September History

September History

September 1: Louis the XIV dies after 72 years on the throne; 1715. Liberty Bell arrives in Philadelphia; 1752. Mission San Luis Obispo de Tolosa is founded by Junipero Serra this is the 5th mission along the El Camino Real; 1772. Aaron Burr is acquitted of treason against the USA; 1807. World War II begins when Germany invades Poland; 1939. 

September 2: The British adopt the Gregorian Calendar along with the colonies in the USA. For the correction 11 days are skipped. The last day of the Julian Calendar is September 2nd, which was followed the next day as September 14th; 1752. Formal Surrender of Japan to the United States of America happens in Tokyo Bay on the USS Missouri (technically September 3 in Japan, but we won the war so it is considered to have happened on the 2nd by USA.). I have an old WWII military magazine left by my Grandfather of this event and I learned that the diplomat from Canada signed on the wrong line on one of the documents (he was blind in one eye and signed on the French line), I believe it was the copy that went to Japan; 1945. Soviets agreed o send arms to Cuba; 1962. 

September 3: Treaty of Paris is signed by John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and John Jay formally ending the American Revolution at Hotel d’York at 56 Jacob Street Paris; 1783. France adopts their first constitution establishing a constitutional monarchy which lasts about a year before a new constitution is drafted making them a republic like the USA; 1791. Great Britain and France declare war on Germany; 1939. 

September 4: The Island of Manhattan is discovered by Henry Hudson; 1609. The city of Los Angeles California is founded by Spanish Governor Felipe de Neve. The original name was El Pueblo de la Reina de Los Angeles. When translated to English it means The Town of the Queen of Angels; 1781. George Eastman patents the first roll film camera the “Kodak”; 1888. 

September 5: The First Continental Congress convenes at Carpenter’s Hall in Philadelphia PA; 1774. 24 French ships defeat the British in the Chesapeake trapping Cornwallis in Yorktown; 1781. Robespierre declares Terror to be “The order of the Day.” Beginning the “Reign of Terror” of the French Revolution. In less than a year tens of thousands would die from hunger or in prison without ever facing charges or trials, of the tens of thousands who died less than 3,000 died by the guillotine in Paris; 1793. Sam “Black Raven” Houston is elected President of the Republic of Texas. Sam Houston was born in 1793 in Virginia and ran away in his teenage years and lived among the Cherokee in Tennessee where he gained the name “Black Raven.” He served in the War of 1812 and was appointed to manage the relocation of the Cherokee to a reservation in Arkansas. In Nashville he practiced law and was elected Governor of Tennessee in 1827 at 36 years old he married 19 year old Eliza Allen but after 11 weeks they were divorced he resigned as Governor in 1829 amid rumors of infidelity and alcoholism. After resigning as Governor he went back to the Cherokee where he was made a full member of the tribe and married a Cherokee woman Tiana Rogers. He pressed officials in Washington DC for Native American rights and sometimes wore traditional Cherokee clothing to meetings in Washington DC. Andrew Jackson appointed him to lead negotiations for treaties with Native Americans in the Mexican territory of Texas. In March of 1836 The Alamo was under siege the Texas legislature made Sam Houston their commander in chief, in part because of his military service during the war of 1812. He was not well liked among his men because he ordered a series of strategic retreats. However, in April of 1836, 800 Texans using the battle cry “Remember the Alamo” surprised Santa Ana at the San Jacinto River and in 18 minutes defeated an army twice their size forcing Santa Anna to sign an armistice granting Texas her Independence. Sam Houston would later go on to oppose Texas joining the confederacy and refuse to take an oath in support of the confederacy, he would be replaced as Governor in 1861 and he retired to Huntsville Texas and passed away in 1863. On September 5th he was elected as the first President of the Republic of Texas; 1836. Eleven members of the Israeli Olympic Team were killed at the Olympic Games in Munich; 1972. The first of 2 Assassination attempts on Gerald Ford happens in Capitol Park of Sacramento CA, Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme a member of the Manson Family attempts to shoot President Ford as he was walking to a meeting with Governor Jerry Brown. She did not chamber a round in her firearm and the weapon did not go off, nobody was injured but she got within an arm length of the President. Two weeks later another attempt would be made on President Ford’s life this time in San Francisco; Sara Jane Moore would fire 2 rounds at the President in front of the St. Francis Hotel missing the first shot above his head, a bystander began to tackle her as she fired a second round that struck a taxi driver. The Secret Service would rush President Ford to the airport where he returned to Washington DC. St. Mother Teresa passes away in Calcutta at the age of 87; 1997. 

