 - "F-Troop" premiers
1966 - Operation Attleboro is launched in War Zone C U.S. II Field Force initiates Operation Attleboro with an attack by the 196th Light Infantry Brigade against Viet Cong forces near the Cambodian Border in War Zone C (near Tay Ninh, 50 miles northwest of Saigon in III Corps Tactical Zone).
When the communists appeared to want to make a fight of it, the U.S. commander, Lt. Gen. Jonathan Seaman, sent in reinforcements from the U.S. 1st Infantry Division; the 173rd Airborne Brigade; a brigade each from the U.S. 4th and 25th Infantry Divisions; and a contingent from a South Vietnamese division. Before the operation was over, more than 20,000 U.S. and South Vietnamese troops were involved, making it the largest operation at that point in the war. After more than six weeks of hit-and-run fighting, the Viet Cong forces sustained 1,106 casualties and fell back to sanctuary areas in Cambodia.
Operations like Attleboro, and others to follow such as Cedar Rapids and Junction City, were examples of the search and destroy tactic dictated by Gen. William Westmoreland, commander of U.S. Military Assistance Command Vietnam (MACV), the senior American headquarters in Saigon. The objective was to find the Viet Cong and engage them in decisive battle; the problem was that the communists often refused to engage in the type of set-piece battles for control of critical terrain that had been the norm in previous wars, like World War II. Westmoreland's search and destroy tactic led to a war of attrition in which battles were fought often over the same territory again and again and where each side inflicted as many casualties as possible on the other. This approach was criticized because it meant that the war would go on as long as the communists were prepared to accept and replace their losses on the battlefield.
1968 - Detroit Tigers' Denny McLain's 30th victory of the season
1968 - "People Got to Be Free" by the Rascals topped the charts
1970 - The temperature at Fremont, OR, dipped to 2 above zero to equal the state record for September set on the 24th in 1926. (The Weather Channel)
1972 - "Waltons" TV program premiers
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Waltons
1973 - President Nixon signed into law a measure lifting pro football's blackout
1973 - Donny Osmond received a gold record for his hit single, "The Twelfth of Never"
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Twelfth_of_Never
1975 - American canonized as saint Elizabeth Ann Seton is canonized by Pope Paul VI at the Vatican in Rome, becoming the first American-born Catholic saint.
Born in New York City in 1774, Elizabeth Bayley was the daughter of an Episcopalian physician. She devoted much of her time to charity work with the poor and in 1797 founded the Society for the Relief of Poor Widows with Small Children in New York. She married William Seton, and in 1803 she traveled with him to Italy, where she was exposed to the Roman Catholic Church. After she herself was widowed and left with five children in 1803, she converted to Catholicism and in 1808 went to Baltimore to establish a Catholic school for girls.
In 1809, she founded the United States' first religious order, the Sisters of Charity of St. Joseph. A few months later, Mother Seton and the sisters of the order moved to a poor parish where they provided free education to poor children. Mother Seton's order grew rapidly, and she continued to teach until her death in 1821. In 1856, Seton Hall University was named for her. She was canonized in 1975.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Ann_Seton
1978 - "Mork & Mindy"premieres on ABC-TV
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mork_%26_Mindy
1981 - Entertainment Tonight premiers
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entertainment_Tonight
1985 - "St Elmo's Fire Man in Motion)" by John Parr topped the charts
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Elmo%27s_Fire_(Man_in_Motion)
1987 - Oriole Cal Ripken Jr sets record of playing 8,243 innings in 910 games. In an 18-3 rout of the Orioles, the Blue Jays erupt for a ML-record 10 home runs. Ernie Whitt leads the parade with three round trippers, Rance Mulliniks and George Bell hit 2, and Lloyd Moseby, Rob Ducey, and Fred McGriff each add one. Mike Hart hits one for Baltimore to tie the 2-team major-league record of 11. In the 7th inning, the Jays Kelly Gruber makes an out and, in his next at bat in the frame, hits into a DP tie a major-league record for most outs-inning. Cal Ripken's streak of 8,243 consecutive innings (908 games) is broken when he is lifted in the 8th for pinch runner Ron Washington.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cal_Ripken_Jr
1987 - Barrow, AK, received 5.1 inches of snow, a record for September. (Sandra and TI Richard Sanders - 1987)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrow,_AK
1987 - Thunderstorms developing along a cold front produced severe weather from Minnesota to Texas. Thunderstorms in Iowa produced baseball size hail at Laporte City, and 80 mph winds at Laurens. Hail caused more than ten million dollars damage to crops in Iowa. Thunderstorms in Missouri produced wind gusts to 75 mph at Missouri City and Kansas City. A thunderstorm in Texas deluged the town of Fairlie with two inches of rain in just two hours. (Storm Data) (The National Weather Summary)
1988 - Hurricane Gilbert made the first of its two landfalls on Mexico, producing 170 mph winds at Cozumel. (The Weather Channel)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Gilbert
1988 - Thunderstorms produced severe weather over the Texas panhandle during the evening hours. One thunderstorm spawned a strong (F-2) tornado in the southwest part of Amarillo, and deluged the area with five inches of rain. The heavy rain left roads under as much as five feet of water, and left Lawrence Lake a mile out of its banks. Hurricane Gilbert lost some of its punch crossing the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico. Its maximum winds diminished to 120 mph. (The National Weather Summary) (Storm Data)
1989 - Unseasonably cool weather prevailed across the south central U.S. Eight cities reported record low temperatures for the date, including Raton NM with a reading of 30 degrees. The afternoon high of 59 degrees at Topeka KS marked their third straight record cool maximum temperature. Unseasonably warm weather continued in the Pacific Northwest. Seattle WA reported a record eight days in a row of 80 degree weather in September. (Storm Data) (The National Weather Summary)
1994 Acting commissioner Bud Selig announced the cancellation of the 1994 baseball season on the 34th day of a strike by players
1999 - Millions flee from Hurricane Floyd Millions of people evacuate their homes as Hurricane Floyd moves across the Atlantic Ocean on this day in 1999. Over the next several days, deaths are recorded from the Bahamas to New England due to the powerful storm.
Floyd began as a tropical storm on September 7 and attained hurricane status three days later. By September 12, its winds had reached 140 miles per hour as the storm approached the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico. Floyd skirted past these islands, though, leaving relatively minor damage in its wake.
