20 Sep History: This Date

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Events, deaths, births, of 20 SEP
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On a 20 September:

2002 The stock of credit card processor Certegy (CEY) is downgraded by Robert W. Baird from Outperform to Neutral. On the New York Stock Exchange, CEY drops from its previous close of $28.40 to an intraday low of $17.19 and closes at $19.10. It had started trading on 18 June 2001 at $23.91 and had traded as high as $44.49 as recently as 03 June 2002. [1~year price chart >]

2002 In Ramallah, West Bank, the Israeli army blows up all except one of the buildings which it had not previously completely destroyed in the compound of Yassir Arafat's Palestinian Authority [< photo]. They also destroy the staircase and a walkway between the two wings of the remaining building. Then the Israelis bulldoze a trench around the compound, surround it with barbed wire, and lay siege with tanks. They also shoot tank shells into the offices of Arafat, who has left them to go one floor lower.

2001 The US Congressional Research Service releases Terrorism: Near Eastern Groups and State Sponsors, 2001 (PDF), by Middle East specialist Kenneth Katzman, dated 10 20 September01. According to the report, Al-Qaeda, the fundamentalist Islamic terrorist syndicate headed by Osama bin Laden has cells identified or suspected in 34 countries or territories, and represents "a global threat" to the US. In building this network, bin Laden has assembled a coalition of disparate radical Islamic groups of varying nationalities to work toward common goals — the expulsion of non-Muslim control or influence from Muslim-inhabited lands. Bin Laden is estimated to have $300 million in personal financial assets with which he funds a network of 3000 Islamic militants. Al-Qaeda cells have been identified or suspected in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Yemen, Jordan, Egypt, Libya, Lebanon, Algeria, Tunisia, Mauritania, Sudan, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Chechnya, Somalia, Eritrea, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Ethiopia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Uruguay, Ecuador, Bosnia, Kosovo, Albania, the UK, Canada, and the US. The report lists 19 Near Eastern terrorist organizations, and ranks Al-Qaeda as the only one with an "extremely high" terrorist activity level. Only two were ranked "very high": the Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hamas.

2000 Independent Counsel Robert Ray announces the end of the Whitewater investigation, saying there was insufficient evidence to warrant charges against President Clinton and first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton.
2000 In the small French Riviera resort town of Le Lavandou, Mayor Gil Bernardi issues this municipal decree: "It is forbidden to anyone who does not have a burial plot to die within town limits." Nearly a third of Le Lavandou's 5508 residents are aged over 65. The cemetery is full and evironmental laws do not permit opening a new one.
2000 In Ottawa, William Woods, selected at random from voters' lists, is part of a 250-person panel from which 12 jurors are to be selected for a trial... his own! on charges of dangerous driving causing bodily harm. When this is discovered the trial is rescheduled for 22 November 2000, out of concern that his interaction with other potential jurors might have affected the trial.

1995 AT&T announces it is breaking up into 3 companies
AT&T announces that it is going to split itself into three (AT&T, Lucent Technologies and NCR Corp.), ironic for a company that a decade earlier was legally forced to trim break up its monopoly by letting go the seven "baby Bells."
By the mid-90s, AT&T had decided that, by lopping off its ailing computer division, as well as the more lucrative Network equipment arm, it could concentrate on its communications services. Telephones and related business amounted to 60% of AT&T's sales, as well as the bulk of its profits. Though rivals like MCI were making inroads into the long-distance market, analysts still supported the move, betting that AT&T was readying itself for a triumphant return to the local service arena. In the wake of the announcement, AT&T's stock rises $6.125 per share to a close of $63.75.

1995 Newspapers report that James Kimsey, cofounder and chairman of America Online, will step down as chairman, to be succeeded by Stephen Case, the company's president and CEO. Kimsey, Case, and Marc Seriff founded the company in 1985.
1993 Victoria electoral en Polonia de los ex comunistas del SLD, que posteriormente formaron gobierno con el Partido Campesino.
1992 Los franceses aprueban en referéndum la ratificación del Tratado de Maastricht.
1991 Los policías españoles José Amedo y Michel Domínguez son condenados por la Audiencia Nacional a penas de 108 años de cárcel cada uno por inducir a la comisión de seis asesinatos frustrados y otros delitos, realizados por los GAL (Grupos Antiterroristas de Liberación)
1990 Both Germanys ratify reunification. — Los Parlamentos de la RDA y de la RFA ratifican el tratado de unión de las dos Alemanias.
1990 El presidente de Líbano, Elías Hrawi, proclama la creación de la Nueva República Libanesa.
1989 Frederick Willem de Klerk jura su cargo de presidente de Sudáfrica y promete terminar el estado de emergencia.
1989 La peseta entra a formar parte del Ecu.