September 6: President William McKinley is shot by anarchist Leon Czolgosz while visiting the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo NY; 1901. The first supermarket opens in Memphis Tennessee named the “Piggly Wiggly”; 1916. 

September 7: The City of Boston Massachusetts is founded; 1630. For the first time since World War II the German parliament returns to Berlin to hold a session in the Reichstag building. The building is modeled architecturally after Memorial Hall in Philadelphia which was the main building for the 1876 Centennial Exhibition. The building began construction in 1884, in 1933 nazi members of parliament set fire to the building which gave Adolf Hitler emergency powers that he did not relinquish. After the war the building was in ruins and some in West Germany (the building happened to be on the West side of Berlin) did not want to restore it. In 1961 restoration efforts began and were completed in 1971. In 1990 Germany held a reunification ceremony at the Reichstag and then promptly decided to renovate it again. The building was completely gutted on the inside and only the outside walls were allowed to stay standing, a glass dome was built symbolizing transparency and openness. Construction finished in 1999 and on September 7 the first session of parliament of a unified Germany in the Reichstag was held in Berlin for the first time since WWII; 1999. 

September 8: Statue of David unveiled in Florence; 1504. Don Pedro Menendez de Aviles of Spain founds the USA’s oldest city, St. Augustine Florida; 1565. Galveston Texas is stuck by a massive hurricane with winds over 120 mph, an estimated 8,000 people die and over 2,500 buildings are destroyed; 1900. President Gerald Ford pardons former President Richard Nixon; 1974. 

September 9: Congress officially renames the United Colonies as the United States of America; 1776. California is admitted as the 31st state of the Union; 1850. Orville Wright makes the first flight to last longer than 1 hour; 1908. 

September 10: Nathan Hale volunteers as a spy for George Washington; 1776. John Holden hits the first recorded Home Run in Baseball; 1858. 

September 11: The worst terrorist attack in US History occurs when four passenger jets are hijacked by terrorists. American Airlines Flight 11 carrying 92 people United Airlines flight 175 were diverted to New York City by the terrorists and were piloted into the twin towers of the World Trade Center. The impact caused the collapse of both 110 story towers killing 2,752 persons including hundreds of first responders. American Airlines flight 77 with 64 people on board departed Dulles for Los Angeles was hijacked and piloted into the Pentagon building in the District of Columbia, killing everybody on board and 125 military personal in the building. Flight 93 departed Newark for San Francisco was also hijacked and was heading towards Washington DC. The passengers on the plane having heard of the attacks that just happened on the radio and their cell phones overtook the plane and caused it to crash in an open field in Shanksville Pennsylvania, every passenger perished but saved countless number of lives by stopping a bigger attack in our Nation’s Capital; 2001.

September 12: The final draft of the Constitution is submitted after the Committee on Style and Arrangement finish their report, this draft includes a new preamble written by Gouverneur Morris who was 35 at the time; 1787. Article V of the NATO agreement is invoked for the first and only time in response to the events of the previous day. An attack on one nation is an attack on all member nations of NATO; 2001. 

September 13: The US Congress chooses New York City as the Federal capital; 1788. The Battle of Fort Henry in Baltimore occurs, observed by Francis Scott Key aboard a ship he witnessed the British attack at night, at dawn the United States Flag was still standing and flying over the fort. Inspired by the nights events he wrote a poem with several verses (we only sing the first verse) and coupled it with a popular British drinking song. In 1931 it became the National Anthem of the United States of America; 1814. Walter Reed is born in Virginia, he became for research on Yellow Fever and was an army surgeon for more than 20 years; 1851. John J. Pershing was born in Laclede, Missouri, he commanded the American Expeditionary Force during World War I and helped bring an end to World War In; 1860. 

