This Week in History 9/26 – 10/1

Today in History

September 26:

• Thomas Jefferson appointed first US Secretary of State, John Jay wins nomination for first US Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Edmund J Randolph becomes first US Attorney General (1789)
• First American soldier died in Vietnam (1945)
• President Lincoln called for a nationwide fast (1861)
• Russia ended decades of religious repression with a new constitution allowing religious freedom (1990)
• Kennedy and Nixon faced off in the first televised national presidential debates (1960)
• Birth of Jonathan Chapman, also known as Johnny Appleseed, who distributed apple seeds and religious tracts from the Alleghenies to the Ohio Valley (1774)
• First public appearance of John Philip Sousa’s band (1892)
• Gilligan’s Island debuts (1964)

September 27:

• US Revolutionary War: John Adams negotiates peace terms with England (1779)
• Henry Ford’s first Ford Model T automobile leaves the Piquette Plant in Detroit, Michigan (1908)
• US Revolutionary War: British General William Howe occupies Philadelphia (1777)
• US Constitution submitted to states for ratification (1787)

• 

  Annalen der Physik publishes Albert Einstein’s paper “Does the Inertia of a Body Depend Upon Its Energy Content?”, introducing the equation E=mc². (1905)

• WW2: Nazi Germany, Italy & Japan sign 10 year formal alliance (1940)
• WW2: Warsaw Poland, surrenders to Germans after 19 days of resistance (1939)
• US Revolutionary War: The Protestant Episcopal Church founded when U.S. Anglicans met to created the denomination to become independent of the Church of England (1785)
• Walls of upper city of Jerusalem battered down by Roman army (70AD)
• Rail travel starts with first rail line – Stockton-Darlington line (1825)
• School integration begins in Wash DC & Baltimore Md public schools (1954)
• US President Taft sets aside some 3 million acres of oil-rich public land, including Teapot Dome, Wyoming, for conservation purposes (1909)
  
• US Civil War: Centralia Massacre in Missouri where 24 unarmed Union soldiers were captured and executed by “Bloody Bill” Anderson (1864)
• US Civil War: Jesse James gang surprise attacks train and kills 150 (1864)
• Google is launched (1998)

September 28:

• US Revolutionary War: 9,000 American forces & 7,000 French forces begin siege of Yorktown (1781)
• WW1: British soldier allegedly spares the life of an injured Adolf Hitler (1918)
• Statute enacted by the colony of Maryland giving ministers the right to impose divorce on “unholy couples.” (1704)
• Guerrilla’s assault unarmed US soldiers in Balangiga Philippians killing 38 (1901)
• Woman arrested for smoking a cigarette in a car in New York City (1904)
• King Wenceslas of Bohemia. who the Christmas song was written about. was martyred by his brother (929)
• William the Conqueror invades England (1066)
• US troops reoccupy Cuba (1906)
• US Navy abolishes flogging as punishment (1850)

September 29:

• In Jamestown, Captain Newport arrives from England with supplies for colonists (1608)
• US War Department established a regular army (1789)
• British spy John André , accomplish of Benedict Arnold, is sentenced to death (1780)
• Cyanide-laced Tylenol kills six (1982)
• My Three Sons starring Fred MacMurray, debuts on ABC-TV (1960)
• MacGyver starring Richard Dean Anderson, debuts on ABC-TV (1985)
• Darius I of Persia kills Magian usurper Gaumâta securing his hold as king of the Persian Empire (522 BC)
• In Battle of Salamis, the Greek fleet under Themistocles defeats the Persian fleet under Xerxes (480 BC)

September 30:

• Wyoming legislators write the first state constitution to grant women the vote (1889)
• US Civil War: Black soldiers given US Congressional Medal of Honor (1864)
• JFK routes 3,000 federal troops to Mississippi (1962)
• English revivalist of the Great Awakening George Whitefield died on his seventh visit to America (1770)
• James Dean dies in a car accident at age 24 (1955)
• President Woodrow Wilson gives a speech before Congress in support of guaranteeing women the right to vote (1918)
• WW2: 22 Nazi leaders found guilty of war crimes at Nuremberg, Ribbentrop and Goering sentenced to death (1946)
• Time Square Theater opens (1920)
• USS Nautilus commissioned (1954)
• King Richard II of England abdicates (1399)
• The complete Old and New Testament of the Revised Standard Version (RSV) of the Bible was first published by Thomas Nelson and Son (1952)

October 1:

• WW2: Adolf Hitler expands German army & navy & creates an air force violating Treaty of Versailles (1934)
• Free Speech Movement launched at University of California, Berkley (1964)
• US space agency NASA begins operations incorporating earlier National Advisory Council on Aeronautics and other bodies (1958)
• US Congress creates Weather Bureau (1890)
• Pennsylvania Turnpike, pioneer toll thruway, opens (1940)
• Yosemite National Park forms (1890)
• WW2: 12 Nazi war criminals sentenced to death in Nuremberg (1946)
• Johnny Carson hosts his first Tonight Show, Joan Crawford guests (1962)
• US Office of Strategic Services known as OSS, precursor to the CIA, disbands (1945)
• Alexander the Great defeat Persian ruler Darius III in Battle of Gaugamela (331 BC)
• Karl Marx’ Das Kapital published (1867)