1985 Walt Disney World's 200-millionth guest
1979 Bloodless coup in Central African Rep overthrows Emperor Bokassa I

1979 Iacocca is elected chairman of Chrysler         ^top^
      After being fired from the Ford presidency, Lee Iacocca is elected Chairman of the failing Chrysler Corporation. Iacocca would succeed in rebuilding Chrysler through layoffs, cutbacks, hard-selling advertising, and a government loan guarantee. He would become the epitome of the "can-do" executive, famous for his strong work ethic and no nonsense style.
      During Chrysler's crisis years, Iacocca reduced his salary to $1 per year to set an example for the rest of the company, explaining that everyone must be willing to sacrifice a little in order for Chrysler to survive. By 1983, Chrysler had moved from the verge of bankruptcy to a competitive force in the automobile market, paying back all of its government loans in less than four years. "We at Chrysler borrow money the old fashioned way. We pay it back," said Iacocca. His autobiography Iacocca became a bestseller in 1984, breaking all records for a business book.

1976 Playboy releases Jimmy Carter's interview that he lusts for women
1972 Vietnam: The USAF reveals that US planes have been mining the coastal rivers and canals of northern Quang Tri province below the DMZ, the first mining of waterways within South Vietnam. This was an attempt to impede further reinforcement of North Vietnamese forces in the area and to remove the threat to the newly recaptured city of Quang Tri.

1968 Vietnam: US officials lie to defend use of defoliants         ^top^
      1968 US military spokesmen defend the use of defoliants in Vietnam at a news conference in Saigon, claiming that the use of the agents in selected areas of South Vietnam had neither appreciably altered the country’s ecology, nor produced any harmful effects on human or animal life. However, a paper released at the same news conference by Dr. Fred T. Shirley, a US Agriculture Department expert, suggested that US officials in Saigon were underestimating the extent of ecological damage caused in Vietnam by defoliating agents and that they had caused “undeniable ecological damage” and that “recovery may take a long time.”
      Defoliation had been used in Vietnam since 1961 to reduce the dense jungle foliage so communist forces could not use it for cover, as well as to deny the enemy use of crops needed for subsistence. During a nine-year period ending in 1971, over 19 million gallons of three major herbicides (Agents Orange, White, and Blue) would be used in Vietnam. As part of Operation Ranch Hand, conducted from 1962 to 1970, specially equipped C-123 aircraft sprayed these herbicides in a 100-meter-wide swath almost 14 km long. It was also applied by helicopter, truck, and hand sprayers.
      The heaviest use of the defoliants was in the III Corps Tactical Zone north of Saigon and along the Cambodian and Laotian borders. The use of these agents was controversial, both during and after the war, because of the questions about long-term ecological impacts and the effect on humans who were either sprayed or handled the chemicals. Beginning in the late 1970s, Vietnam veterans began to cite the herbicides, especially Agent Orange, as the cause of health problems ranging from skin rashes to cancer and birth defects in their children. Similar problems, including an abnormally high incidence of miscarriages and congenital malformations, have been reported among the Vietnamese people who lived in the areas where the defoliate agents were used.

1965 Seven US planes are downed in one day over Vietnam.

1963 US proposes to USSR a joint mission to the moon         ^top^
       An optimistic and upbeat President John F. Kennedy suggests that the Soviet Union and the United States cooperate on a mission to mount an expedition to the moon. The proposal caught both the Soviets and many Americans off guard. In 1961, shortly after his election as president, John F. Kennedy announced that he was determined to win the "space race" with the Soviets. Since 1957, when the Soviet Union sent a small satellite — Sputnik — into orbit around the earth, Russian and US scientists had been competing to see who could make the next breakthrough in space travel. Outer space became another frontier in the Cold War. Kennedy upped the ante in 1961 when he announced that the United States would put a man on the moon before the end of the decade.
      Much had changed by 1963, however. Relations with the Soviet Union had improved measurably. The Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962 had been settled peacefully. A "hot line" had been established between Washington and Moscow to help avert conflict and misunderstandings. A treaty banning the open air testing of nuclear weapons had been signed in 1963. On the other hand, US fascination with the space program was waning. Opponents of the program cited the high cost of the proposed trip to the moon, estimated at more than $20 billion.
      In the midst of all of this, Kennedy, in a speech at the United Nations, proposed that the Soviet Union and United States cooperate in mounting a mission to the moon. "Why," he asked the audience, "therefore, should man's first flight to the moon be a matter of national competition?" Kennedy noted, "the clouds have lifted a little" in terms of US-Soviet relations, and declared "The Soviet Union and the United States, together with their allies, can achieve further agreements — agreements which spring from our mutual interest in avoiding mutual destruction." Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko applauded Kennedy's speech and called it a "good sign," but refused to comment on the proposal for a joint trip to the moon.
      In Washington, there was a good bit of surprise — and some skepticism — about Kennedy's proposal. The "space race" had been one of the focal points of the Kennedy administration when it came to office, and the idea that America would cooperate with the Soviets in sending a man to the moon seemed unbelievable. Other commentators saw economics, not politics, behind the proposal. With the soaring price tag for the lunar mission, perhaps a joint effort with the Soviets was the only way to save the costly program. What might have come of Kennedy's idea is unknown — just two months later, he was assassinated in Dallas, Texas. His successor, Lyndon B. Johnson, abandoned the idea of cooperating with the Soviets but pushed ahead with the lunar program. In 1969, the United States landed a man on the moon, thus winning a significant victory the "space race."