September 14: President William McKinley dies, eight days after being shot in Buffalo by an anarchist. He was succeeded by Theodore Roosevelt; 1901. Elizabeth Ann Seton became the first American saint; 1975. Princess Grace of Monaco dies in an accident, Grace Kelly was a successful Hollywood actress who met Prince Rainier III of Monaco during the filming of To Catch a Thief. She gave up her career and married him in 1956; 1982. 

September 15: British forces under General William Howe land make a naval attack at Kips Bay on Manhattan Island and the East River (a few blocks south of the UN Building on the East Side from 34th to 23rd and from Lexington Ave to the East River. The overwhelming size of the British forces cause the American militia to retreat north to Harlem Heights. The initial success by the British was followed by a fierce battle the following day in Harlem. The American Forces were able launch a successful flanking maneuver and counter attack on the British by holding higher ground, after several hours of heavy shooting the British retreated south, fearing being outflanked Washington ordered his troops to escape NYC west by crossing the Hudson River. General Howe had successfully taken New York City and Manhattan however, the success of the American forces made him unwilling to move his troops north of what is now midtown Manhattan for another two months; 1776. The HMS Beagle with Charles Darwin reaches the Galápagos Islands; 1835. 

September 16: The Mayflower departs Plymouth England for the New World; 1620. Hidalgo y Costilla who was priest in the small town of Dolores, who attended the Jesuit College of San Francisco Javier and got a bachelors degree from the University of Mexico in 1774, gives a sermon in his small church. This became known known as El Grito de Dolores ”The Cry of Dolores” it was a the spoken word and never written down but is considered the spark that led to the Mexicans kicking the Spanish out of their country. It went something like this.. “My Children, a new dispensation comes to us today… Will you free yourselves? Will you recover the lands stolen three hundred years ago from your forefathers by the hated Spanish? We must act at once.” The cry went out into the streets of the small town and into the hills. Soon thousands of Indians and native Mexicans descended on the town of San Miguel and took it over in a fierce battle with the Spanish. By October the rebel Mexican Army was 80,000 strong and ready to go into Mexico City. Hidalgo Costilla hesitated and retreated north into Texas instead of attacking Mexico City. He was caught in Texas and was executed by firing squad on July 31, 1811. A decade of intense fighting followed and a divided and weak Mexico gained independence from an exhausted Spain via the signing of the Treaty of Cordoba on August 24, 1821. It all started with the El Grito de Dolores on September 16th; 1810. A horse drawn wagon carrying explosives kills 38 and injuring over 300 people when it explodes on Wall Street across from the J.P Morgan building. Unfortunately crucial evidence was disposed during the clean up of debris and Wall Street was back to business as usual the next day. The predecessor of the FBI investigated leads and hints in the following years in an attempt to find the driver and the people responsible for this act of terrorism. The perpetrators were never caught but it is believed to have been done by a small group of Italian anarchists who fled the country after the attack; 1920. 

September 17: St. Francis of Assisi becomes the first human to receive what is known as stigmata. For 40 days and nights St. Francis prayed between two boulders on a mountain in La Verna in Umbria which is just outside of Assisi. It is believed that his prayers were answered win an angel came to him and blessed him with the Passion of Christ in the form of the wounds Jesus endured during the crucifixion. St. Francis performed miracles in secret for the next two years before passing away. After his death future Saints and Popes recalled seeing the stigmata on St. Francis with their own eyes; 1224. The Presidio in San Francisco California is believed to have began construction by the Spanish, the military fort was a line of defense for Mission Dolores which began construction a few weeks later; 1776. The US Constitution is voted on and approved by the Constitutional Convention, in 2004 September 17th became known as Constitution Day and a holiday when Senator Byrd of West Virginia attached an amendment to the Omnibus Spending Bill. But it began with the vote by the Constitutional Convention on this day; 1787. The Battle of Antietam occurs and becomes the bloodiest battle in American History, over 20,000 casualties combined which amounted to about 25% of Union forces and 30% of the Confederate forces, over 7,000 Americans would be killed on this day on a field in Sharpsburg Maryland. Over 2/3 of the 622,000 men who died during the Civil War died from disease and not from battle. Antietam began when General Joseph Hooker and General Abner Doubleday led troops in an attempt to take higher ground however after emerging from some woods and into a cornfield they ran into Stonewall Jackson’s troops and a long battle began it is estimated the cornfield changed hands 15 times that morning. The battle between the armies continued into the afternoon and night. By the next morning General Lee crossed the Potomac into Virginia, General McClellan was overly cautious and did not pursue Lee into Virginia. President Lincoln was displeased with the performance of McClellan believing that his tactics resulted in a draw instead of a crippling defeat of the Confederate army so he replaced McClellan a few weeks later. The results of the battle allowed Lincoln to issue a preliminary emancipation proclamation a few days later, and the weakened Confederate Army would lose several battles in the coming months including Gettysburg. The Battle of Antietam is considered the turning point of the Civil War; 1862. 