On September 14, Floyd approached the Bahamas and looked to be on a collision course with central Florida. Walt Disney World closed its doors in preparation for the first time in its history and NASA operations at Cape Canaveral were shut down to get ready for the coming storm. In all, approximately 3 million people evacuated their homes. Meanwhile, the Bahamas were spared a direct hit and, although millions of dollars in damages were incurred, only one person was killed.
Gaining strength over the warm waters of the Caribbean, Floyd was a Category 4 storm when it hit the Florida coast the next day. It turned out to be North Carolina that bore the brunt of Floyd, however, as it landed a direct hit on the state’s Cape Fear region. Torrential rains caused flooding that ended in the drowning deaths of 56 people and 6,000 houses were lost to the storm. Floyd brought rain and flooding with it all the way up the Eastern seaboard to Connecticut. In all, 68 people died from Hurricane Floyd. Out of deference to the destruction it caused, the National Hurricane Center retired the name "Floyd" in the spring of 2000.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Floyd
2001 - President Bush declared a national emergency. President Bush declared a national emergency and summoned as many as 50,000 military reservists. Congress approved nearly $40 billion and gave Pres. Bush war powers ok. The number of hijackers involved in the September 11 attacks was raised from 18 to 19 and their names were made public.
2001 A historic National Prayer Service was held at the Washington National Cathedral for victims of the 11 September attacks on New York’s World Trade Center and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C.
Births
1721 - Eliphalet Dyer, American statesman and judge (d. 1807)
1735 Robert Raikes, English newspaper editor, philanthropist and founder of the modern Sunday school, was born in Gloucester, England (d 5 Apr 1811).
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Raikes
1799 David Oliver Allen, missionary to India, born in Barre, Massachusetts (d 1863).
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Oliver_Allen
1804 Louis Maigret, French Catholic prelate and the first vicar apostolic of the Apostolic Vicariate of the Sandwich Islands (Hawaii), was born (d 1882).
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_D%C3%A9sir%C3%A9_Maigret
1860 - Hamlin Garland, American writer (d. 1940)
1867 - Charles Dana Gibson illustrator, drew "Gibson Girl" (d 1944)
1869 - Kid Nichols, American baseball player (d. 1953)
1872 - John Olof Dahlgren, American recipient of the Medal of Honor (d. 1963)
1879 - Margaret Sanger (d 1966) (neé Maragret Louisa Higgins) American birth-control champion who founded the first U.S. birth-control clinic in Brooklyn, New York (1916), where she had witnessed firsthand the interaction of poverty, uncontrolled fertility, and deaths from botched abortions, together with high rates of infant and maternal mortality. She became an international leader, and is credited with originating the term "birth control."
1880 - Charles Archibald "Archie" Hahn (d 1955) was a German-American athlete, and one of the best sprinters in the early 20th century
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archie_Hahn
1886 - Stanislaw Kieca³ (d 1910), better known in the boxing world as Stanley Ketchel, was a Polish American boxer who became one of the greatest world middleweight champions. He was nicknamed the Michigan Assassin.
1887 - Karl Taylor Compton (d 1954) American educator and physicist who directed development of radar during WW II. His research included the passage of photoelectrons through metals, ionization and the motion of electrons in gases, fluorescence, the theory of the electric arc, and collisions of electrons and atoms. In 1933, President Roosevelt asked him to chair the new Scientific Advisory Board. When the National Defense Research Committee was formed in 1940, he was chief of Division D (detection: radar, fire control, etc.) In 1941, he was in charge of those divisions concerned with radar within the new Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD). Afterwards he was cited for personally shortening the duration of the war. (Brother of Arthur H. Compton.)
1898 - Hal Wallis movie producer (Maltese Falcon, Barefoot in the Park) (d. 1986)
1907 - Cecil Brown news correspondent (CBS)
1908 - Bernie Green NYC, orch leader (Arthur Godfrey Show, Garry Moore Show)
1910 - Lehman Engel Jackson Miss, conductor/composer (Streetcar Named Desire)
1914 - Clayton Moore (d 1999) was an American actor best known for playing the fictional western character Lone Ranger from 1949-1951 and 1954-1957 on the television series of the same name.
1914 - Robert Sinclair Dietz (d 1995) American geophysicist and oceanographer who presented a theory of seafloor spreading in which new crustal material continually upwells from the Earth's depths along the mid-ocean ridges and spreads outward at a rate of several centimetres per year (1961). While a student Dietz identified the Kentland structure in Indiana as a meteoric impact site. He later achieved prominence by studying meteorite craters and demonstrated that asteroid and meteor impacts have been important geological processes acting for billions of years on both the Moon and the Earth.
1920 - Lawrence Klein, American economist, Nobel Prize laureate
1921 - Hughes Rudd TV newscaster (CBS) (d 1922)
1927 - Martin Caidin, American aviation writer (d. 1997)
1928 - Albert Shanker American labor leader (Amer Fed of Teachers)
1929 - Larry Collins, American writer (d. 2005)
1930 - Allan Bloom, American academic and author (The Closing of the American Mind) (d. 1992)
1932 - Harry Sinden, American National Hockey League executive
1934 - Kate Millett, American feminist writer (Sexual Politics)
1936 - Ferid Murat American co-winner of the 1998 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for discovering that a gas, nitric oxide, acts as a signalling molecule in the cardiovascular system. This work, performed in the 1980's, uncovered an entirely new mechanism for how blood vessels in the body relax and widen. It led to the development of the anti-impotence drug Viagra and potential new approaches for understanding and treating other diseases. He was a co-worker with Robert F. Furchgott and Louis J. Ignarro.