1962 James Meredith is blocked from entering Miss U as its 1st black
1961 Los "cascos azules" de la ONU se apoderan de Elisabethville, capital de la provincia de Katanga, con lo que termina la secesión de ésta del Congo y se evita una guerra civil.
1960 UN General Assembly admit 13 African countries & Cyprus (96 nations)
1958 Martin Luther King Jr stabbed in chest by a deranged black woman in NYC
1954 First FORTRAN computer program run
1954 First National People's Congress adopts Chinese constitution
1952 Scientists confirm that DNA holds hereditary data.
1951 1st North Pole jet crossing
1945 El Mahatma Mohandas Karamchand Ghandi y el Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru exigen al Congreso indio la retirada inmediata de todas las tropas británicas.
1945 German rocket engineers begin work in US
1945 A month after the surrender of Japan, Packard is the last auto company to cease military production, as it turns out its last wartime Rolls-Royce Merlin engine.
1943 Desembarco en Córcega de fuerzas francesas libres.

1943 British minisubs go after German battleship         ^top^
      British submarines attempt to sink the German battleship Tirpitz as it sits in Norwegian waters, as Operation Source gets underway. The Tirpitz was the second largest battleship in the German fleet (after the Bismarck) and a threat to Allied vessel movement through Arctic waters.
      In January 1942, Hitler ordered the Germany navy to base the Tirpitz in Norway in order to attack Soviet convoys transporting supplies from Iceland to the USS.R. The Tirpitz also prevented British naval forces from making their way to the Pacific. Winston Churchill summed up the situation this way: "The destruction or even crippling of this ship is the greatest event at the present time…. The whole strategy of the war turns at this period on this ship…."
      Attacks had already been made against the Tirpitz. RAF raids were against it in January 1942 failed to hit it. Another raid was made in March; dozens of RAF bombers sought out the Tirpitz, which had been reinforced with cruisers, pocket battleships, and destroyers. All of the British bombers, once again, missed their target. Sporadic attacks continued to be made against the German battleship, including an attempt in October 1942 to literally drive a two-man craft up to the ship and plant explosives on the Tirpitz's hull. This too failed because of brutal water conditions and an alert German defense. In 1943, the battleship Scharnhorst joined the Tirpitz, creating a threat to Allied shipping that caused all convoys to the Soviet Union to be temporarily halted.
      Finally, in September, six midget British subs set out to take the Tirpitz down for good. The midgets had to be towed to Norway by conventional subs. Only three of the six midgets made it to their target. This time, they were successful in attaching explosives to the Tirpitz's keel—and did enough damage to put it out of action for six months. Two British commanders and four crewmen were taken captive by the Germans and spent the rest of the war as POWs. Ironically, the mighty Tirpitz fired its guns only once in aggression during the entire war—against a British coaling station on the island of Spitsbergen.

1941 II Guerra mundial: Kiev cae en poder de los alemanes.

1934 Bruno Hauptmann arrested for the kidnapping and murder of the Lindbergh baby.
1932 El Mahatma Gandhi empieza una huelga de hambre en la misión de Poona (India).
1900 Disolución de los Estados Pontificios, con ocasión del XXX Aniversario de la ocupación de Roma.
1884 US Equal Rights Party nominates female candidates for President and Vice-President.
1881 Vice-President Chester A. Arthur sworn in as 21st US president, following the death in office of President Garfield.
1881 Apertura de las primeras Cortes españolas durante el reinado de Alfonso XII. José Posada Herrera presidía el Congreso y el Marqués de la Habana el Senado.
1877 Chase National Bank opens in NYC (later merges into Chase Manhattan)
1873 Panic sweeps NY Stock Exchange (railroad bond default/bank failure)
1870 Victor Emmanuel II, the first king of modern Italy, annexes Rome from the French during the Franco-Prussian War, and announces his intention to make it the new capital of Italy. As king of Sardinia from 1849, and as king of Italy since 1861, Victor Emmanuel II acquired, through military and diplomatic victories, a great number of the states that make up the modern Italian republic. — Las tropas italianas entran en Roma, terminando así el poder temporal de los Papas y realizándose la unidad territorial italiana.
1862 Fighting at Shepherdstown (Boteler's Ford), Virginia (now West Virginia)
1861 Union garrison surrenders Lexington, Missouri
1859 Patent granted on the electric range

1854 Battle of Alma: in the Crimean War, a combined British-French force of 26'000 under Lord Raglan defeats the Russian force of 40'000 under Prince Menshikov, thus opening the route to Sevastopol
Les Français et les Anglais ont débarqué le 14 septembre à Eupatoria. En ce jour, ils affrontent les troupes russes sur les berges du fleuve Alma. Les zouaves du général Bosquet ne se laissent pas arrêter par l'artillerie russe et s'élancent, sans qu'aucune tactique précise ait été mise en place, à l'assaut des positions ennemies. La victoire est totale. On chante à Paris : "Cette fois, sur terre et sur mer/ Les cosaques nous les tenons/ La France est avec l'Angleterre/ le droit est avec nos canons."

