Tidbits of History

September 14 is:

National Live Creative Day
National Eat a Hoagie Day (A submarine sandwich, also known as a sub, hoagie, hero, or grinder)

National Cream-Filled Donut Day
In the U.S. alone, more than 10 billion donuts are made every year.

Anniversary of the death of Dante Alighieri (September 14, 1321), Italian poet known throughout the world for his “Divine Comedy”

September 14, 1752: Great Britain switched from the Julian calendar (named for Julius Caesar) to the Gregorian calendar, (named for Pope Gregory) skipping eleven days (the previous day was September 2).
The Julian calendar has two types of year: a normal year of 365 days and a leap year of 366 days. It followed a simple cycle of three normal years and one leap year, giving an average year that is 365.25 days long. That is more than the actual solar year value of 365.24219 days, which means the Julian calendar gains one day every 128 years.

The Gregorian calendar was introduced in 1582. It changed the extra day in leap year by the following rule:

Every year that is exactly divisible by four is a leap year, except for years that are exactly divisible by 100, but these centurial years are leap years if they are exactly divisible by 400. For example, the years 1700, 1800, and 1900 are not leap years, but the years 1600 and 2000 are.

To deal with the drift, since the Julian calendar was fixed, the date was advanced 10 days; In Great Britain September 2 was followed by September 14, 1752.

The poem Defense of Fort McHenry was written by Francis Scott Key in 1814. The poem is later used as the lyrics of The Star-Spangled Banner.

1849 Ivan Petrovich Pavlov was born. Pavlov’s work with dogs actually started as a study of digestion. He theorized that digestion was controlled in part by sensory inputs of sight, smell and taste – and as he discovered, sound. The concept for which Pavlov is famous is the “conditioned reflex”.

1901 – Death of William McKinley, twenty-fifth President of the United States. He was shot on September 6, 1901 by Leon Czolgosz, an anarchist at the grounds of the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York. He is succeeded by Theodore Roosevelt.
Following McKinley’s murder, the U.S. Congress passed legislation to officially charge the Secret Service with the responsibility for protecting the president.

Points of Interest about McKinley:

• He was supposedly the inspiration for the Wizard of Oz.
• He was 5 foot 7 inches tall
• He had a pet parrot named “Washington Post” who could whistle to the tune of Yankee Doodle.
• His portrait appeared on the U.S. $500 bill from 1928 to 1946
• McKinley’s wife, Ida, disliked the color yellow so much she had all things yellow removed from the White House, including the yellow flowers in the garden.

1963 –Andrew and Mary Ann Fischer, Aberdeen, SD,became parents to America’s 1st surviving quintuplets, 4 girls & a boy – Mary Ann, Mary Catherine, Mary Magdalene, Mary Margaret and James Andrew. The Fischers already had five children. All five quints survived to adulthood, celebrating their 62nd birthdays in 2025.

September 14, 1982: Grace Kelly, Princess of Monaco, died after a car crash the previous day.

1994 – The Major League Baseball season was canceled because of a strike.

2001 – Historic National Prayer Service was held at Washington National Cathedral for victims of the September 11 attacks. A similar service was held in Canada on Parliament Hill, the largest vigil ever held in the nation’s capital.

September 12 is:

National Video Games Day
National Day of Encouragement
National Programmers Day – 256th Day of the Year. On the 256th day of the year, the Day of the Programmer honors the innovators who continue to change the world, one program at a time. Also known as International Programmers Day, this day is celebrated based on binary code. The number 256 is distinct to programmers. Represented by an eight-bit byte 256 equals 2 to the eighth power.

Chocolate Milk Shake Day
From Foodimentary.com:

• Milkshakes got their name from being served in bars. If the customer enjoyed the milkshake, he shook hands with the bartender. If not, the bartender didn’t get a tip.
• Malted milk powder was invented in 1897 by James and William Horlick, but it was Ivar Coulson, a soda jerk for a Walgreen’s drug store, who first added it to milkshakes in 1922. This created the malted milkshake or just plain “malt.”
• Steven Poplawski invented the electric blender in 1922 just for milkshakes. Before that, the effort of shaking them up must have required a lot of upper body motion.
• Australians can still buy traditional milkshakes in “milk bars,” which are much like old-fashioned drugstores with counter service. They’re usually served still in the steel cup, but may be poured into a paper cup for carry out orders.

On September 12, 1846, Elizabeth Barrett eloped with Robert Browning.

In 1857, the SS Central America sank about 160 miles east of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, drowning a total of 426 passengers and crew, including Captain William Lewis Herndon. The ship was carrying 13–15 tons of gold from the California Gold Rush.