1944 - Joey Heatherton, American actress and singer
1946 - Jim Angle, American television reporter
1947 - Jon "Bowser" Bauman Queens NY, singer (Sha Na Na)
Deaths
1321 Dante Alighieri, Italian poet, died (b 1265).
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dante_Alighieri
1638 - John Harvard, English pastor and first benefactor of the college that was named Harvard College in his honor. He directed that half his money, along with his library, be given to the recently created school. His gift assured its continued operation (b. 1607)
1836 - Aaron Burr, Vice President of the United States (b. 1756)
1887 Edward Shippen Barnes, musician, born in Seabright, New Jersey (d 14 Febr 1958). Wrote music for Angels We Have Heard on High.
www.cyberhymnal.org/bio/b/a/r/barnes_es.htm
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Shippen_Barnes
1851 - James Fenimore Cooper, American author (b. 1789)
1895 - Charles Valentine Riley (b 1843) British-born American entomologist who pioneered the scientific study of insects for their economic impact in agriculture. He was a keen observer of relationships in nature, and enhanced his written observations with drawings. He initiated biological control. After studying the parasites and predators of the cottony cushion scale, which was destroying the citrus industry in California, he introduced (1888) a natural enemy of the scale from Australia. The effectiveness of the Vedalia cardinalis beetle in reducing the populations of the cottony cushion scale promoted the study of biological control of pests. He helped establish the Division of Entomology of the U.S. Department of Agriculture
1901 - William McKinley, 25th President of the United States (b. 1843)
1927 - Isadora Duncan, American dancer (b. 1877)
1936 - Irving Thalberg, American film producer (b. 1899)
1942 - E.S. Gosney, American eugenicist (b 1855)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E.S._Gosney
1966 - Gertrude Berg (B 3 Oct 1898 ) actress (Molly Goldberg-The Goldbergs), and screenwriter. A pioneer of classic radio, she was one of the first women to create, write, produce and star in a long-running hit when she premiered her serial comedy-drama The Rise of the Goldbergs (1929), later known as The Goldbergs.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gertrude_Berg
1970 - Rudolf Carnap (b 1891) German-American philosopher, who made significant contributions to logic and the philosophy of science. To avoid the ambiguities resulting from the use of ordinary language, he made a logical analysis of language. He believed in studying philosphical issues in artificial languages constructed under the rules of logic and mathematics. His applications of such languages included the different interpretation of probability, the nature of explanation and the distinctions between analytic and synthetic, a priori and a posteriori, and necessary and contingent statements. His influential books inclde "The Logical Structure of the World" (1928) and "The Logical Syntax of Language"
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudolf_Carnap
1981 - William Loeb III, American newspaper publisher (b. 1905)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Loeb_III
1982 - Grace Kelly, American actress, Princess of Monaco (b. 1929)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grace_Kelly
1984 - Janet Gaynor, American actress (b 1906)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janet_Gaynor
1991 - Russell Lynes, American art historian and magazine editor (b. 1910)
2003 - Garrett Hardin, American ecologist (b 1915)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garrett_Hardin
2005 - William Berenberg, M.D. (b 1915) American physician, Harvard professor, and pioneer in the treatment and rehabilitation of cerebral palsy.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Berenberg
2009 - Jody Powell, American press secretary to Jimmy Carter (b 1943)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jody_Powell
2009 - Patrick Swayze, American actor, dancer, and songwriter (b 1952)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_Swayze
Holidays and observances
Christian Feast Day:
Aelia Flaccilla (Eastern Orthodox Church)
Crescentius of Rome
Maternus of Cologne
Notburga
September 14 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
Saints
Holy Fathers of the Seventh Ecumenical Council
Repose of Saint John Chrysostom, Archbishop of Constantinople (407)
Martyr Papas of Lycaonia (305)
Saint Aelia Flaccilla the Empress ca. 385), wife of Theodosius the Great (400)
Martyr Macarios of Thessalonica, Dionysiou monastery at Mt. Athos (1522)
Martyr Theocles and Child-martyr Valerian
Other Commemorations
The Universal Exaltation of the Precious and Life Giving Cross
"Lesna" Icon of the Most Holy Theotokos
Feast of the Cross (Christianity)
Formerly, the Wednesday, Friday and Saturday following 14 September were observed as one of the four sets of Ember days. In the Irish calendar they were known as Quarter tense. (Roman Catholic and Anglican Churches)
akaCG
www.scopesys.com/cgi-bin/today2.cgi
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_14
www.amug.org/~jpaul/sep14.htmlwww.weatherforyou.com/cgi-bin/weather_history/today2S.pl
www.history.com/this-day-in-history/mckinley-dies-of-infection-from-gunshot-wounds
daysuntil.com/Election-Day/index.html
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_14_(Eastern_Orthodox_liturgics)
www.todayinsci.com/9/9_14.htm
www.hymntime.com/tch/index.htm
www.lutheranhistory.org/history/tih0914.htm
[/size]
There are 108 days remaining until the end of the year.
Days until Election Day, Tuesday November 6, 2012: 53
Countdown until Obama leaves Office www.obamaclock.org/
U.S. Debt Clock: www.usdebtclock.org/
1716 - Boston Light, the first lighthouse in America was first lighted just before sunset. Located on Little Brewster Island to mark the entrance to Boston, Massachusetts, harbour, has guided ships since then. Building it was authorized 23 Jul 1715 by the Boston Light Bill. In the 1600s, treacherous rocks caused countless loss of lives. False signal fires lit in the wrong places by "wreckers" lured ships aground to plunder. Boston Light was blown up by the British in 1776, but rebuilt in 1783 by Governor John Hancock. The lighthouse is also the last remaining manned station in the U.S.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Light
1741 - Composer George Frederick Handel finished Messiah after working on it non-stop for 23 days. Handel set to work composing on August 22 in his little house on Brook Street in London. He grew absorbed in the work that he rarely left his room, hardly stopping to eat. Within six days part one was complete. In nine days more he had finished part two, and in another six, part three. The orchestration was completed in another two days. In all 260 pages of manuscript were filled in the remarkable short time of 24 days.
1765 - Former slave ship captain, Anglican clergyman and hymnwriter (Amazing Grace) John Newton wrote in a letter: 'How unspeakable are our obligations to the grace of God.'
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Newton
www.hymntime.com/tch/bio/n/e/w/newton_j.htm
1779 - Brodhead completes Allegheny River expedition. On this day in 1779, American Colonel Daniel Brodhead concludes an ambitious assault against the Seneca Indians throughout the Allegheny Valley of Pennsylvania. Simultaneously, Major General John Sullivan had attacked the Iroquois of New York.
Brodhead had left Pittsburgh in August at the head of 600 men. Over the course of his mission, he destroyed 10 Indian villages, encountering only minimal resistance because the Seneca warriors had traveled to fight the Sullivan-led expedition, which had been ravaging native settlements in New York.
On August 29, 1779, at what is modern-day Elmira, New York, near New York’s southwestern border with Pennsylvania, Continental forces led by Sullivan and Brigadier General James Clinton defeated a combined force of Loyalists and Indians commanded by Captain Walter Butler and Chief Joseph Brant in the Battle of Chemung. Sullivan subsequently embarked on a scorched-earth campaign against the Iroquois in retaliation for their continued raids against frontier settlements. At least 40 of the tribe’s villages were destroyed, along with valuable supplies.