1851 Charles Minot, the superintendent of the Erie Railroad, sends a telegram 23 km to Goshen, New York, to delay a train. This is the first use of the telegraph by a railroad.
1850 The slave trade is abolished in the District of Columbia. Slavery had existed in Washington, D.C., since its founding in 1800, but slave codes were generally more lenient than those in effect in Southern states. Despite the end of the D.C. slave trade, slavery continued to exist in the nation's capital until 1863, when President Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation freed Washington's 3000 slaves.
1844 Convention de l'Alma . Le Maroc et la France arrêtent ce que doivent désormais être les frontières de l'Algérie. Par cette Convention, le sultan du Maroc Abd el-Rahman s'engage à chasser de son territoire le sultan Abd el-Kader.
1837 NYSE closes for ten days to fight the Panic of 1837, which was triggered by overspeculation. Just two days after Jay Cooke & Co., one of the nation's most reputable brokerage firms, declared bankruptcy, the New York Stock Exchange decides to close down for ten days. The secretary of the Treasury would do his part by pumping $26 million of new currency into the economy, swelling the amount of paper money in circulation to $382 million.

1806 The returning Lewis and Clark reach the first white settlement on the Missouri         ^top^
      After nearly two-and-a-half years spent exploring the western wilderness, the Corps of Discovery arrived at the French frontier village of La Charette, the first white settlement they had seen since leaving behind the outposts of eastern civilization in 1804.
      Entirely out of provisions and trade goods and subsisting on wild plums, Meriwether Lewis, William Clark, and their men were understandably eager to reach home. Upon arriving at La Charette, the men fired a three-round salute to alert the inhabitants of their approach and were answered by three rounds from the trading boats moored at the riverbank. The people of La Charette rushed to the banks of the Missouri to greet the returning heroes. "Every person," Clark wrote with his characteristic inventive spelling, "both French and americans Seem to express great pleasure at our return, and acknowledge them selves astonished in Seeing us return. They informed us that we were Supposed to have been lost long Since."
      The Lewis and Clark mission had been a spectacular success. With the aid of friendly Native American tribes, the explorers had charted the upper reaches of the Missouri, proved there was no easy water passage across the Continental Divide, reached the shores of the Pacific Ocean, and made the first major step to opening of the trans-Mississippi West to the American settlement.
      After spending the evening celebrating with the people of La Charette, the next day the expedition continued rapidly down the river and after two more days reached St. Louis, the city where their long journey had begun. Lewis' first act upon leaping from his canoe to the St. Louis dock was to send a note asking the postmaster to delay the mail headed east so he could write a quick letter to President Jefferson telling him that the intrepid Corps of Discovery had, at long last, come home.

1792 L'Assemblée nationale se sépare et sera remplacée le lendemain par la Convention nationale.
1784 Packet and Daily, the first daily publication in the US, appears on the streets.
1664 Maryland enacts first anti-amalgamation law to prevent widespread intermarriage of English women and black men
1646 Gabriel Lalemant arrives in Québec. This Jesuit was soon martyred.
1604 After a two-year siege, the Spanish retake Ostend, the Netherlands, from the Dutch.
1562 Queen Elizabeth of England signs a treaty at Hampton Court with French Huguenot leader Louis de Bourbon, the Prince of Condé. In return for aiding Condé against the Catholics of France, the English will occupy Le Havre, pending restoration of Calais to English control. But French Huguenots and Catholics would later join forces to drive the English out of Le Havre, and by the 1564 Peace of Troyes ending hostilities between France and England, the English would renounce all claims to Calais in return for 222'000 crowns

1519 Magellan sets out         ^top^
      Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan set out from Seville, Spain, with five ships and 265 men, on a voyage to find a western passage to the Spice Islands in Indonesia.
     Magellan sailed to West Africa and then to Brazil, where he searched the South American coast for a strait that would take him to the Pacific. He searched the Río de la Plata, a large estuary south of Brazil, for a way through; failing, he continued south along the coast of Patagonia. At the end of March 1520, the expedition set up winter quarters at Port St. Julian. On Easter day at midnight, the Spanish captains mutinied against their Portuguese captain, but Magellan crushed the revolt, executing one of the captains and leaving another ashore when his ship left St. Julian in August.
     On 21 October, he finally discovered the strait he had been seeking. The Strait of Magellan, as it became known, is located near the tip of South America, separating Tierra del Fuego and the continental mainland. Only three ships entered the passage; one had been wrecked and another deserted. It took 38 days to navigate the treacherous strait, and when ocean was sighted at the other end Magellan wept with joy. He was the first European explorer to reach the Pacific Ocean from the Atlantic.
      After sailing through the dangerous straits below South America that now bear his name, he entered the Pacific Ocean with three ships in November, becoming the first European explorer to reach the Pacific Ocean from the Atlantic.
      His fleet accomplished the westward crossing of the ocean in ninety-nine days, crossing waters so strangely calm that Magellan named the ocean "Pacific," from the Latin word pacificus, meaning "tranquil." The expedition reached the island of Guam on March 6, 1521, and
then continued on to the Philippines. In April, the ships dropped anchor at the Philippine island of Cebu, and Magellan met with the local chief, who after converting to Christianity persuaded the Europeans to assist him in conquering a rival tribe on the neighboring island of Mactan.
      On 27 April, Magellan was struck by a poisoned arrow during a skirmish on Mactan, and unable to escape with his comrades, was massacred by the enemy warriors.
     After Magellan's death, the survivors, in two ships, sailed on to the Moluccas and loaded the hulls with spice. One ship attempted, unsuccessfully, to return across the Pacific. The other ship, the Vittoria, continued west under the command of Basque navigator Juan Sebastián de Elcano. The vessel sailed across the Indian Ocean, rounded the Cape of Good Hope, and arrived at the Spanish port of Sanlúcar de Barrameda on 06 September 1522, becoming the first ship to circumnavigate the globe.

