August 27th
 

1776 ~ British forces under General William Howe defeated the Americans under General George Washington in the Battle of Long Island.

1813 ~ Napoleon defeated the Austrians, Russians and Prussians at the Battle of Dresden.

1828 ~ Krakatoa erupted; approximately 36,000 people on the Indonesian islands of Java and Sumatra drowned.

1896 ~ Anglo-Zanzibar War. With a duration of only 45 minutes, it holds the record of being the shortest war in recorded history.

1908 ~ Birthday of Lyndon B. Johnson, 36th U.S. president.

1939 ~ First jet aircraft flight; a Heinkel He 178, piloted by Erich Warsitz.

1945 ~ American troops began landing in Japan following the surrender of the Japanese government in World War II.

1947 ~ Birthday of Harry Reems, Porn Star.

1962 ~ The Mariner 2 space probe launched to Venus.

1967 ~ Death of Brian Epstein, manager of The Beatles.

Ah, the Anglo-Zanzibar War. Bang!! OK , we give up.

Bloody marvellous.

They must've had a better exit strategy than the U.S. :p

No, they stayed there for the next zillion years, a bit like Puerto Rico and the Philippines.

August 28th
 

430 ~ Death of Augustine of Hippo, Philosopher, Theologian.

1749 ~ Birthday of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Philosopher, Scientist.

1828 ~ Birthday of Leo Tolstoy, Author. His “The Law of Love and the Law of Violence” influenced Martin Luther King, Jr.

1845 ~ First issue of Scientific American magazine published.

1850 ~ Richard Wagner's opera “Lohengrin” premiered, from which comes the Bridal Chorus, traditionally played at Western weddings, and commonly known as "Here Comes the Bride".

1897 ~ Birthday of Charles Boyer, Actor.

1963 ~ During a civil rights rally in at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his famous “I have a dream” speech.

1988 ~ Ramstein airshow disaster: 75 people were killed and 346 seriously injured.

1990 ~ Iraq declared Kuwait to be a province of Iraq.

1996 ~ Britain's Prince Charles, Prince of Wales and Diana, Princess of Wales were divorced.

August 29th
 

1632 ~ Birthday of John Locke, Philosopher.

1885 ~ Gottlieb Daimler patented the world's first motorcycle.

1896 ~ Chop suey was invented in New York City.

1949 ~ The Soviet Union tested its first nuclear weapon at Semipalatinsk, Kazakhstan.

1952 ~ Premiere of John Cage's 4'33" in Woodstock, New York.

1957 ~ Sen. Strom Thurmond, D-S.C., ended the longest filibuster in Senate history after talking for 24 hours, 18 minutes against a civil rights bill.

1966 ~ The Beatles performed their last concert, at Candlestick Park in San Francisco.

1981 ~ Birthday of Lanny Barbie, Canadian Porn actress.

1991 ~ The Downfall of the Soviet Union: The Supreme Soviet suspended all activities of the Soviet Communist Party.

2005 ~ Hurricane Katrina made landfall along the Louisiana coast, overwhelming the levees protecting New Orleans and causing massive flooding.[/QUOTE]

August 30th
 

1797 ~ Birthday of Mary Shelley, Author (Frankenstein).

1862 ~ Union forces were defeated by the Confederates at the Second Battle of Bull Run in Manassas, Va..

1871 ~ Birthday of Ernest Rutherford, Physicist, awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1908.

1918 ~ Birthday of Baseball hall-of-famer Ted Williams.

1940 ~ Death of J.J. Thomson, English physicist, Nobel Prize in Physics 1906. Prof. Thomson identified the electron as a subatomic particle, the first one to be discovered. In one of the greatest ironies of modern physics his son, G.P. Thomson later received the prize for proving that the electron was also, in fact, a wave.

1963 ~ Hotline between U.S. and Soviet leaders went into operation.

1963 ~ Death of Guy Burgess, English-born Soviet spy.

1987 ~ Thurgood Marshall confirmed as Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.

1999 ~ East Timorese voted for independence in a referendum.

2006 ~ Death of Glenn Ford, Canadian-born actor.

August 31st
 

1879 ~ Birthday of Alma Mahler Gropius Werfel. This woman knew how to live!