Later, Brodhead was charged with clearing the Lenape-Delaware out of the Ohio Valley. He was successful, but was replaced as the commander of the Western Department under charges of mishandling the department’s finances on September 17, 1781. Broadhead’s name was eventually cleared of most charges and he was made a brigadier general by George Washington later that year. Broadhead went on to become a founder of the Society of the Cincinnati, an association of Continental Army veterans; a member of Pennsylvania’s General Assembly; and the state’s surveyor general. In the latter position, he was tasked with mapping for settlement the land he had previously worked to empty of its original inhabitants.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Brodhead_IV
1848 Alexander Stewart opens the first US dept store. Between the years of 1846 and 1848, construction and fine details of one of Stewart's most famous buildings known as "The Marble Palace" had been finalized. This establishment officially set A.T. Stewart and Company to the top of being one of America's most successful retailers. The three-story building was located at Broadway and Chambers Street, just across from his first store, and offered imported European women's clothing. In addition to its merchandise, the second floor offered the first women's "fashion shows" as full length mirrors enabled women to view themselves from different angles.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A._T._Stewart_Company_Store
1862 - General Robert E. Lee's exhausted Confederate forces hold off the pursuing Yankees by closing two passes through Maryland's South Mountain, allowing Lee time to gather his forces further west along Antietam Creek near Sharpsburg.
After the Battle of Second Bull Run on August 29-30, Lee decided to invade Maryland to raise supplies; he also hoped a decisive win would earn the South foreign recognition. As he moved, he split his army into five sections while the hungry Rebels searched for supplies. A copy of the Confederate plans accidentally fell into Union hands when the orders were left in an abandoned campsite outside of Frederick, Maryland. McClellan now knew that Lee's force was in pieces, but he was slow to react.
As Lee moved into western Maryland, he left detachments to guard Crampton's Gap and Turner's Gap through South Mountain. If McClellan had penetrated the passes, he would have found Lee's army scattered and vulnerable. South Mountain, a 50-mile long ridge, contained several passes, but Crampton's Gap and Turner's Gap were the most important. The National Road ran through Turner's Gap to the north, and Crampton's Gap connected western Maryland to Harpers Ferry, Virginia.
The Union troops drove the Confederates away at Crampton's Gap, but were initially unable to expel the Confederates from Turner's Gap. However, the Rebels did retreat the next morning. Union losses for the day amounted to 2,300 dead and wounded, including the death of Major General Jesse Reno. The Confederates lost 2,700.
These engagements were a mere prelude to the Battle of Antietam. Although costly, they allowed Lee time to assemble his scattered bands at Sharpsburg.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maryland_Campaign#South_Mountain
1865 Northwestern College (Watertown, Wisconsin) opened. The school, operated by the Wisconsin Synod, was amalgamated in 1995 with Dr. Martin Luther College (New Ulm, Minnesota) into Martin Luther College on the New Ulm campus.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther_College
1886 - The first U.S. patent for a typewriter ribbon was issued to George Kerr Anderson of Memphis, Tennessee (No. 349,026). His invention was to provide portions near the ends of a ribbon with a colour contrasting from that of the body of the ribbon. This was intended to notify the operator of the machine to manually change the direction of the ribbon feed. Although the typed result near the end of a ribbon would be in a different colour, it was not lost. Before, in uses such as stenographic work, if a ribbon stopped at the end of its reel, the result gave a rapidly fading imprint while there may still be a need to finish a line before stopping to reverse the ribbon.
1891 - "Empire State Express" train goes from NYC to East Buffalo
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empire_State_Express
1901 - McKinley dies of infection from gunshot wounds. On this day in 1901, U.S. President William McKinley dies after being shot by a deranged anarchist during the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York.
McKinley won his first Congressional seat at the age of 34 and spent 14 years in the House, becoming known as the leading Republican expert on tariffs. After losing his seat in 1890, McKinley served two terms as governor of Ohio. By 1896, he had emerged as the leading Republican candidate for president, aided by the support of the wealthy Ohio industrialist Mark Hanna. That fall, McKinley defeated his Democratic rival, William Jennings Bryan, by the largest popular margin since the Civil War.
As president, McKinley became known--controversially--as a protector of big businesses, which enjoyed unprecedented growth during his administration. He advocated the protective tariff as a way of shielding U.S. business and labor from foreign competition, and he successfully argued for using the gold standard of currency.
Above all, however, McKinley's presidency was dominated by his foreign policy. In April 1898, he was pushed by Congress and American public opinion to intervene in Cuba's struggle for independence from Spanish colonial rule. In the first American war against a foreign power since 1812, the United States handily defeated Spain in just three months, freeing Cuba--although the island became a U.S. protectorate--and annexing Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philippines. For the first time, the United States had become a colonialist power.
America's growing interests in the Pacific led McKinley's administration to greatly increase its involvement in Asian politics. In 1900, McKinley sent thousands of U.S. troops to China to help put down the Boxer Rebellion, aimed at driving out foreigners. His aggressive "Open Door" policy declared U.S. support for an independent China and argued that all nations with commercial interests in China should be able to compete on equal footing.
The popular McKinley won a second term by even greater margins over Bryan, who attacked him on his "imperialism" in the Pacific and, domestically, on the growth of illegal monopolies, or trusts. There was little time to see what his second term would bring, however. On September 6, 1901, while standing in a receiving line at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, McKinley was approached by Leon Czolgosz, a Polish-American anarchist carrying a concealed .32 revolver in a handkerchief. Drawing his weapon, Czolgosz shot McKinley twice at close range. One bullet deflected off a suit button, but the other entered his stomach, passed through the kidneys, and lodged in his back. When he was operated on, doctors failed to find the bullet, and gangrene soon spread throughout his body. McKinley died eight days later. Czolgosz was convicted of murder and executed soon after the shooting.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_McKinley
1901 - An adoptive westerner becomes president of the United States On this day in 1901, the 42-year-old Theodore Roosevelt is suddenly elevated to the White House when President McKinley dies from an assassin's bullet. But while McKinley's untimely death brought Roosevelt the presidency, 17 years earlier two other deaths had sent the young Roosevelt fleeing to the far West where his political ambitions were almost forgotten.