From Today in Science”
In 1915, a prisoner developed a rash associated with the disease pellegra. He was part of a study designed by Dr. Joseph Goldberger to provide a protein-deficient diet for several months to 12 volunteer inmates of the state prison at Jackson, Mississippi. For Goldberger, it meant a proof that the cause of the deadly disease pellegra was a result of poor diet, and that it was not contagious. For the inmates, it earned a pardon.

1953 – U.S. Senator and future President John Fitzgerald Kennedy married Jacqueline Lee Bouvier at St. Mary’s Church in Newport, Rhode Island.

From Today in Science”
In 1962, President John F. Kennedy delivered his famous space speech.  Speaking at the stadium of Rice University, the text of his speech included these memorable lines,

“We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard; because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills; because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too. It is for these reasons that I regard the decision last year to shift our efforts in space from low to high gear as among the most important decisions that will be made during my incumbency in the office of the Presidency.”«

Webmaster’s note: If you have never heard or read the speech in full, please click this link.   Do it! Now!
(home of the speech)

September 11 is:

Patriot Day
September 11 – 2001: The September 11 attacks occurred, as Islamist terrorists crashed airplanes into the World Trade Center in New York City, the Pentagon in Washington, and the ground at Shanksville, Pennsylvania. In total, almost 3,000 people died in the attacks, including the 227 civilians and 19 hijackers aboard the four planes. It also was the deadliest incident for firefighters and for law enforcement officers in the history of the United States, with 343 and 72 killed respectively.

Make Your Bed Day

No News is Good News Day

September 11, 1777- Battle of Brandywine, Pa; Americans lost to British

American Navy defeated British in the Battle of Lake Champlain, NY during the War of 1812.

Birthday of William Sidney Porter (O’Henry) in 1862 , American short-story writer and journalist. Among his most famous stories are:

• “The Gift of the Magi”, about a young couple, Jim and Della, who are short of money but desperately want to buy each other Christmas gifts. Unbeknownst to Jim, Della sells her most valuable possession, her beautiful hair, in order to buy a platinum fob chain for Jim’s watch; while unbeknownst to Della, Jim sells his own most valuable possession, his watch, to buy jeweled combs for Della’s hair.
• “The Ransom of Red Chief” in which two men kidnap a boy of ten. The boy turns out to be so bratty and obnoxious that the desperate men ultimately pay the boy’s father $250 to take him back.

In his book “Cabbages and Kings”, he coined the phrase “banana republic”.

Birthday of D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence (September 11, 1885), English writer of “Lady Chatterley’s Lover”.

On September 11, 1941, President FDR ordered any Axis ship found in American waters be shot at on sight.

Congress passed a bill authorizing food stamps for poor Americans on this date in 1959.

The Young Americans for Freedom, meeting at home of William F. Buckley, Jr. in Sharon, Conn. on September 11, 1960, promulgated the Sharon Statement.

The Sharon Statement

Adopted by the Young Americans for Freedom Conference at Sharon, Conn.,

IN THIS TIME of moral and political crises, it is the responsibility of the youth of America to affirm certain eternal truths

WE, as young conservatives believe:

THAT foremost among the transcendent values is the individual’s use of his God-given free will, whence derives his right to be free from the restrictions of arbitrary force;

THAT liberty is indivisible, and that political freedom cannot long exist without economic freedom;

THAT the purpose of government is to protect those freedoms through the preservation of internal order, the provision of national defense, and the administration of justice;

THAT when government ventures beyond these rightful functions, it accumulates power, which tends to diminish order and liberty;

THAT the Constitution of the United States is the best arrangement yet devised for empowering government to fulfill its proper role, while restraining it from the concentration and abuse of power;

THAT the genius of the Constitution – the division of powers – is summed up in the clause that reserves primacy to the several states, or to the people in those spheres not specifically delegated to the Federal government;

THAT the market economy, allocating resources by the free play of supply and demand, is the single economic system compatible with the requirements of personal freedom and constitutional government, and that it is at the same time the most productive supplier of human needs;

THAT when government interferes with the work of the market economy, it tends to reduce the moral and physical strength of the nation, that when it takes from one to bestow on another, it diminishes the incentive of the first, the integrity of the second, and the moral autonomy of both;

THAT we will be free only so long as the national sovereignty of the United States is secure; that history shows periods of freedom are rare, and can exist only when free citizens concertedly defend their rights against all enemies…

THAT the forces of international Communism are, at present, the greatest single threat to these liberties;

THAT the United States should stress victory over, rather than coexistence with this menace; and

THAT American foreign policy must be judged by this criterion: does it serve the just interests of the United States?”