1378 The Great Schism in the Catholic Church begins. as Gregory XI dies, shortly after returning the papal seat from Avignon, in France, to Rome, and as Robert of Geneva is elected as anti-pope by discontented cardinals. Continuing for nearly 40 years (until 1417), the Schism at one point would produce three concurrent popes!
0622 Mohammad's Hegira — Mahoma huye de La Meca para refugiarse en Medina. Esta huida, conocida como Héjira, inicia la era musulmana y el comienzo de su calendario.
— 480 BC Battle of Salamis: Themistocles and his Greek fleet win one of history's first decisive naval victories over Xerxes' Persians.

TO THE TOP

Deaths which occurred on a 20 September:
2002 Sergei Bodrov Jr., 30, and 118 others as a 150-meter-high piece of the Maili glacier breaks off and causes an icy 400-meter-wide avalanche which falls 25 kilometers at more than 100 km/h, down the Genaldon and Gizeldon gorges to a highway from the Caucasus mountain village Nizhny Karmadon to Vladikavkaz, North Ossetia, Russian Federation. Bodrov was an actor in a movie being filmed there. Among the dead are 48 others involved in the filming, two traffic policemen accompanying them, two border guards on patrol, the 30 villagers of Nizhny Karmadon, shepherds, watchmen, and campers.
2002 Jonathan “Yoni” Jesner, 19 [photo >], from Glasgow, Scotland, student at the Gush Etzion yeshiva, from head injuries sustained in suicide bombing the previous day in Tel Aviv, which already killed 5 others besides the terrorist. He was born in November 1982.
2002 A bodyguard of Arafat, shot by an Israeli sniper, and four other Palestinians, as the Israelis destroy all but one building of the Palestinian Authority compound in Ramallah and then shell and besiege the remaining building.
2002 William Rosenberg, 86, of bladder cancer. After World War II, Rosenberg cashed in $1500 in war bonds and borrowed an additional $1000 to start a business serving coffee, pastries and sandwiches to factory workers. In 1948 he opened his first coffee and doughnut shop, called the Open Kettle, in Quincy, Massachusetts. The name was changed to Dunkin' Donuts two years later. The company is the world's largest coffee and baked goods chain, with about 5000 locations. In 1955 Rosenberg began selling franchises to other people, beginning in Worcester. In 1959 Rosenberg argued for the creation of the industry group that became the International Franchise Association. His son, Bob Rosenberg, kept the business growing and engineered the acquisition of Baskin Robbins and Togos, a sandwich chain. Dunkin' Donuts was acquired by British food and spirits conglomerate Allied Domecq in 1990.
2002 Bob Wallace, 53, computer programmer, became in 1978 the 9th employee of Micro Soft, developed an early Pascal. Left Microsoft in 1983 (first to leave with stock: 400 shares) to found Quicksoft to market PC-Write as shareware.

1996 Mir Ghulam Murtaza Bhutto and six of his bodyguards, killed in a gun battle with police in Karachi.        ^top^
     His sister Benazir Bhutto was then prime minister of Pakistan (for the second time). Mir Murtaza had become estranged from Benazir after the April 1979 hanging of their father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, former leader of Pakistan, by the military government of General Zia Ul Haq.. Murtaza returned from exile to Pakistan after Benazir was re-elected in 1993, and began publicly charging her with corruption.
      Police claimed that Murtaza's bodyguards had started the fight. His death led to widespread public criticism of Benazir Bhutto, but she claimed to have had no involvement in his death. A more likely suspect might have been her husband, Asif Ali Zardari, whom the President of Pakistan accused of been responsible for other "extrajudicial killings" in Karachi, where Bhutto rivals had been killed by police.
     After the execution of their father, Murtaza and his brother Shahnawaz had founded a clandestine anti-Zia resistance organization called Al-Zulfikar that was linked to terrorist activities. In 1985 Shahnawaz died under mysterious circumstances, possibly poisoning.

1996 Paul Erdös, 83, a machine for turning coffee into theorems (i.e. his definition of a mathematician)
1987 Unas 1500 personas, en Bangladesh a causa de las inundaciones provocadas por los monzones que azotan el país.

1984 Twelve people killed as a suicide car bomber attacks the US embassy complex in Beirut.
Unfortunately, these deaths were not an isolated tragedy. Car bombs have become the weapon of choice for terrorists in recent years, used by militant groups all over the world. The car bomb method has sadly proven an effective way of achieving mass destruction, as it is much easier for a terrorist to find a parking space than bypass a building's internal security. From Beirut to Oklahoma City, entire buildings have been destroyed from car bomb blasts, and countless lives have been lost. Among the most recent tragedies were the dual US embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania, where two car bombs killed 257 people, and reduced several buildings to rubble.