1888 ~ Mary Ann Nichols murdered. She was perhaps the first of Jack the Ripper's victims.

1918 ~ Birthday of Alan Jay Lerner, American composer ( Brigadoon, Paint Your Wagon, My Fair Lady).

1935 ~ Birthday of Frank Robinson, Baseball Player, Manager.

1945 ~ Birthday of Itzhak Perlman, Violinist.

1945 ~ Birthday of Van Morrison, Irish musician (“Brown-Eyed Girl", "Moondance" and "Domino").

1962 ~ Trinidad and Tobago became independent.

1980 ~ Solidarity labor union formed in Poland.

1997 ~ Death of Diana, Princess of Wales, in a car crash in Paris.

1998 ~ North Korea reportedly launched its first satellite.

September 1st
 

1653 ~ Birthday of Johann Pachelbel, Composer. Remember the theme music of “Ordinary People”? That’s “Pachelbel's Canon” (which is not really a Canon).

1875 ~ Birthday of Edgar Rice Burroughs, Writer, creator of Tarzan.

1914 ~ The last Passenger Pigeon died in captivity in the Cincinnati Zoo.

1939 ~ Germany attacked Poland, beginning World War II.

1946 ~ Birthday of Barry Gibb, English singer (Bee Gees).

1967 ~ Death of Siegfried Sassoon, English poet.

1972 ~ Bobby Fischer beat Boris Spassky to become the world chess champion.

1976 ~ Birthday of Jada Fire, Porn actress.

1983 ~ Korean Air Flight KAL-007 was shot down by a Soviet Union jet fighter when the commercial aircraft entered Soviet airspace.

1985 ~ A joint American-French expedition located the wreck of the RMS Titanic.

September 2nd
 

31 B.C. ~ Battle of Actium: Off the western coast of Greece, forces of Octavian defeat troops under Mark Antony and Cleopatra. This date is often used for the beginning of the Roman Empire.

1666 ~ The Great Fire of London started in Pudding Lane at the house of Thomas Farrinor near London Bridge. Samuel Pepys, a neighbor, was woken by the fire at around 1 AM. The fire burned for three days destroying 10,000 buildings including St. Paul's Cathedral, but only 16 people are known to have died.

1752 ~ The UK adopted the Gregorian Calendar, nearly two centuries later than most of Western Europe.

1898 ~ The Battle of Omdurman: British and Egyptian troops led by Horatio Kitchener defeated Sudanese tribesmen led by Khalifa Abdullah al-Taashi, establishing British dominance in the Sudan.

1945 ~ The official surrender of Japan was accepted by General Douglas MacArthur and Admiral Chester Nimitz from a delegation led by Mamoru Shigemitsu, aboard the battleship Missouri in Tokyo Bay, bringing World War II to an end.

1948 ~ Birthday of Christa McAuliffe, schoolteacher & astronaut.

1964 ~ Death of Alvin York, Hero. He was the most decorated American soldier of World War I.

1969 ~ Death of Ho Chi Minh, Vietmamese Revolutionary, President & Prime Minister.

1973 ~ Death of J. R. R. Tolkien, British writer.

1991 ~ The U.S. recognizes the independence of the Baltic states: Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania.

September 3rd
 

301 ~ San Marino, the world's oldest republic still in existence, was founded by Saint Marinus.

1658 ~ Death of er Cromwell, Lord Protector of England.

1875 ~ Birthday of Ferdinand Porsche, German automotive engineer.

1893 ~ Death of James Harrison, Australian pioneer of mechanical refrigeration.

1939 ~ World War II: France and the United Kingdom declared war on Germany.

1954 ~ The last new episode of The Lone Ranger was aired on radio after 2,956 episodes over a period of 21 years.

1962 ~ Death of e. e. cummings, poet.

1976 ~ The Viking 2 spacecraft landed on Mars and took the first close-up, color photos of the planet's surface.

1995 ~ eBay founded. (with a little help from Oldfart :) )

2004 ~ More than 200 people die at the end of a three-day siege at a school in Beslan, Russia came to a bloody end.

September 4th
 

476 ~ Romulus Augustus, the last emperor of the Western Roman Empire, was deposed.