In February 1884, Roosevelt's young wife died after giving birth to their daughter; a mere 12 hours later his much-beloved mother also died. Devastated by this cruel double blow, Roosevelt sought solace in the wide open spaces of the West, establishing himself on two ranches in the Badlands of Dakota Territory and writing to friends that he had given up politics and planned to make ranching "my regular business." Despite this, three years later he returned to New York City and resumed the political career that would eventually take him to the White House. Even after he had returned to the civilized East, Roosevelt always credited his western interlude with restoring his mental and physical vitality.
From an early age, Roosevelt had been convinced of the benefits of living the "strenuous life," arguing that too many American males had succumbed to the ease and safety of modern industrialized society and become soft and effeminate. Roosevelt thought more men should follow his example and embrace the hard, virile, pioneer life of the West, a place where "the qualities of hardihood, self-reliance, and resolution" were essential for survival. Roosevelt's own western experience was hardly as harsh and challenging as he liked to claim, yet the eastern tenderfoot did adapt quickly to the rougher ways of ranch life. He earned the respect of Dakotans by tracking down a gang of bandits who had stolen a riverboat and once knocked out a barroom bully who had taunted him. Though he spent the vast majority of his life in the East, Roosevelt thereafter always thought of himself as a westerner at heart, and he did more than any president before him to conserve the wild western lands he loved.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore_Roosevelt
Italian troops entrenched along the Isonzo River.
1916 - Seventh Battle of the Isonzo On September 14, 1916, Italian troops during World War I launch a short, concentrated attack on Austro-Hungarian positions on the Italian Front, near the Isonzo River.
Italy’s entrance into the Great War on May 23, 1915, had opened up a new front stretching 600 kilometers—most of them mountainous—along Italy’s much-contested border with Austria-Hungary in the Trentino region. Upon declaring war, the relatively ill-equipped Italian army immediately advanced into the South Tyrol region and to the Isonzo River, where Austro-Hungarian troops met them with a stiff defense. The snowy and treacherous terrain made the region poorly suited for offensive operations, and after several quick Italian successes, combat settled into a stalemate.
Luigi Cadorna, the chief of staff of the Italian army, determined that his forces could most easily make territorial gains against the enemy in the region of the Isonzo, a 60-mile-long river running north to south just inside the Austro-Hungarian border with Italy (present-day Slovenia) and flanked on either side by mountains. The Italians launched their first offensive in the region, known as the First Battle of the Isonzo, in June 1915.
The Seventh Battle of the Isonzo, fought between September 14 and 17, 1916, attempted to repeat the successes of the sixth and most successful Italian offensive, fought one month earlier. In that battle, the Italians had forced the Austrian forces back some five kilometers before Cadorna called off the offensive, claiming success. Unfortunately for the Italians, the follow-up attack in September was less effective: though the Italians captured several mountain peaks, including the 7,723-foot Mount Cardinal in the Trentino, the Austrians managed to hold the line, and actual Italian advances were minimal, at a cost of heavy casualties.
The treacherous terrain surrounding the Isonzo River would see no fewer than 12 battles from June 1915 to November 1917; these battles, culminating in the disastrous Battle of Caporetto, or the Twelfth Battle of the Isonzo, cost the Italians some 300,000 casualties—fully half their casualty total during the entire war.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seventh_Battle_of_the_Isonzo
1918 - The Evangelical Lutheran Joint Synod of Wisconsin, Ohio and Other States was formed from the merger of several smaller synods. In 1930 this denomination merged with two other synods to form the American Lutheran Church (ALC).
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Lutheran_Church
Emblem of Bob Jones University
1927 - Bob Jones University opened in Greenville, South Carolina, and eighty-eight students registered for the first fall term.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Jones_University
1927 - Gene Austin recorded "My Blue Heaven", for Victor Records
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Blue_Heaven_(song)
1937 - The mercury soared to 92 degrees at Seattle, WA, a record for September. (The Weather Channel)
1938 - Graf Zeppelin II, world's largest airship, makes maiden flight
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graf_Zeppelin_II
Routes of Allied landings on Peleliu, 15 September 1944.
1944 - Americans launch Operation Stalemate-at extraordinary cost. On this day in 1944, the U.S. 1st Marine Division lands on the island of Peleliu, one of the Palau Islands in the Pacific, as part of a larger operation to provide support for Gen. Douglas MacArthur, who was preparing to invade the Philippines. The cost in American lives would prove historic.
The Palaus, part of the Caroline Islands, were among the mandated islands taken from Germany and given to Japan as one of the terms of the Treaty of Versailles at the close of World War I. The U.S. military lacked familiarity with the islands, and Adm. William Halsey argued against Operation Stalemate, which included the Army invasion of Morotai in the Dutch East Indies, believing that MacArthur would meet minimal resistance in the Philippines, therefore making this operation unnecessary, especially given the risks involved.
Peleliu was subject to pre-invasion bombardment, but it proved of little consequence. The Japanese defenders of the island were buried too deep in the jungle, and the target intelligence given the Americans was faulty. Upon landing, the Marines met little immediate resistance-but that was a ploy. Shortly thereafter, Japanese machine guns opened fire, knocking out more than two dozen landing craft. Japanese tanks and troops followed, as the startled 1st and 5th Marine regiments fought for their lives. Jungle caves disgorged even more Japanese soldiers. Within one week of the invasion, the Marines lost 4,000 men. By the time it was all over, that number would surpass 9,000. The Japanese lost more than 13,000 men. Flamethrowers and bombs finally subdued the island for the Americans-but it all proved pointless. MacArthur invaded the Philippines without need of Army or Marine protection from either Peleliu or Morotai.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Stalemate
1944 - A very destructive hurricane swept across Cape Hatteras and Chesapeake Bay, side swiped New Jersey and Long Island, and crossed southeastern Massachusetts. The hurricane killed more than four hundred persons, mainly at sea. The hurricane destroyed the Atlantic City NJ boardwalk. (David Ludlum) (The Weather Channel)
1948 - Groundbreaking ceremony for the UN world headquarters
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UN
1956 - The first U.S. prefrontal lobotomy surgery was performed. Surgeons J.W. Watts and Walter Freeman operated on a 63-year-old woman at the George Washington University Hospital.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prefrontal_lobotomy
1957 - "Have Gun Will Travel" debuted on CBS The hit CBS series aired from 1957 to 1963 and was centered on Paladin, an educated knight-errant gunslinger who, upon payment of $1,000, would leave his well-appointed suite in San Francisco's Hotel Carlton to pursue whatever mission of mercy or justice a well-heeled client commissioned. Paladin was played by Richard Boone.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Have_Gun_Will_Travel
1957 - "Diana" by Paul Anka topped the charts
1963 - Mary Ann Fischer, Aberdeen, SD, gave birth to America's first surviving quintuplets. The Fischer quintuplets are born in Aberdeen, South Dakota, the world's fourth surviving set of quints and the first in the United States. Jimmie, Cathy, Margie, Mary Ann and Maggie join five other siblings and are joined by a single baby sister, Cindy, born September 24, 1964.