1981 Josefina Carabias Sánchez-Ocaña periodista española.
1979 Ludvik Svoboda, ex presidente de Checoslovaquia.
1975 Marie-René-Auguste-Alexis Saint-Léger Léger “Saint-John Perse” [literature Nobel-1960]
1974 Gail A. Cobb, of the Metropolitan Police Force of Washington, D.C., killed by a robbery suspect in an underground garage in downtown Washington, became the first US female police officer to be killed in the line of duty.
1971 Giorgios Stylanou Seferiades "George Seferis" [literature Nobel-1963]
1962 Robert Colquhoun, British artist born in Kilmarnock on 20 December 1914. — Woman in Green
1957 Jean Sibelius, 91, Finnish composer.
1947 Fiorello La Guardia (Mayor-R-NYC)
1932 Max Slevogt, German Impressionist artist born on 8 October 1868. — LINKS
1930 Moritz Pasch, mathematician
1908 Nicolás Salmerón, ex presidente de la I República española.
1898 George Grey, author. GREY ONLINE: Polynesian Mythology and Ancient Traditional History of the New Zealanders As Furnished by Their Priests and Chiefs
1894 Heinrich Hoffmann-Donner, author . HOFFMAN-DONNER ONLINE: Struwwelpeter (in German, English translation by Mark Twain, and French translation)
1882 Briot, mathematician
1878 Thomas Bangs Thorpe, author. THORPE ONLINE: "The Bee-Hunter": A Repository of Sketches, A Voice to America: or, The Model Republic, Its Glory, or Its Fall
1871 John Coleridge Patteson, shot full of arrows by Melanesian tribesmen in retaliation for five youths kidnapped as laborers for Australia. The outcry at Patteson's death ended the practice of kidnapping laborers. This Englishman was a missionary who visited as many as 44 islands a year.

1863 Thousands of Yanks and Rebs on the 2nd day at Chickamauga.         ^top^
     Near Chattanooga, Tennessee, Union troops under George Thomas prevent the Union defeat from becoming a rout, earning him the nickname "the Rock of Chickamauga."
      In one of the bloodiest battles of the war, the Confederate Army of Tennessee drives the Union Army of the Cumberland back into Chattanooga, Tennessee, from Chickamauga Creek in northern Georgia. Although technically a Confederate victory, the battle had little long-term effect on the military situation in the region.
      During the summer of 1863, Union General William Rosecrans had outmaneuvered Confederate General Braxton Bragg. Without fighting any major battles, Rosecrans had moved Bragg out of Tullahoma, Tennessee, and, by September, had captured Chattanooga. Pursuing Bragg into the mountainous region of northern Georgia, Rosecrans gleaned information from Confederate deserters that indicated Bragg was retreating. However, this information was false and had been deliberately fed to the Yankees.
      Bragg had hoped to attack Rosecrans and drive the Federals south, away from Chattanooga and Union supply lines. On 19 September, a division from Union General George Thomas's corps moved out to strike at what Thomas thought was an isolated Confederate brigade. But his force ran into dismounted Rebel cavalry, and the battle escalated when Bragg sent additional troops to the skirmish. As the day wore on, the battle spread down the lines until both armies were fully engaged.
      That night, additional Confederate troops arrived under the command of James Longstreet. Longstreet was part of Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia, and his men had fought at Gettysburg two months prior. He was dispatched with two of his divisions to stem the tide of Confederate defeat in the West.
      Longsteet's appearance paid off for the Confederates. Around noon on 20 September the stalemate broke when Rosecrans ordered General Thomas Wood to move his division to plug a gap in the Yankee line. Although no such gap existed, one was created when Wood moved his division. Longstreet's troops were now able to march through the gap, and the Union line collapsed in chaos. Most of the Union army began a hasty retreat to nearby Chattanooga, leaving Thomas's corps alone on the battlefield. Thomas stubbornly held his ground and halted the Rebel attack, which allowed him to successfully withdraw without further losses. His action earned him the nickname "The Rock of Chickamauga."
      Bragg did not immediately pursue Rosecrans to Chattanooga. Instead, the Confederates besieged the city until Union reinforcements arrived in late October. One of the largest battles of the war, Chickamauga resulted in 18'500 Confederate casualties and 16'100 Union casualties. Each side lost about 28 percent of their forces.

1863 Jacob Ludwig Karl Grimm, GRIMM ONLINE: co-author (with his brother Wilhelm) of (in English translations): Fairy Tales, Grimm's Fairy Tales, Grimm's Household Tales

1792 Quelques 200 français, 300 prussiens, des autrichiens, et des émigrés à la Bataille de Valmy.
Les autrichiens, les prussiens et les émigrés coalisés attaquent les armées du général Dumouriez et du général Kellerman, retranchées sur une hauteur. Au cri de "Vive la nation", son chapeau hissé à la pointe de son sabre, Kellerman entraîne les soldats à l'attaque des positions du général Brunswick. L'armée coalisée prend peur devant cette ruée de soldats en gueunilles et débande. Ce sera la première victoire des armées révolutionnaires françaises. Le nombre de décès prouve l'impact psychologique: Camp français sur 50'000 soldats engagés : tués = 200 environ. Camp prussiens sur 35'000 soldats engagés : tués = 300 environ.