1781 ~ Los Angeles was founded as El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Angeles de Porciúncula (the City of Our Lady, the Queen of the Angels of Porciuncula).

1824 ~ Birthday of Anton Bruckner, Composer.

1888 ~ George Eastman registered the trademark Kodak.

1891 ~ Birthday of Fritz Todt, developer of the German autobahn, the archtype for the limited access highway.

1907 ~ Death of Edvard Grieg, Norwegian Composer.

1957 ~ The Ford Motor Company introduces the Edsel.

1957 ~ The Committee on Homosexual Offences and Prostitution in Great Britain came to the conclusion that outlawing homosexuality impinged upon civil liberties.

1965 ~ Death of Albert Schweitzer, Physician, J.S. Bach interpreter, awarded the Nobel Peace Prize 1952.

1995 ~ Death of William Kunstler, Attorney.

September 5th
 

1735 ~ Birthday of Johann Christian Bach, Composer, son of Johann Sebastian Bach.

1793 ~ The French National Convention voted to implement terror measures to enforce the principles of the French Revolution.

1847 ~ Birthday of Jesse James, outlaw.

1857 ~ Birthday of Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, Visionary & Pioneer of Astronautics.

1882 ~ The first Labor Day parade in the U.S. was held in New York City.

1939 ~ The U.S. declared its neutrality in World War II.

1957 ~ “On the Road” by Jack Kerouac was published.

1972 ~ A Palestinian terrorist group called "Black September" attacked Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympic Games.

1982 ~ Death of Douglas Bader, World War II RAF fighter pilot.

1997 ~ Death of Mother Teresa, Inspiration.

September 6th
 

1620 ~ The Pilgrims set sail on the Mayflower from Plymouth, England, to settle in North America.

1766 ~ Birthday of John Dalton, British chemist and physicist. He was one of the earlier proponents of the atomic theory.

1847 ~ Henry Thoreau left Walden Pond and moved in with Ralph Waldo Emerson and his family in Concord, Massachusetts.

1928 ~ Birthday of Robert Pirsig, Author (Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance).

1941 ~ The requirement to wear the Star of David with the word "Jew" inscribed, was extended to all Jews over the age of 6 in German-occupied areas.

1965 ~ India invaded West Pakistan.

1986 ~ Birthday of Raven Riley, Porn Star.

1995 ~ Cal Ripken Jr. broke Lou Gehrig's record of playing 2,131 consecutive baseball games.

1996 ~ Eddie Murray became the 15th member of the 500 home run club with a home run at Oriole Park in Baltimore, Maryland.

2005 ~ The California Legislature became the first legislative body in the U.S. to approve same-sex marriages.

September 7th
 

1776 ~ World's first submarine attack. American submersible craft Turtle attempted to attach a bomb to the hull of the British flagship Eagle in New York Harbor.

1908 ~ Birthday of Dr. Michael DeBakey, Heart Surgeon and inventor of the MASH.

1912 ~ Birthday of David Packard, Electrical Engineer.

1940 ~ The Blitz – Under orders from Adolf Hitler, the Luftwaffe began to bomb London. This was the first of 57 consecutive nights of bombing.

1977 ~ The U.S. agreed to transfer control of the Panama Canal to Panama at the end of the 20th century.

1986 ~ Desmond Tutu becomes the first black to lead the Anglican Church in South Africa.

1992 ~ Ciskei soldiers kill 24 at political rally.

1994 ~ Death of James Clavell, Author (Shogun) & Screenwriter (To Sir, with Love; The Great Escape).

1997 ~ Death of Mobutu Sese Seko, dictator of Zaire.

1998 ~ Google Inc. was founded.

September 8th
 

828 ~ Birthday of Ali al-Hadi, Shia Imam.

1636 ~ Harvard College founded as the first college in the Americas.

1886 ~ Birthday of Siegfried Sassoon, Poet.

1925 ~ Birthday of Peter Sellers, Actor (A Shot in the Dark, Dr. Strangelove, The Pink Panther, etc.).

1930 ~ 3M began marketing Scotch transparent tape.

1941 ~ Siege of Leningrad began.

1944 ~ London was hit by a V2 rocket for the first time.