1963 - "My Boyfriend's Back" by the Angels topped the charts
1964 - Walt Disney awarded the Medal of Freedom at the White House. Walt Disney's personal awards included honorary degrees from Harvard, Yale, the University of Southern California, and UCLA; the Presidential Medal of Freedom; France's Legion of Honor and Officer d'Academie decorations; Thailand's Order of the Crown; Brazil's Order of the Southern Cross; Mexico's Order of the Aztec Eagle; and the Showman of the World Award from the National Association of Theatre Owners
1964 - Steinbeck wins the Medal of Freedom On this day, writer John Steinbeck was presented the U.S. Medal of Freedom. Steinbeck had already received numerous other honors and awards for his writing, including the 1962 Nobel Prize and a 1939 Pulitzer Prize for Grapes of Wrath.
Steinbeck, a native Californian, studied writing intermittently at Stanford between 1920 and 1925 but never graduated. He moved to New York and worked as a manual laborer and journalist while writing his first two novels, which were not successful. He married in 1930 and moved back to California with his wife. His father, a government official in Salinas County, gave the couple a house to live in while Steinbeck continued writing.
His first novel, Tortilla Flat, about the comic antics of several rootless drifters who share a house in California, was published in 1935. The novel became a financial success.
Steinbeck's next works, In Dubious Battle and Of Mice and Men, were both successful, and in 1938 his masterpiece The Grapes of Wrath was published. The novel, about the struggles of an Oklahoma family who lose their farm and become fruit pickers in California, won a Pulitzer Prize in 1939.
After World War II, Steinbeck's work became more sentimental in such novels as Cannery Row and The Pearl. He also wrote several successful films, including Forgotten Village (1941) and Viva Zapata (1952). He became interested in marine biology and published a nonfiction book, The Sea of Cortez, in 1941. His travel memoir, Travels with Charlie, describes his trek across the United States in a camper. Steinbeck won the Nobel Prize in 1962 and died in New York in 1968.
1965 - "F-Troop" premiers
1966 - Operation Attleboro is launched in War Zone C U.S. II Field Force initiates Operation Attleboro with an attack by the 196th Light Infantry Brigade against Viet Cong forces near the Cambodian Border in War Zone C (near Tay Ninh, 50 miles northwest of Saigon in III Corps Tactical Zone).
When the communists appeared to want to make a fight of it, the U.S. commander, Lt. Gen. Jonathan Seaman, sent in reinforcements from the U.S. 1st Infantry Division; the 173rd Airborne Brigade; a brigade each from the U.S. 4th and 25th Infantry Divisions; and a contingent from a South Vietnamese division. Before the operation was over, more than 20,000 U.S. and South Vietnamese troops were involved, making it the largest operation at that point in the war. After more than six weeks of hit-and-run fighting, the Viet Cong forces sustained 1,106 casualties and fell back to sanctuary areas in Cambodia.
Operations like Attleboro, and others to follow such as Cedar Rapids and Junction City, were examples of the search and destroy tactic dictated by Gen. William Westmoreland, commander of U.S. Military Assistance Command Vietnam (MACV), the senior American headquarters in Saigon. The objective was to find the Viet Cong and engage them in decisive battle; the problem was that the communists often refused to engage in the type of set-piece battles for control of critical terrain that had been the norm in previous wars, like World War II. Westmoreland's search and destroy tactic led to a war of attrition in which battles were fought often over the same territory again and again and where each side inflicted as many casualties as possible on the other. This approach was criticized because it meant that the war would go on as long as the communists were prepared to accept and replace their losses on the battlefield.
1968 - Detroit Tigers' Denny McLain's 30th victory of the season
1968 - "People Got to Be Free" by the Rascals topped the charts
1970 - The temperature at Fremont, OR, dipped to 2 above zero to equal the state record for September set on the 24th in 1926. (The Weather Channel)
1972 - "Waltons" TV program premiers
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Waltons
1973 - President Nixon signed into law a measure lifting pro football's blackout
1973 - Donny Osmond received a gold record for his hit single, "The Twelfth of Never"
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Twelfth_of_Never
1975 - American canonized as saint Elizabeth Ann Seton is canonized by Pope Paul VI at the Vatican in Rome, becoming the first American-born Catholic saint.
Born in New York City in 1774, Elizabeth Bayley was the daughter of an Episcopalian physician. She devoted much of her time to charity work with the poor and in 1797 founded the Society for the Relief of Poor Widows with Small Children in New York. She married William Seton, and in 1803 she traveled with him to Italy, where she was exposed to the Roman Catholic Church. After she herself was widowed and left with five children in 1803, she converted to Catholicism and in 1808 went to Baltimore to establish a Catholic school for girls.
