THIS WEEK IN HISTORY

September 9

 

      1776: The American Congress decided on the name “United States.”

1947: The first actual case of a computer bug occurred when a moth lodged in a relay of a Mark II computer at Harvard University.

1956: Elvis Presley appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show for the first time.

1972: In Kentucky’s Mammoth Cave National Park, a Cave Research Foundation exploration and mapping team discovered a link between the Mammoth and Flint Ridge cave systems, making it the longest known cave passageway in the world (400 surveyed miles).

2010: A natural gas pipeline explosion in San Bruno, Calif., created a wall of fire more than 1,000 feet high.

2018: Nia Franklin representing New York crowned Miss America 2019, first competition without a swimsuit section.
2019:
Scientist reveal evidence of humans earliest milk consumption, 6,000 years ago from the dental plaque of teeth of prehistoric farmers from Britain.

 

September 10

 

1842: First lady Letitia Tyler, wife of President John Tyler, died at the White House. She was the first of three first ladies to die during their husbands’ terms.

1946: While riding a train to Darjeeling, Sister Teresa Bojaxhiu of the Loreto Sisters’ Convent claimed to have heard the call of God, directing her “to leave the convent and help the poor while living among them.” She would become known as Mother Teresa.

1983:  American tennis linesman Dick Wertheim died from blunt cranial trauma at a match at the 1983 U.S. Open. Stefan Edberg sent an errant serve directly into his groin, causing him to fall and hit his head on the pavement.
2015: New human-like species – Homo Naledi announced by Scientists and a team of female archaeologists, found deep in caves in South Africa.
2018: South Carolina issues mandatory evacuation order affecting one million people ahead of Hurricane Florence.

 

September 11

 

1786: Congressional delegates began debating the need for a convention “for the sole and express purpose of revising the Articles” [of Confederation] to “render a constitution adequate to the Union’s needs.”

1941: The state of Vermont declared war on Germany.

1978: Georgi Markov, a Bulgarian dissident, was assassinated in London with a specially modified umbrella that fired a metal pellet with a small cavity full of ricin into his calf.

1978: Janet Parker, a British medical photographer, died of smallpox in 1978, ten months after the disease was eradicated in the wild, when a researcher at the laboratory where Parker worked accidentally released some virus into the air of the building. Parker is the last known smallpox fatality.

2001: Islamic terrorists hijacked four commercial airliners on the East Coast and crashed two of them into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York, destroying the buildings and killing 2,819 people, including the passengers on the planes. One of the other planes crashed into the Pentagon, killing 187 people total. The fourth plane crashed in a field in Pennsylvania after the passengers overpowered the hijackers. This remains the deadliest terrorist attack in world history.
2017: Hurricane Irma leaves 7 million US homes without power in Florida and Georgia.
2019: Water detected for first time on planet outside out solar system, on exoplanet K2-18b 110 light-years away, in findings published in “Nature Astronomy”.

 

September 12

 

1953: Jacquelyn Bouvier married John Fitzgerald Kennedy (35th president, 1961-1963) in Newport, R.I.
2017: Apple unveils premium iPhone X costing $999, along with iPhone 8.
2018:  Oldest known human drawing discovered, 73,000 years old, in Blombos Cave, South Africa published in “Nature”.

 

 

September 13

 

1788: Congress made New York the capital of the United States.

1922: The world’s second hottest surface temperature, 136 degrees, was recorded in El Azizia, Libya.
2009: 26th MTV Video Music Awards: Beyoncé, Taylor Swift & T.I. f/ Rihanna win.
2017: International Olympic Committee announces Paris (2024) and Los Angeles (2028) will host the Olympic games.

September 14

 

1408: The last documented event in Norse Greenland took place, a Christian wedding inside Hvalsey Church at the soon-to-be abandoned Viking settlement at Hvalsey (now modern-day Qaqortoq).

1814: Francis Scott Key composed a poem called “Defence of Fort McHenry” after witnessing the massive British bombardment of Fort McHenry in Maryland during the War of 1812. The patriotic lyrics were circulated as a handbill and then published in a Baltimore newspaper on September 20 and renamed “The Star-Spangled Banner.” Set to the tune of an English drinking song called “To Anacreon in Heaven,” it became popular throughout the nation. Congress declared “The Star-Spangled Banner” the national anthem in 1931.

1974: The song “I Shot the Sheriff,” sung by Eric Clapton, reached No. 1 on the Billboard pop chart. It was written by reggae singer Bob Marley.

1982: Former Hollywood star Grace Kelly, Princess Grace of Monaco, died one day after her car plunged off a cliff near Monte Carlo. She was 52.
2003: Estonia approves joining the European Union in a referendum.
2017: Selena Gomez reveals she had a kidney transplant, because of lupus, donated by her friend Francia Rais.

September 15

 

1857: William Howard Taft (27th president and 10th chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court) was born in Cincinnati, Ohio.

1890: Fiction crime writer Agatha Christie was born in Torquay, Devon, England. (Died 1976.)

1946: Born this day: Actor Tommy Lee Jones and movie director Oliver Stone.
2018: Archaeologists find the oldest-known brewery and remains of 13,000-year-old beer in Haifa cave, Israel, belonging to nomadic Natufian people.
2019: Norman Lear becomes the oldest person to win an Emmy at 97, in the variety special category for ABC’s “Live in Front of a Studio Audience”.