1777 Paoli massacre
1724 David von Krafft, Swedish artist born in 1655.

1565 Hundreds of French Huguenots, massacred as their settlement at Fort Caroline (near present-day Jacksonville, Florida) is captured without losing a single soldier, by Spanish forces under Pedro Menéndez de Avilés.
     One leader of the Huguenots, René Goulaine de Laudonnière, had wanted to throw up a fort. He was overruled by Ribault, commander of the whole settlement. Ribault had determined on a naval battle (he had seven ships). But Ribault's ships were wrecked in a storm. Menendez landed with 2600 men. They killed over one hundred men, but spared women and children. Laudonnière fled with a few men in a small remaining boat and eventually reached France.
      Ribault and those who had survived, about 350 in all, asked for terms of surrender. Menendez said they must trust themselves to his mercy. Two hundred refused and fled into the wilderness. The rest surrendered, and Ribault reminded Menendez that Spain and France were at peace. Nevertheless, as Menendez wrote to his king: "I had their hands tied behind their backs and them put to the sword. It appeared to me that by thus chastising them, God our Lord and your Majesty were served. Whereby this evil sect will in future leave us more free to plant the gospel in these parts." The remaining 200 Huguenots put up such fierce resistance that they were finally promised their lives if they surrendered. They were consigned to the Spanish galleys.
     This was the first instance of colonial warfare between European powers in America. Only twelve days before de Avilés had founded San Augustin, which would later grow into Saint Augustine — the oldest city in America north of Mexico..
      Spanish forces under Pedro Menéndez de Avilés capture the French Huguenot settlement of Fort Caroline, near present-day Jacksonville, Florida. The French, commanded by René Goulaine de Laudonniere, lost 135 men in the first instance of colonial warfare between European powers in America. Most of those killed were massacred on the order of Avilés, who allegedly had the slain hung on trees beside the inscription "Not as Frenchmen, but as heretics." Laudonniere and some 40 other Huguenots escaped. In 1564, the French Huguenots (Protestants) had settled on the Banks of May, a strategic point on the Florida coast. King Philip II of Spain was disturbed by this challenge to Spanish authority in the New World and sent Menéndez de Avilés to Florida to expel the French heretics and establish a Spanish colony there. In early September 1565, Avilés founded San Augustin on the Florida coast, which would later grow into Saint Augustine — the oldest city in North America. Two weeks later, on 20 September, he attacked and destroyed the French settlement of Fort Caroline. The decisive French defeat encouraged France to refocus its colonial efforts in America far to the north, in what is now Quebec and Nova Scotia in Canada.

Births which occurred on a 20 September:
1943 Sani Abacha, político y militar nigeriano.
1941 John A Wismont Jr., California, watercolor painter (over 50'000)
1932 The Methodist Church of Great Britain and Ireland is formed by the union of four branches of Methodism in England. These were the Wesleyan Methodists (founded 1784), the Primitive Methodists (1811), the United Methodist Free Churches (1857) and the United Methodists (1907).
1928 Donald A. Hall (author: Oxcart Man, Lucy's Christmas)
1928 Manuel Seco Reymundo, lingüista y académico español.
1928 Dr. Joyce Brothers, NYC, pop psychologist ($64'000 question winner)
1925 Stewartson, mathematician.
1916 Sid Chaplin, English novelist and short story writer, who died on 11 January 1986.
1903 Helen Marion Young, in Göttingen, Germany, daughter of British mathematicians William Henry Young and Grace (Chisholm) Young. She would be the second of their six children (the other 5: aerial observer Francis shot down early in WWI, mathematician Cecily, physician Janet (married Stephen Michael), mathematician Lawrence, engineer Patrick) to die.
1902 Stevie Smith, English poet, novelist and short story writer, who died on 07 March 1971.
1901 Enrico Fermi, físico italiano, Premio Nobel 1938.
1899 Leo Strauss, German-born US political philosopher who died on 18 October 1973.
1891 Lamine Gueye, Senegalese political leader.
1887 Hecke, mathematician
1884 Maxwell Perkins, editor, the first to publish F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway and Thomas Wolfe.

