Tidbits of History

September 28 is:

Drink Beer Day

National Strawberry Cream Pie Day
This light-as-air pie has sweetened cream cheese, fresh whipped cream, and plenty of strawberries piled high on a graham cracker crust. Strawberries are one of the few fruits with seeds on the outside.

Believed to be the Birthday of Confucius about 551 B.C. Some quotes:

• “The man who asks a question is a fool for a minute, the man who does not ask is a fool for life.”
• “Silence is the true friend that never betrays.”
• “Life is really simple, but men insist on making it complicated.”
• “In a country well governed, poverty is something to be ashamed of. In a country badly governed, wealth is something to be ashamed of.”
• “It does not matter how slowly you go so long as you do not stop.”

(Good King) Saint Wenceslas was murdered by his brother, Boleslaus I of Bohemia on September 28, 935.

In 1779, American Revolution: Samuel Huntington was elected President of the Continental Congress. While not known for extensive learning or brilliant speech, Huntington’s steady hard work and unfailing calm manner earned him the respect of his fellow delegates. As a result, when John Jay left to become minister to Spain, Huntington was elected to succeed him as President of the Continental Congress on September 28, 1779 which is one reason why he is sometimes considered the first president.

Napoleon Bonaparte (16) graduated from the military academy in Paris in 1785 (42nd in a class of 51).

1850 – The U.S. Navy abolished flogging as a form of punishment.

1850 – U.S. President Millard Fillmore named Brigham Young the first governor of the Utah territory. In 1857, U.S. President James Buchanan removed Young from the position.

1889 – The first General Conference on Weights and Measures (CGPM) defined the length of a meter as the distance between two lines on a standard bar of an alloy of platinum with ten percent iridium, measured at the melting point of ice.

King Camp Gillette (Jan 5, 1855-July 9, 1932, and William Emery Nickerson invented the safety razor. Their innovation was the thin, inexpensive, disposable blade of stamped steel. Gillette is widely credited with inventing the so-called razor and blades business model, where razors are sold cheaply to increase the market for blades, but in fact he only adopted this model after his competitors did.
To sell the product, Gillette founded the American Safety Razor Company on September 28, 1901 (changing the company’s name to Gillette Safety Razor Company in July 1902). Gillette obtained a trademark registration (0056921) for his portrait and signature on the packaging. Production began in 1903, when he sold a total of 51 razors and 168 blades. By 1910, King Gillette was a millionaire. His portrait was printed on every package of blades, which gained him great celebrity. Sadly, Gillette lost most of his fortune in the stock market crash of 1929.

He said “If I had been technically trained, I would have quit.” He spent eight frustrating years striving to invent and introduce his safety razor.

From Asimov, Isaac. Isaac Asimov’s Book of Facts. New York, Bell Publishing Company, 1981

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

1937 – FDR dedicated Bonneville Dam on Columbia River (Oregon). Bonneville Lock & Dam, built and operated by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, was the first federal lock and dam on the Columbia and Snake rivers. The project’s first powerhouse, spillway and original navigation lock were completed in 1938 to improve navigation on Columbia River and provide hydropower to the Pacific Northwest.

September 26 is:

Johnny Appleseed Day John Chapman (Johnny Appleseed) was born on this date in 1774. He introduced apple trees to large parts of Pennsylvania, Ontario, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, as well as the northern counties of present-day West Virginia.

National Bunny Rabbit Day Did you know that for good luck you are supposed to say “Rabbit, rabbit” on the first day of each month? Must be the first words you utter and will bring you good luck all month.

National Pancake Day There are two “pancake days” every year. The other is Feb. 25th. In the U.S., a pancake is also called a hotcake, griddlecake, or flapjack. In the United Kingdom, flapjacks are oat-filled, sweet granola bars.