1949 ~ Death of Richard Strauss, Composer.

1966 ~ The first episode of the science fiction television series “Star Trek” aired.

1974 ~ President Ford granted an unconditional pardon to former President Nixon.

1981 ~ Death of Hideki Yukawa, the Japanese physicist who proposed the meson elementary particle, awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics 1949.

September 9th
 

1585 ~ Birthday of Cardinal Armand-Jean du Plessis, duc de Richelieu, French statesman.

1776 ~ The Continental Congress officially named their new country the United States.

1824 ~ Birthday of Anton Bruckner, Austrian Composer.

1828 ~ Birthday of Leo Tolstoy, Russian novelist (Anna Karenina, War and Peace).

1941 ~ Birthday of Otis Redding, Soul Singer.

1945 ~ Admiral Grace Hopper discovered the first computer bug.

1967 ~ Birthday of Anna Malle, Porn Star.

1976 ~ Death of Mao Zedong, chief architect of the Chinese Communist Revolution.

1987 ~ Extradition to Belgium of twenty-five English football fans involved in the Heysel stadium disaster.

2001 ~ The leader of the Northern Alliance, Ahmed Shah Massoud, was assassinated in Afghanistan.

September 10th
 

1939 ~ World War II: The submarine HMS Oxley was sunk by mistake by the submarine HMS Trition off the coast of Norway and became the first loss of the Royal Navy.

1942 ~ Birthday of Stephen Jay Gould, American paleontologist.

1943 ~ World War II: German forces began their occupation of Rome.

1945 ~ Vidkun Quisling sentenced to death for collaboration with Nazi Germany.

1960 ~ Birthday of Colin Firth, Actor (Shakespeare in Love, Bridget Jones's Diary, Love Actually).

1971 ~ Death of Nikita Khrushchev, Premier of the Soviet Union.

1977 ~ Hamida Djandoubi, convicted of murder, became the last person to be executed by the guillotine in France.

1990 ~ The Basilica of Our Lady of Peace of Yamoussoukro, the largest church in Africa and perhaps the world, consecrated by Pope John Paul II.

2000 ~ British paratroopers rescued six held hostage by the "West Side Boys".

2008 ~ CERN's Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is finally powered up.

September 11th
 

1297 ~ William Wallace led a Scottish army to defeat the English in the Battle of Stirling Bridge.

1711 ~ Birthday of William Boyce, Composer.

1914 ~ In one of the earlier military engagements of WWI, Australian forces defeat Germans in New Britain.

1922 ~ British Mandate of Palestine began.

1948 ~ Death of Muhammad Ali Jinnah, first Governor-General of Pakistan.

1973 ~ A military coup in Chile headed by General Augusto Pinochet toppled elected Marxist President Salvador Allende.

1987 ~ CBS Evening News anchor Dan Rather, angry over being preempted for a tennis match, marched off the set, leaving affiliates with six minutes of an empty news desk.

1987 ~ Death of Lorne Greene, Canadian actor.

2001 ~ The September 11 terrorist attacks destroyed the World Trade Center in New York City, part of The Pentagon in Washington, D.C., and crashed a passenger airliner in Pennsylvania. In total, almost 3,000 were killed.

2002 ~ Death of Johnny Unitas, Football Hall of Famer.

Seven years and it's like yesterday.

September 12th
 

490 B.C. ~ The Athenians defeated the Persians at the Battle of Marathon.

1683 ~ The Ottoman Empire was defeated in the Battle of Vienna.

1814 ~ War of 1812: An American detachment halted the British land advance to Baltimore in the Battle of North Point.

1880 ~ Birthday of H.L. Mencken, Journalist, Author.

1913 ~ Birthday of Jesse Owens, American track and field athlete.

1940 ~ Cave paintings discovered in Lascaux, France.

1959 ~ First episode of Bonanza. First regularly-scheduled TV program presented in color.

1977 ~ Death of Steve Biko, South African anti-apartheid activist.

1992 ~ Abimael Guzmán, leader of the Shining Path, was captured.

2003 ~ Death of Johnny Cash, Country Music Great.

September 13th
 

1819 ~ Birthday of Clara Schumann, Pianist, Composer.