In 1809, she founded the United States' first religious order, the Sisters of Charity of St. Joseph. A few months later, Mother Seton and the sisters of the order moved to a poor parish where they provided free education to poor children. Mother Seton's order grew rapidly, and she continued to teach until her death in 1821. In 1856, Seton Hall University was named for her. She was canonized in 1975.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Ann_Seton
1978 - "Mork & Mindy"premieres on ABC-TV
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mork_%26_Mindy
1981 - Entertainment Tonight premiers
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entertainment_Tonight
1985 - "St Elmo's Fire Man in Motion)" by John Parr topped the charts
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Elmo%27s_Fire_(Man_in_Motion)
1987 - Oriole Cal Ripken Jr sets record of playing 8,243 innings in 910 games. In an 18-3 rout of the Orioles, the Blue Jays erupt for a ML-record 10 home runs. Ernie Whitt leads the parade with three round trippers, Rance Mulliniks and George Bell hit 2, and Lloyd Moseby, Rob Ducey, and Fred McGriff each add one. Mike Hart hits one for Baltimore to tie the 2-team major-league record of 11. In the 7th inning, the Jays Kelly Gruber makes an out and, in his next at bat in the frame, hits into a DP tie a major-league record for most outs-inning. Cal Ripken's streak of 8,243 consecutive innings (908 games) is broken when he is lifted in the 8th for pinch runner Ron Washington.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cal_Ripken_Jr
1987 - Barrow, AK, received 5.1 inches of snow, a record for September. (Sandra and TI Richard Sanders - 1987)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrow,_AK
1987 - Thunderstorms developing along a cold front produced severe weather from Minnesota to Texas. Thunderstorms in Iowa produced baseball size hail at Laporte City, and 80 mph winds at Laurens. Hail caused more than ten million dollars damage to crops in Iowa. Thunderstorms in Missouri produced wind gusts to 75 mph at Missouri City and Kansas City. A thunderstorm in Texas deluged the town of Fairlie with two inches of rain in just two hours. (Storm Data) (The National Weather Summary)
1988 - Hurricane Gilbert made the first of its two landfalls on Mexico, producing 170 mph winds at Cozumel. (The Weather Channel)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Gilbert
1988 - Thunderstorms produced severe weather over the Texas panhandle during the evening hours. One thunderstorm spawned a strong (F-2) tornado in the southwest part of Amarillo, and deluged the area with five inches of rain. The heavy rain left roads under as much as five feet of water, and left Lawrence Lake a mile out of its banks. Hurricane Gilbert lost some of its punch crossing the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico. Its maximum winds diminished to 120 mph. (The National Weather Summary) (Storm Data)
1989 - Unseasonably cool weather prevailed across the south central U.S. Eight cities reported record low temperatures for the date, including Raton NM with a reading of 30 degrees. The afternoon high of 59 degrees at Topeka KS marked their third straight record cool maximum temperature. Unseasonably warm weather continued in the Pacific Northwest. Seattle WA reported a record eight days in a row of 80 degree weather in September. (Storm Data) (The National Weather Summary)
1994 Acting commissioner Bud Selig announced the cancellation of the 1994 baseball season on the 34th day of a strike by players
1999 - Millions flee from Hurricane Floyd Millions of people evacuate their homes as Hurricane Floyd moves across the Atlantic Ocean on this day in 1999. Over the next several days, deaths are recorded from the Bahamas to New England due to the powerful storm.
Floyd began as a tropical storm on September 7 and attained hurricane status three days later. By September 12, its winds had reached 140 miles per hour as the storm approached the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico. Floyd skirted past these islands, though, leaving relatively minor damage in its wake.
On September 14, Floyd approached the Bahamas and looked to be on a collision course with central Florida. Walt Disney World closed its doors in preparation for the first time in its history and NASA operations at Cape Canaveral were shut down to get ready for the coming storm. In all, approximately 3 million people evacuated their homes. Meanwhile, the Bahamas were spared a direct hit and, although millions of dollars in damages were incurred, only one person was killed.
Gaining strength over the warm waters of the Caribbean, Floyd was a Category 4 storm when it hit the Florida coast the next day. It turned out to be North Carolina that bore the brunt of Floyd, however, as it landed a direct hit on the state’s Cape Fear region. Torrential rains caused flooding that ended in the drowning deaths of 56 people and 6,000 houses were lost to the storm. Floyd brought rain and flooding with it all the way up the Eastern seaboard to Connecticut. In all, 68 people died from Hurricane Floyd. Out of deference to the destruction it caused, the National Hurricane Center retired the name "Floyd" in the spring of 2000.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Floyd
2001 - President Bush declared a national emergency. President Bush declared a national emergency and summoned as many as 50,000 military reservists. Congress approved nearly $40 billion and gave Pres. Bush war powers ok. The number of hijackers involved in the September 11 attacks was raised from 18 to 19 and their names were made public.
2001 A historic National Prayer Service was held at the Washington National Cathedral for victims of the 11 September attacks on New York’s World Trade Center and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C.
Births
1721 - Eliphalet Dyer, American statesman and judge (d. 1807)
1735 Robert Raikes, English newspaper editor, philanthropist and founder of the modern Sunday school, was born in Gloucester, England (d 5 Apr 1811).
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Raikes
1799 David Oliver Allen, missionary to India, born in Barre, Massachusetts (d 1863).
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Oliver_Allen
1804 Louis Maigret, French Catholic prelate and the first vicar apostolic of the Apostolic Vicariate of the Sandwich Islands (Hawaii), was born (d 1882).
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_D%C3%A9sir%C3%A9_Maigret
1860 - Hamlin Garland, American writer (d. 1940)
1867 - Charles Dana Gibson illustrator, drew "Gibson Girl" (d 1944)
1869 - Kid Nichols, American baseball player (d. 1953)
1872 - John Olof Dahlgren, American recipient of the Medal of Honor (d. 1963)
1879 - Margaret Sanger (d 1966) (neé Maragret Louisa Higgins) American birth-control champion who founded the first U.S. birth-control clinic in Brooklyn, New York (1916), where she had witnessed firsthand the interaction of poverty, uncontrolled fertility, and deaths from botched abortions, together with high rates of infant and maternal mortality. She became an international leader, and is credited with originating the term "birth control."
1880 - Charles Archibald "Archie" Hahn (d 1955) was a German-American athlete, and one of the best sprinters in the early 20th century
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archie_Hahn
1886 - Stanislaw Kieca³ (d 1910), better known in the boxing world as Stanley Ketchel, was a Polish American boxer who became one of the greatest world middleweight champions. He was nicknamed the Michigan Assassin.
1887 - Karl Taylor Compton (d 1954) American educator and physicist who directed development of radar during WW II. His research included the passage of photoelectrons through metals, ionization and the motion of electrons in gases, fluorescence, the theory of the electric arc, and collisions of electrons and atoms. In 1933, President Roosevelt asked him to chair the new Scientific Advisory Board. When the National Defense Research Committee was formed in 1940, he was chief of Division D (detection: radar, fire control, etc.) In 1941, he was in charge of those divisions concerned with radar within the new Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD). Afterwards he was cited for personally shortening the duration of the war. (Brother of Arthur H. Compton.)
1898 - Hal Wallis movie producer (Maltese Falcon, Barefoot in the Park) (d. 1986)
1907 - Cecil Brown news correspondent (CBS)
1908 - Bernie Green NYC, orch leader (Arthur Godfrey Show, Garry Moore Show)
1910 - Lehman Engel Jackson Miss, conductor/composer (Streetcar Named Desire)
1914 - Clayton Moore (d 1999) was an American actor best known for playing the fictional western character Lone Ranger from 1949-1951 and 1954-1957 on the television series of the same name.