National Key Lime Pie Day

The dish is named for the small Key limes that are naturalized throughout the Florida Keys.
Unlike regular lime juice, Key lime juice is a pale yellow color which combined with the egg yokes results in the yellow pie filling.
Many claim that Key lime pie was invented by botantist Jack Simons.
On July 1st, 2006 both the Florida House of Representatives and the Florida Senate passed legislation selecting the “Key lime pie” as the official pie of the state of Florida.
It is highly likely that the first Key lime pie was created by “Aunt Sally,” the cook of a ship salvager and Key West’s first millionaire. Many of the men onboard his ships would have had access to the basic and non-perishable ingredients required for the early recipe: canned milk, limes and eggs.

In 1789 – Thomas Jefferson was appointed the first United States Secretary of State;

John Jay was appointed the first Chief Justice of the United States;

Samuel Osgood was appointed the first United States Postmaster General;

and Edmund Randolph was appointed the first United States Attorney General.

Birthday of George Gershwin (September 26, 1898), American composer famed for “Rhapsody in Blue” and “Porgy and Bess”

September 26, 1907: New Zealand and Newfoundland were given Dominion status within the British Empire.

In 1933 – As gangster George Barnes, aka Machine Gun Kelly, surrendered to the FBI, he shouted out, “Don’t shoot, G-Men!”, which became a nickname for FBI agents.

On this date in 1960 – In Chicago, the first televised debate took place between presidential candidates Richard M. Nixon and John F. Kennedy.

1981 – Baseball: Nolan Ryan set a Major League record by throwing his fifth no-hitter. In his career, he threw a total of seven no-hitters, three more than any other pitcher. He is tied with Bob Feller for most one-hitters, with 12. Ryan also pitched 18 two-hitters. Despite the seven no-hitters, he never threw a perfect game, nor did he ever win a Cy Young Award. Ryan is one of only 29 players in baseball history to have appeared in Major League baseball games in four decades and the only pitcher to have struck out seven pairs of fathers and sons. He struck out 5, 714 players, leading second place Randy Johnson by 839.

September 25 is:

National Comic Book Day

National Quesadilla Day
The word, Quesadilla, in Spanish, literally means “little cheesy thing.”
It is said that one in three Americans make a quesadilla every week. * V&V Supremo®’s Chihuahua® Brand Quesadilla Cheese is the best choice for making your quesadillas authentic.
In the central and southern regions of Mexico, a quesadilla is a flat circle of cooked corn masa, called a tortilla, warmed to soften it enough to be folded in half, and then filled.
While 66% of people use two tortillas when they make quesadillas, the traditional Mexican method requires folding one tortilla in half.
In culinary terms, a quesadilla, is a tortilla that is filled with cheese, other toppings, then grilled or pan fried.

1237 – England and Scotland signed the Treaty of York, establishing the location of their common border.

1493 Christopher Columbus set sail from Cadiz, Spain, with a flotilla of 17 ships on his second voyage to the Western Hemisphere. The second voyage brought European livestock (horses, sheep, and cattle) and settlers to America for the first time.

Spanish explorer Vasco Núñez de Balboa reached what would become known as the Pacific Ocean in 1513. He crossed the Isthmus of Panama.

1789 – The United States Congress passed twelve amendments to the United States Constitution: the Congressional Apportionment Amendment (which was never ratified), the Congressional Compensation Amendment, and the ten that are known as the Bill of Rights.

On September 25, 1890, the U.S. Congress established Sequoia National Park.. Yosemite National Park was established October 1, 1890.

Birthday of William Faulkner (September 25, 1897), the Nobel Prize-winning author of the American South, was born. Noted for writing “The Sound and the Fury”, “As I Lay Dying”, “Light in August”, “Absalom, Absalom!”, and “A Rose for Emily”.

President Woodrow Wilson was paralyzed by a stroke. On October 2, 1919, he suffered a second stroke, leaving him paralyzed on his left side, and with only partial vision in the right eye. He was confined to bed for weeks and sequestered from everyone except his wife and physician.