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September 9 is the 253rd day of the year.

National Hug Your Boss Day
National “I Love Food” Day!
National Wiener Schnitzel Day A Wiener Schnitzel is a veal cutlet coated in bread and then pan-fried. This renowned dish is considered an Austrian delicacy in its beautiful capital, Vienna.

Teddy Bear Day: From Holiday Insights

During the early 1900s, President Theodore Roosevelt was in office as President of the United States. He was a hunter. While hunting in Mississippi in 1902, he refused to shoot a small bear. The Washington Post picked up on this story, and made a cartoon of the event. Toy store owners, Morris and Rose Michtom, wrote to President Roosevelt for permission to call their stuffed animals “Teddy Bears”. Teddy bears became wildly popular. Their company went on to become the Ideal Toy Company, one of the largest toy companies in the world.

1754 William Bligh was born. He became captain of the English ship, Bounty, and while sailing to Tahiti to bring back breadfruit trees, the most famous mutiny in history took place.

On this date in 1776 the Continental Congress officially named its new union of sovereign states the United States.

In 1791 – Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States, was named after President George Washington.

Birthday of Count Leo Tolstoy (September 9, 1828), Russian novelist famous for “War and Peace” and “Anna Karenina”

The Compromise of 1850 provisions included:

• Texas surrendered its claim to New Mexico, as well as its claims north of the Missouri Compromise Line. It retained the Texas Panhandle and the federal government took over the state’s public debt.
• California was admitted as a free state with its current boundaries.
• The South prevented adoption of the Wilmot Proviso that would have outlawed slavery in the new territories, and the new Utah Territory and New Mexico Territory were allowed, under the principle of popular sovereignty, to decide whether to allow slavery within their borders. In practice, these lands were generally unsuited to plantation agriculture and their settlers were uninterested in slavery.
• The slave trade (but not slavery altogether) was banned in the District of Columbia.
• A more stringent Fugitive Slave Law was enacted.

California Admission Day, on September 9, 1850 becoming the thirty-first state

• Capital: Sacramento
• Nickname: Golden State
• Bird: California Valley Quail
• Flower: Golden poppy
• Tree: California Redwood
• Motto: Eureka! I Have Found It

See our page California for more interesting facts and trivia about California.

1890 Harland Sanders was born near Henryville, Indiana. Founder of Kentucky Fried Chicken fast food restaurant chain.

September 10, 1898: Elisabeth of Bavaria, Empress of Austria was stabbed to death by Italian anarchist Luigi Lucheni at Lake Geneva, Switzerland.

1901 Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec died. French artist who documented Parisian night life in the 1890s with his insightful posters. For examples of his art, see Wikiart.

From Today in Science
NBC

In 1926, the National Broadcasting Company (NBC) was created by the Radio Corporation of America (RCA), shortly after the acquistion (May 1926) of the radio network operations of AT&T, which had decided to withdraw from radio. The new NBC network was publicized with full-page ads in many publications. The new network’s debut broadcast was transmitted on 15 Nov 1926. The network assets bought from AT&T with stations in major cities of several states became the NBC-Red network (a designation reflecting its origin when the inter-city circuit charts were marked with telephone links between network radio stations in red pencil. The smaller existing network of the buyer became NBC-Blue.

1995 Orville Redenbacher died. Founder of gourmet popcorn company.

September 6 is:

Fight Procrastination Day
Read a Book Day…Isn’t that every day?
National Coffee Ice Cream Day

Coffee is only grown near the equator, from the Tropic of Cancer to the Tropic of Capricorn, within a 1,000 mile limit.

From thoughtco.com

The Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn each lie at 23.5 degrees latitude. The Tropic of Cancer is located at 23.5 degrees north of the equator and runs through Mexico, the Bahamas, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, India, and southern China. The Tropic of Capricorn lies at 23.5 degrees south of the equator and runs through Australia, Chile, southern Brazil (Brazil is the only country that passes through both the equator and a tropic), and northern South Africa.

The tropics are the two lines where the sun is directly overhead at noon on the two solstices—about June 21 and December 21. The sun is directly overhead at noon on the Tropic of Cancer on June 21 (the beginning of summer in the Northern Hemisphere and the beginning of winter in the Southern Hemisphere), and the sun is directly overhead at noon on the Tropic of Capricorn on December 21 (the beginning of winter in the Northern Hemisphere and the beginning of summer in the Southern Hemisphere).