1914 - Robert Sinclair Dietz (d 1995) American geophysicist and oceanographer who presented a theory of seafloor spreading in which new crustal material continually upwells from the Earth's depths along the mid-ocean ridges and spreads outward at a rate of several centimetres per year (1961). While a student Dietz identified the Kentland structure in Indiana as a meteoric impact site. He later achieved prominence by studying meteorite craters and demonstrated that asteroid and meteor impacts have been important geological processes acting for billions of years on both the Moon and the Earth.
1920 - Lawrence Klein, American economist, Nobel Prize laureate
1921 - Hughes Rudd TV newscaster (CBS) (d 1922)
1927 - Martin Caidin, American aviation writer (d. 1997)
1928 - Albert Shanker American labor leader (Amer Fed of Teachers)
1929 - Larry Collins, American writer (d. 2005)
1930 - Allan Bloom, American academic and author (The Closing of the American Mind) (d. 1992)
1932 - Harry Sinden, American National Hockey League executive
1934 - Kate Millett, American feminist writer (Sexual Politics)
1936 - Ferid Murat American co-winner of the 1998 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for discovering that a gas, nitric oxide, acts as a signalling molecule in the cardiovascular system. This work, performed in the 1980's, uncovered an entirely new mechanism for how blood vessels in the body relax and widen. It led to the development of the anti-impotence drug Viagra and potential new approaches for understanding and treating other diseases. He was a co-worker with Robert F. Furchgott and Louis J. Ignarro.
1944 - Joey Heatherton, American actress and singer
1946 - Jim Angle, American television reporter
1947 - Jon "Bowser" Bauman Queens NY, singer (Sha Na Na)
Deaths
1321 Dante Alighieri, Italian poet, died (b 1265).
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dante_Alighieri
1638 - John Harvard, English pastor and first benefactor of the college that was named Harvard College in his honor. He directed that half his money, along with his library, be given to the recently created school. His gift assured its continued operation (b. 1607)
1836 - Aaron Burr, Vice President of the United States (b. 1756)
1887 Edward Shippen Barnes, musician, born in Seabright, New Jersey (d 14 Febr 1958). Wrote music for Angels We Have Heard on High.
www.cyberhymnal.org/bio/b/a/r/barnes_es.htm
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Shippen_Barnes
1851 - James Fenimore Cooper, American author (b. 1789)
1895 - Charles Valentine Riley (b 1843) British-born American entomologist who pioneered the scientific study of insects for their economic impact in agriculture. He was a keen observer of relationships in nature, and enhanced his written observations with drawings. He initiated biological control. After studying the parasites and predators of the cottony cushion scale, which was destroying the citrus industry in California, he introduced (1888) a natural enemy of the scale from Australia. The effectiveness of the Vedalia cardinalis beetle in reducing the populations of the cottony cushion scale promoted the study of biological control of pests. He helped establish the Division of Entomology of the U.S. Department of Agriculture
1901 - William McKinley, 25th President of the United States (b. 1843)
1927 - Isadora Duncan, American dancer (b. 1877)
1936 - Irving Thalberg, American film producer (b. 1899)
1942 - E.S. Gosney, American eugenicist (b 1855)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E.S._Gosney
1966 - Gertrude Berg (B 3 Oct 1898 ) actress (Molly Goldberg-The Goldbergs), and screenwriter. A pioneer of classic radio, she was one of the first women to create, write, produce and star in a long-running hit when she premiered her serial comedy-drama The Rise of the Goldbergs (1929), later known as The Goldbergs.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gertrude_Berg
1970 - Rudolf Carnap (b 1891) German-American philosopher, who made significant contributions to logic and the philosophy of science. To avoid the ambiguities resulting from the use of ordinary language, he made a logical analysis of language. He believed in studying philosphical issues in artificial languages constructed under the rules of logic and mathematics. His applications of such languages included the different interpretation of probability, the nature of explanation and the distinctions between analytic and synthetic, a priori and a posteriori, and necessary and contingent statements. His influential books inclde "The Logical Structure of the World" (1928) and "The Logical Syntax of Language"
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudolf_Carnap
1981 - William Loeb III, American newspaper publisher (b. 1905)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Loeb_III
1982 - Grace Kelly, American actress, Princess of Monaco (b. 1929)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grace_Kelly
1984 - Janet Gaynor, American actress (b 1906)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janet_Gaynor
1991 - Russell Lynes, American art historian and magazine editor (b. 1910)
2003 - Garrett Hardin, American ecologist (b 1915)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garrett_Hardin
2005 - William Berenberg, M.D. (b 1915) American physician, Harvard professor, and pioneer in the treatment and rehabilitation of cerebral palsy.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Berenberg
2009 - Jody Powell, American press secretary to Jimmy Carter (b 1943)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jody_Powell
2009 - Patrick Swayze, American actor, dancer, and songwriter (b 1952)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_Swayze
Holidays and observances
Christian Feast Day:
Aelia Flaccilla (Eastern Orthodox Church)
Crescentius of Rome
Maternus of Cologne
Notburga
September 14 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
Saints
Holy Fathers of the Seventh Ecumenical Council
Repose of Saint John Chrysostom, Archbishop of Constantinople (407)
Martyr Papas of Lycaonia (305)
Saint Aelia Flaccilla the Empress ca. 385), wife of Theodosius the Great (400)
Martyr Macarios of Thessalonica, Dionysiou monastery at Mt. Athos (1522)
Martyr Theocles and Child-martyr Valerian
Other Commemorations
The Universal Exaltation of the Precious and Life Giving Cross
"Lesna" Icon of the Most Holy Theotokos
Feast of the Cross (Christianity)
Formerly, the Wednesday, Friday and Saturday following 14 September were observed as one of the four sets of Ember days. In the Irish calendar they were known as Quarter tense. (Roman Catholic and Anglican Churches)
akaCG
www.scopesys.com/cgi-bin/today2.cgi
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_14
www.amug.org/~jpaul/sep14.htmlwww.weatherforyou.com/cgi-bin/weather_history/today2S.pl
www.history.com/this-day-in-history/mckinley-dies-of-infection-from-gunshot-wounds
daysuntil.com/Election-Day/index.html
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_14_(Eastern_Orthodox_liturgics)
www.todayinsci.com/9/9_14.htm
www.hymntime.com/tch/index.htm
www.lutheranhistory.org/history/tih0914.htm
[/size]