1857 ~ Birthday of Milton S. Hershey, chocolate entrepreneur and founder of the Hershey Chocolate Company.

1874 ~ Birthday of Arnold Schoenberg, Composer.

1948 ~ Margaret Chase Smith was elected senator, and became the first woman to serve in both the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate.

1971 ~ Frank Robinson became the 11th member of the 500 home run club with a home run at Memorial Stadium in Baltimore, Maryland.

1977 ~ Death of Leopold Stokowski, Conductor.

1982 ~ Lindy Chamberlain's "dingo baby trial" opened in Australia.

1979 ~ Birthday of Catalina Cruz, Pornographic Actress.

1993 ~ Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and PLO chairman Yasser Arafat shake hands on a peace deal.

2006 ~ Kimveer Gill kills one student and wounds 19 others at Dawson College in Montreal.

September 14th
 

1737 ~ Birthday of Michael Haydn, Austrian composer.

1752 ~ The British Empire adopted the Gregorian calendar, skipping eleven days (September 2 was followed directly by September 14 that year).

1760 ~ Birthday of Luigi Cherubini, Composer.

1814 ~ Francis Scott Key wrote The Star-Spangled Banner.

1927 ~ Death of Isadora Duncan, Dancer.

1959 ~ The Soviet probe Luna 2 crashed onto the Moon, becoming the first man-made object to reach it.

1982 ~ Death of Princess Grace of Monaco.

1994 ~ The Major League Baseball season was canceled because of a players’ strike.

1996 ~ Death of Juliet Prowse, British actress & dancer.

2005 ~ A federal judge in San Francisco ruled the reciting of the Pledge of Allegiance in public schools unconstitutional.

September 15th
 

1254 ~ Birthday of Marco Polo, Italian explorer.

1789 ~ Birthday of James Fenimore Cooper, American novelist.

1928 ~ Alexander Fleming noticed a bacteria-killing mold growing in his laboratory, discovering what later became known as penicillin.

1929 ~ Birthday of Murray Gell-Mann, American physicist, awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics 1969.

1935 ~ The Nuremberg Laws deprived German Jews of their citizenship and made the swastika the official symbol of Nazi Germany.

1950 ~ The U.N. staged its fist offensive operation in the Korean War; an amphibious assault at Inchon.

1963 ~ The 16th Street Baptist Church bombing kills four children in Birmingham, Alabama.

1975 ~ Papua New Guinea gained independence from Australia.

1977 ~ Death of Maria Callas, Opera Diva.

1981 ~ The Senate Judiciary Committee unanimously approved Sandra Day O'Connor to the U.S. Supreme Court.

September 16th
 

1810 ~ Fr. Miguel Hidalgo proclaimed Mexico's independence from Spain.

1736 ~ Death of Gabriel Fahrenheit, German Physicist.

1795 ~ British captured Capetown South Africa.

1940 ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Selective Training and Service Act.

1956 ~ Play-Doh was first introduced.

1959 ~ French President De Gaulle recognized Algerian right of self determination.

1968 ~ Candidate Richard Nixon appeared on Laugh-in.

1974 ~ U.S. President Ford announced a conditional amnesty program for Vietnam War deserters and draft evaders.

1987 ~ The Montreal Protocol was signed to protect the ozone layer from depletion.

1996 ~ The Howard Stern Radio Show premiered.

September 17th
 

1394 ~ King Charles VI of France ordered all Jews expelled from France.

1862 ~ Union forces repelled a Confederate invasion of Maryland in the Civil War Battle of Antietam.

1908 ~ Death of Lt. Thomas Selfridge, first to die in an airplane crash.

1929 ~ Birthday of Sir Stirling Moss, Formula One racer.

1939 ~ The Soviet Union joined Nazi Germany's invasion of Poland.

1970 ~ Civil war broke out in Jordan.

1972 ~ "M.A.S.H." premiered on CBS.

1976 ~ Birthday of Daniella Rush, Czech Pornographic Star.

1978 ~ The Camp David Accords were signed by Israeli and Egyptian representatives.

1994 ~ Death of Karl Popper, Austrian philosopher.

September 18th
 

1709 ~ Birthday of Samuel Johnson, Essayist & Critic.