The reason for the location of the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn at roughly 23.5 degrees north and south, respectively, is due to the axial tilt of the Earth. The Earth is tilted 23.5 degrees from the plane of the Earth’s revolution around the sun each year.

The area bounded by the Tropic of Cancer on the north and Tropic of Capricorn on the south is known as the “tropics.” This area does not experience seasons, because the sun is always high in the sky. Only higher latitudes, north of the Tropic of Cancer and south of the Tropic of Capricorn, experience significant seasonal variation in climate. Areas in the tropics can be cold, however. The peak of Mauna Kea on the Big Island of Hawaii stands nearly 14,000 feet above sea level, and snow is not unusual.

If you live north of the Tropic of Cancer or south of the Tropic of Capricorn, the sun will never be directly overhead. In the United States, for example, Hawaii is the only location in the country that is south of the Tropic of Cancer, and it is thus the only location in the United States where the sun will be directly overhead in the summer.

Puritans settled Salem in 1628. It will later become part of Massachusetts Bay Colony.

Birthday of Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette (September 6, 1757), French aristocrat and military officer who became a general in the American Revolutionary War and a leader of the Garde nationale during the French Revolution. He was granted honorary U.S. citizenship in 2002, one of only 8 people so honored.

Birthday of Jane Addams (September 6, 1860), American social worker, founder of Hull House in Chicago, a settlement house for newly arrived European immigrants.

September 6, 1901: US President William McKinley was shot by anarchist Leon Czolgosz at Pan American Exposition in Buffalo NY. Two shots were fired. The first deflected off a button and was easily found and removed. The second however was fatal. The newly-developed X-ray machine was displayed at the fair, but doctors were reluctant to use it on McKinley to search for the bullet because they did not know what side effects it may have had on him. Also, ironically, the operating room at the exposition’s emergency hospital did not have any electric lighting, even though the exteriors of many of the buildings at the extravagant exposition were covered with thousands of light bulbs. Doctors used a pan to reflect sunlight onto the operating table as they treated McKinley’s wounds. McKinley eventually went into shock. He died from his wounds early on the morning of September 14th.

September 6, 1997: The funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales took place in London.

September 5 is:

Be Late for Something Day

Cheese Pizza Day

About 93% of Americans eat at least one pizza every month.
About 350 slices of pizza are consumed every second in the United States.
The most pizzas are delivered (and eaten) on New Year’s Day, New Year’s Eve, Halloween, Thanksgiving Eve, and Super Bowl Sunday.
Pepperoni is the most popular pizza topping in the United States.

1698 – Russian Tsar Peter the Great imposed a tax on beards of one hundred rubles annually. He also sought to end arranged marriages, which were the norm among the Russian nobility, because he thought such a practice was barbaric and led to domestic violence, since the partners usually resented each other.

Anniversary of the first meeting of the First Continental Congress in Philadelphia in 1774. It was a convention of delegates from twelve colonies (Georgia was not present) that met at Carpenters’ Hall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, early in the American Revolution. It was called in response to the passage of the Coercive Acts (also known as Intolerable Acts by the Colonial Americans) by the British Parliament. The Intolerable Acts had punished Boston for the Boston Tea Party. The Congress ultimately agreed to impose an economic boycott on British trade, and they drew up a Petition to the King pleading for redress of their grievances and repeal of the Intolerable Acts. That appeal had no effect, so the colonies convened the Second Continental Congress the following May, shortly after the battles of Lexington and Concord, to organize the defense of the colonies at the outset of the Revolutionary War. The delegates also urged each colony to set up and train its own militia.

Sam Houston was elected as the first president of the Republic of Texas in 1836.

Birthday of Jesse James (September 5, 1847), American outlaw, gang leader, bank robber, train robber, and murderer.

1882: The first United States Labor Day parade was held in New York City.

From 2201 Fascinating Facts by David Louis, published by Greenwich House, New York, 1983
Execution by hanging of Carl Panzram (mass murderer of 23 people) (Sept 5, 1930 ). While the noose was being put around his neck, he allegedly spat in his executioner’s face and declared, “I wish the entire human race had one neck, and I had my hands around it!” When asked by the executioner if he had any last words, Panzram barked, “Yes, hurry it up, you Hoosier bastard! I could hang a dozen men while you’re screwing around!”

Jerry Lewis hosted his first Muscular Dystrophy telethon in 1952; it raised $15,000. In 2010 the telethon raised $61 million.

1975 – Assassination attempt on US President Gerald Ford in Sacramento by Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme. A member of the infamous “Manson family”, she was sentenced to life imprisonment and was released on parole on August 14, 2009, after serving 34 years.