1884 Equal Rights Party founded         ^top^
      The Equal Rights Party is founded during a convention of woman suffragists in San Francisco, California. The newly formed party nominates Belva Ann Lockwood, the first female lawyer to practice before the Supreme Court, as its candidate for the US presidency.
      The woman suffrage movement was founded in the mid-nineteenth century by women who had become politically active through their work in the abolitionism and temperance movements. On 19 July 1848, 240 woman suffragists, including Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott, met in Seneca Falls, New York, to assert the right of women to vote. Female enfranchisement, however, was still largely opposed by most Americans, and the major distraction of the North-South conflict prevented further discussion.
      During the Reconstruction Era, the Fifteenth Amendment was adopted, granting African-American men the right to vote, but the Republican-dominated Congress failed to expand its progressive radicalism into the sphere of gender.
      The National Woman Suffrage Association, led by Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, was formed in 1869 to push for an amendment to the US Constitution. Another organization, the American Woman Suffrage Association, led by Lucy Stone, was organized in the same year to work through the state legislatures. In 1890, these two societies were united as the National American Woman Suffrage Association.
      However, the political climate of the United States had taken a conservative turn in the late nineteenth century, and, even as the role of women in American society was drastically changing, opposition to female enfranchisement remained. By the beginning of the twentieth century, women were working more, receiving a better education, and bearing fewer children, and several states and territories had granted women the right to vote.
      In 1913, the National Woman's party organized the voting power of these enfranchised women to elect congressional representatives who supported woman suffrage, and by 1916, both the Democratic and Republican parties openly endorsed female enfranchisement. In the summer of 1919, the Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which stated that "the rights of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex," passed both houses of Congress and was sent to the states for ratification. On 18 August 1920, the amendment was ratified by Tennessee, giving it the two-thirds majority of state ratification necessary to make it the law of the land. On 26 August, it was formally adopted into the US Constitution.

1883 Albrecht Alt, German Lutheran Old Testament scholar. "Biblia Hebraica" (13th ed., 1962), which Alt edited with Rudolph Kittel, became a standard critical Hebrew text of the Old Testament among students of the Bible for years.

1878 Upton Beall Sinclair, in Baltimore, political and social reformer, Pulitzer Prize-winning writer, author of The Fasting Cure, The Jungle, The Profits of Religion, The Profits of Religion; co-author of Damaged Goods
     Sinclair came from a once well-to-do Southern family that had suffered reverses. When he was 10, the family moved to New York. Starting at age 15, he earned money writing dime novels, which paid his way through New York's City College and Columbia University. Sinclair, who married in 1900, also earned money writing journalistic pieces.
      An assignment on meat-packing plants led to his bestselling novel The Jungle, in which an idealistic immigrant goes to work in the Chicago stockyards. Unable to find a publisher for his book, he ultimately published it himself. The novel’s gritty portrayal of labor abuses and unsanitary conditions led to the passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906. The book became a bestseller. Sinclair used the proceeds to fund a socialist utopia called Helicone Home Colony in Englewood, New York. However, the cooperative-living building burned down after a year, and Sinclair gave up the project.
      He wrote several more well-known novels, though none were as successful as his first. The Metropolis (1908) examined high society in New York, Oil! (1927) looked at the Teapot Dome scandal, and Boston (1928) dealt with the controversial Sacco and Vanzetti trial.
      Sinclair moved to Pasadena in 1915. He fought for leftist reforms in the 1930s and 1940s. Meanwhile, he wrote a series of 11 novels looking at contemporary history. His hero, Larry Budd, travels the world and meets such figures as Franklin Roosevelt and Adolf Hitler. In 1942, his book Dragon’s Teeth, portraying Germany’s descent into Nazism in the 1930s, won the Pulitzer Prize. The Autobiography of Upton Sinclair came out in 1962. He died on 25 November 1968 in Bound Brook, New Jersey.

1861 Cole, mathematician
1855 George de Forest Brush, US painter who died in 1941. — MORE ON BRUSH AT ART “4” SEPTEMBER — LINKS — Thea — The Sculptor and the King — Nancy, the Artist's Daughter [Mrs. Robert Pearmain].
1842 Brill, mathematician
1842 James Dewar, English chemist and physicist who invented the vacuum flask and cordite, the first smokeless gunpowder. He died on 27 March 1923.
1833 Ernesto Teodoro Moneta Italy, journalist (Nobel Peace Prize 1907)
1833 David Ross Locke "Petroleum V. Nasby", humorist whose work was enjoyed by Abraham Lincoln.
1819 Théodore Chassériau, French painter who died on 08 October 1856. . — MORE ON CHASSÉRIAU AT ART “4” SEPTEMBER — LINKS — The Two Sisters — Peace, — The Tepidarium
1809 Sterling Price, governor of Missouri and Confederate general, who died on 29 September 1867.
1807 Friedrich Gauermann, Austrian artist who died on 07 July 1862.
1779 Johannes-Ludvig Camradt, Danish artist who died on 04 December 1849.
— 357 -BC- Alexander III the Great, king of Macedonia, emperor

Holidays Laos : Thanksgiving

Religious Observances RC : St Eustace & his companions/martyrs / RC : SS Andrew Kim, Paul Chong & companions, Korean martyrs / Ang : St John Coleridge Patteson, Bishop of Melanesia/companions / Jewish : Succoth-Feast / Santos Andrés Kim, Pablo Chong, Ciro, Dionisio, Miguel, Eustaquio, Fausta, Felipa, Imelda, Isabel y Susana.

Thoughts for the day: “Man`s horizons are bounded by his vision.” [Woman's too]
“Man`s vision is bounded by his horizons.”
“Man`s vision of his horizons is distorted by his imagination.”
“Man`s vision is extended by his imagination.”
“In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice; in practice, there is.” —Yogi Berra.
“In theory, all men are created equal; in practice, Yogi Berra isn't.” —

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