1733 ~ Birthday of George Read, signer of the American Declaration of Independence.

1759 ~ The British capture Quebec City.

1819 ~ Birthday of Leon Foucault, Physicist.

1927 ~ Columbia Broadcasting System went on the air.

1947 ~ The U.S. Air Force became an independent service.

1961 ~ Death of Dag Hammarskjöld, Secretary General of the UN.

1970 ~ Death of Jimi Hendrix, Rock Musician.

1971 ~ Birthday of Lance Armstrong, Cyclist Extraordinaire.

1998 ~ ICANN was formed.

September 19th
 

1737 ~ Birthday of Charles Carroll of Carrollton, Declaration of Independence Signer, Senator.

1796 ~ George Washington made his farewell address.

1900 ~ Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid robbed the First National Bank of $32,640.

1934 ~ Bruno Hauptmann was arrested for the murder of Charles Lindbergh Junior.

1935 ~ Death of Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, rocket scientist, physicist.

1941 ~ Birthday of Mama Cass Elliott, musician.

1945 ~ Lord Haw Haw (William Joyce) sentenced to death in London.

1989 ~ A terrorist bomb exploded in a UTA DC-10 above Niger killing 171.

1991 ~ Ötzi the Iceman ws discovered by German tourists.

2004 ~ Death of Skeeter Davis, Country Music star.

September 20th
 

1519 ~ Ferdinand Magellan set out from Spain on a voyage to find a western passage to the Spice Islands in Indonesia.

1934 ~ Birthday of Sophia Loren, Italian actress.

1948 ~ Birthday of George R. R. Martin, Science Fiction Writer.

1970 ~ The Soviet probe Luna 16 collected moon soil samples for return to earth.

1973 ~ Billie Jean King defeated Bobby Riggs in straight sets 6-4, 6-3, 6-3 in a $100,000 winner-take-all “Battle of the Sexes“ tennis match.

1984 ~ A suicide car bomber attacked the U.S. Embassy annex in north Beirut, killing 20 people.

2000 ~ After playing 2,632 consecutive games for the Baltimore Orioles, Cal Ripken, Jr took a day off.

2000 ~ Death of Gherman Titov, cosmonaut.

2004 ~ CBS News apologized for a "mistake in judgment" in its story questioning President George W. Bush's National Guard service, saying it could not vouch for the authenticity of documents featured in the report.

2005 ~ Death of Simon Wiesenthal, Nazi hunter.

September 21st
 

19 BC ~ Death of Virgil, Roman poet. (Aeneid, etc.)

1756 ~ Birthday of John MacAdam, road builder.

1780 ~ Benedict Arnold gave the British the plans to West Point.

1866 ~ Birthday of H. G. Wells, science fiction author.

1874 ~ Birthday of Gustav Holst, Composer.

1896 ~ British force under Horatio Kitchener took Dongola in the Sudan.

1897 ~ The Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus letter was published in the New York Sun.

1937 ~ J.R.R. Tolkien published The Hobbit.

1947 ~ Birthday of Stephen King, Author.

2003 ~ The Galileo mission was terminated by sending the probe into Jupiter's atmosphere.

Proof again of what a wonderful and varied world we live in. Add the Marriott in Pakistan and it suddenly gets greyer.

September 22nd
 

1791 ~ Birthday of Michael Faraday, Scientist.

1828 ~ Death of Shaka Zulu, Zulu leader.

1862 ~ President Lincoln issued the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation.

1869 ~ Richard Wagner's opera Das Rheingold opened in Munich.

1964 ~ ”Fiddler on the Roof”, the first musical to surpass 3,000 performances, opened at the Imperial Theatre.

1975 ~ Sara Jane Moore’s assassination attempt on U.S. President Gerald Ford was foiled by Oliver Sipple.

1980 ~ Iraq invaded Iran.

1972 ~ Birthday of Dana Vespoli, porn actress.

1999 ~ Death of George C. Scott, Actor.

2001 ~ Death of Isaac Stern, Violinist.

Poor bastard Oliver. Did a good thing and drew down a world of shit on his head.

A classic example of "no good deed will go unpunished".