On this date in 1974, the first ulnar collateral ligament replacement surgery (Tommy John surgery) was performed, on baseball player Tommy John. Today, nearly one-third of current Major League Baseball pitchers have undergone the surgery.

September 24 is:

National Punctuation Day

National Cherries Jubilee Day
Cherries ‘Jubilee’ was credited by Chef Auguste Escoffier, who created the dish for Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee in 1897.

Birthday of John Marshall (September 24, 1755), American lawyer, jurist, fourth chief justice of the Supreme Court, founder of the American system of constitutional law.

1789 – The United States Congress passed the Judiciary Act which created the office of the United States Attorney General and the federal judiciary system, and orders the composition of the Supreme Court of the United States.

During the Mexican–American War, General Zachary Taylor captured Monterrey on September 24, 1846.

In 1869, financiers Jay Gould and James Fisk tried to corner the gold market, sending Wall Street into a panic and leaving thousands of investors in financial ruin.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints officially renounced polygamy in 1890.

Birthday of F. Scott Fitzgerald (September 24, 1896), the famed American novelist, best known for his novels depicting the flamboyance and excess of the Jazz Age—a term which he coined. Wrote This Side of Paradise, The Beautiful and Damned, The Great Gatsby (his most famous), and Tender Is the Night. A fifth, unfinished novel, The Love of the Last Tycoon, was published posthumously.

The Brooklyn Dodgers played their last game at Ebbets Field in 1957 before moving to Los Angeles for the next season.

U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt proclaimed Devils Tower in Wyoming as the nation’s first National Monument in 1906.

Tonight Show premiered on NBC in 1954. The Tonight Show has been hosted by Steve Allen (1954–57), Jack Paar (1957–62), Johnny Carson (1962–92), Jay Leno (1992–2009, 2010–14), Conan O’Brien (2009–10), and Jimmy Fallon (2014–present).

1979 – CompuServe launched the first consumer internet service, which featured the first public electronic mail service in 1979.

Hurricane Rita made landfall in the United States, devastating Beaumont, Texas and portions of southwestern Louisiana in 2005.

September 22 is:

Autumnal equinox
The word equinox comes from the Latin words for “equal night.” The fall and spring equinoxes are the only days of the year in which the Sun crosses the celestial equator.

Business Women’s Day
National Ice Cream Cone Day

Elephant Appreciation Day

• The African elephant is the largest land mammal on Earth.
• African elephant ears are the shape of Africa. It’s one of the ways you can tell them apart from the Asian elephant. Also, the African elephant lives longer than the Asian elephant and is heavier.
• A female elephant’s pregnancy is the longest of any mammal; full-term is 22 months. Elephants can also live to the age of 70.
• Elephants can reach speeds of up to 35 miles per hour.
• People assume that elephants are noisy, but they sometimes make sounds we can’t hear. The pitch of their calls can be below the range of human hearing. Low sounds from the trunk are a growl, snort or roar, and high sounds are trump, bark and cry.
• Their trunks have 40,000 muscles and tendons, and it takes about a year for them to learn how to use it. Adam Stone, director of elephant husbandry at the Elephant Sanctuary in Tennessee, says that “with a baby elephant, you will see that its trunk looks like a worm on the end of a hook, even when they’re nursing. They’ll trip over it; it’s really complex.”

The last people hanged for witchcraft in Massachusetts colony. In 1692, several accused “witches” confessed and named still others, and the trials soon began to overwhelm the local justice system. In May 1692, the newly appointed governor of Massachusetts, William Phips, ordered the establishment of a special Court of Oyer (to hear) and Terminer (to decide) on witchcraft cases for Suffolk, Essex and Middlesex counties. Presided over by judges including Hathorne, Samuel Sewall and William Stoughton, the court handed down its first conviction, against Bridget Bishop, on June 2; she was hanged eight days later on what would become known as Gallows Hill in Salem Town. Five more people were hanged that July; five in August and eight more in September. In addition, seven other accused witches died in jail, while the elderly (80-year-old) Giles Corey (Martha’s husband) was pressed to death by stones after he refused to enter a plea at his arraignment

The office of United States Postmaster General was established in 1789.