September 23rd
 

63 B.C. ~ Birthday of Caesar Augustus, 1st Roman Emperor.

1642 ~ First commencement at Harvard College.

1806 ~ Discovery of Neptune by French astronomer Urbain Jean Joseph Le Verrier.

1884 ~ Herman Hollerith applied for a patent on his mechanical adding machine.

1920 ~ Birthday of Mickey Rooney, actor.

1930 ~ Birthday of Ray Charles, U.S. R&B and jazz musician, singer.

1932 ~ The Kingdom of Hejaz and Nejd were renamed the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

1949 ~ Birthday of Bruce Springsteen, Singer & Songwriter.

1952 ~ Richard Nixon made his “Checkers speech".

1972 ~ Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos introduced a dictatorial government.

September 24th
 

622 ~ Muhammad completed his hegira from Mecca to Medina.

1755 ~ Birthday of John Marshall, the fourth and longest-serving Chief Justice of the American Supreme Court.

1890 ~ As a pre-condition to Utah being admitted to the U.S., the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons) officially renounced polygamy.

1976 ~ The Rhodesian Government agreed to introduce black majority rule to the country within two years.

1979 ~ Birthday of Sabrine Maui, Filipina pornographic actress.

1979 ~ Birthday of Katja Kassin, German pornographic actress.

1988 ~ Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson beat Carl Lewis in the 100 Meters sprint at the Seoul Olympics. Mr. Johnson was later disqualified for using performance enhancing drugs.

1991 ~ Death of Dr. Seuss, Writer.

1996 ~ President Clinton signed the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty at the United Nations.

September 25th
 

1066 ~ Battle of Stamford Bridge, which marked the end of the Viking era.

1683 ~ Birthday of Jean-Philippe Rameau, Composer.

1890 ~ Yosemite National Park established.

1897 ~ Birthday of William Faulkner, American writer, awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.

1932 ~ Birthday of Glenn Gould, Pianist.

1950 ~ UN forces recaptured Seoul, the South Korean capital.

1957 ~ U.S. Army paratroopers ended the Little Rock school crisis.

1981 ~ Sandra Day O'Connor was sworn in as the 102nd Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, the first woman to hold the office.

1983 ~ Lieutenant Colonel Stanislav Petrov averted World War III by refusing to accept - despite the (erroneous) alert given by the Soviet early warning system - that the U.S. had launched missiles against the USSR.

2002 ~ The Vitim event, a possible NEO impact in Siberia, Russia.

September 26th
 

1687 ~ The Parthenon in Athens was partially destroyed after an explosion caused by the bombing from the Venetian forces besieging the Ottoman Turks.

1820 ~ Death of Daniel Boone, American icon.

1888 ~ Birthday of T. S. Eliot, Poet.

1898 ~ Birthday of George Gershwin, Composer.

1944 ~ Allied troops began a retreat from Arnhem.

1945 ~ Death of Béla Bartók, Composer.

1948 ~ Birthday of Olivia Newton-John, Singer.

1957 ~ ”West Side Story” opened on Broadway at the Winter Garden Theatre.

1960 ~ Kennedy and Nixon met in the first nationally televised debate between presidential candidates.

1983 ~ Australia II won the “America’s Cup”.

September 27th
 

1389 ~ Birthday of Cosimo de Medici, Florentine ruler.

1540 ~ The Jesuit Order received its charter from Pope Paul III.

1722 ~ Birthday of Samuel Adams, Patriot & Brewer.

1917 ~ Death of Edgar Degas, Impressionist painter.

1918 ~ Birthday of Sir Martin Ryle, English physicist and astronomer.

1921 ~ Death of Engelbert Humperdinck, Composer.

1964 ~ The Warren Commission issued a report concluding that Lee Harvey Oswald had acted alone in assassinating President Kennedy.

1996 ~ The Taliban drove the government of Afghani President Burhanuddin Rabbani out of the capital Kabul. They then dragged former leader Mohammad Najibullah out of the U.N. compound and hanged him from a traffic light pole.

1998 ~ The Google web search engine was launched.

2001 ~ An armed man went on a shooting rampage in Zug, Switzerland, killing 14 people before taking his own life.

Just another of those little things that make us love the Taliban so.