Birthday of Michael Faraday (September 22, 1791), English scientist who discovered the generation of electricity by means of magnetism.

The first issue of National Geographic Magazine was published in 1888.

Sara Jane Moore tried to assassinate U.S. President Gerald Ford, but was foiled by Oliver Sipple, a Marine, in 1975. Sipple grabbed Moore’s arm and then pulled her to the ground. She was given a life sentence for the attempted assassination and was released from prison on December 31, 2007, after serving 32 years. She was re-arrested in 2019 for parole violation.

The F-14 Tomcat retired from the United States Navy on September 22, 2006. As of 2014, the F-14 was in service with only the Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force, having been exported to Iran in 1976, when the U.S. had amicable diplomatic relations with Iran.

September 20 is:

Oktoberfest, date varies (Due to start September 19, 2020 – has been cancelled this year due to Coronavirus). The Oktoberfest is the world’s largest Volksfest (beer festival and travelling funfair). Held annually in Munich, Bavaria, Germany, it is a 16- to 18-day folk festival running from mid- or late September to the first Sunday in October, with more than six million people from around the world attending the event every year.

National Rum Punch Day

Rum was manufactured, distilled, and made long before any other spirit. It’s history is a vast one filled with stories, and fables. It was the first branded spirit made.
Rations of rum were given to sailors in the British Army to be mixed with lime juice because it fought off the scurvy.
When wealthy titles were given to parsons, they were thanked with a glass of rum.

Ferdinand Magellan (born Fernão de Magalhães) set sail from Sanlúcar de Barrameda in southern Spain with about 270 men on his expedition to circumnavigate the globe in 1519. Magellan’s expedition of 1519–1522 became the first expedition to sail from the Atlantic Ocean into the Pacific Ocean (then named “peaceful sea” by Magellan; the passage being made via the Strait of Magellan), and the first to cross the Pacific. His expedition completed the first circumnavigation of the Earth. Magellan did not complete the entire voyage, as he was killed during the Battle of Mactan in the Philippines in 1521.

Diego de Montemayor founded the city of Monterrey in New Spain (Mexico). Thirteen families founded Ciudad Metropolitana de Nuestra Señora de Monterrey (“Metropolitan City of Our Lady of Monterrey”) on September 20, 1596, next to a water spring called Ojos de Agua de Santa Lucia,

The American Association for the Advancement of Science was created September 20, 1848.

Chester A. Arthur was inaugurated as the 21st President of the United States following the assassination of James Garfield in 1881.

Facts about Chester A. Arthur:
He did not make an inaugural address and he never selected a vice-president.
He did not immediately move into the White House – he insisted on it being redecorated. Arthur then hired Louis Comfort Tiffany to redecorate and furnish the White House. He had 24 wagonloads of furniture and artifacts hauled off and sold at public auction. It is rumored to include a pair of Lincoln’s pants and one of John Quncy Adams’ hats.
His wife died of pneumonia the year before he became president. Arthur honored her by having flowers placed in front of her portrait at the White House every single day.
He was diagnosed with Bright’s disease (a kidney ailment) shortly after becoming President and did not seek a second term. He left office in 1885 and died the following year at age 57. Prior to his death he ordered all his papers be destroyed. He is quoted as having said: “I may be president of the United States, but my private life is nobody’s damned business.”

In 1891, the first gasoline-powered car debuted in Springfield, Massachusetts

September 20, 2001 – In an address to a joint session of Congress and the American people, U.S. President George W. Bush declared a “War on Terror”.

In 2011, the United States ended its “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy, allowing gay men and women to serve openly for the first time.