September 18: A BBQ was held in the newly formed District of Columbia for a ceremonial laying of the cornerstone of the US Capitol Building. President George Washington laid the cornerstone in a mason ceremony. He also owned the largest distillery in the country and brought plenty of whiskey and beer for people to drink. An ox weighing 400 pounds was slaughtered and roasted over an open fire. A commemorative silver plate marking the event was also allegedly laid along side the cornerstone, however this artifact remains in the realm of legend then historical fact because it remains lost despite having been searched for by archeologists and historians during multiple renovations of the Capitol over the years. In one renovation during the 1950’s archeologists and historians found the exact cornerstone George Washington laid but did not recover the silver plate. It is believed (by me) that someone at the BBQ may have walked off with the engraved silver plate as a moment, to this day the plate has yet to be recovered and remains lost to history; 1793. The United States Air Force is established; 1947. 

September 19: Nathaniel Bacon and his rebellion burn Jamestown Virginia to the ground. The dispute between him and Governor William Berkeley arose over Berkeley’s refusal to attack local Native Americans. Nathaniel Bacon formed a small militia and slaughtered a local tribe of Indians. Nathaniel Bacon was declared a rebel and Berkeley called for new elections, Bacon was elected to the legislature and apologized. Governor Berkeley kicked him out of the legislature, enraged Nathaniel Bacon reformed his militia and attacked Jamestown Virginia burning it to the ground; 1676. New Zealand becomes the first country to grant women the right to vote; 1893. 

September 20: Chester A. Arthur is sworn in as the 21st President of the United States of America. Chester A. Author was born in Fairfield Vermont in 1829, he became a lawyer and a Quartermaster General during the Civil War. He was part of the Republican political machine so much for he ascended to the office of Vice Presidency for a brief time after being the head of the Customs House in NYC and friend to Senator Roscoe Conkling who would appoint friends to jobs. In July President James Garfield was shot by someone who was seeking an appointed position but got rejected, for months Garfield suffered from the bullet wound and he finally passed away on September 19th. Garfield began the process of stopping Senator Roscoe Conkling being the person who decided who got all the jobs in the federal government and won an important political maneuver by getting his guy appointed. Garfield is quoted as saying “this will settle the question whether the President is registering clerk of the Senate or the Executive of the United States… shall the principal port of entry… be under the control of the administration or under the local control of a factional senator.” Chester A. Arthur assumed the Presidency and it was believed he would do what Senator Conkling wanted, but to the surprise of many he continued the work of Garfield. He instituted civil service reforms and made the appointments to federal jobs a non partisan non patronage process by making applicants take a test and created a “classified” system of jobs. The Pendleton Act of 1883 is one of his accomplishments along with the USA’s first immigration law. He also is known for his quotations: “I may be President of the United States, but my private life is nobody’s damned business.” “Men may die, but the fabrics of free institutions remains unshaken.” Chester A. Arthur would only serve one term as President and he would die two years after leaving office. He kept a personal secret of suffering from a fatal disease of the kidney a secret from the public and his political opponents his entire Presidency; 1881. 

September 21: Nathaniel Hale is arrested by the British; 1776. A national convention in France passes a proclamation formally abolishing the monarchy; 1792. The New York Sun answers eight year old Virginia O’Hanlon’s question about the existence of Santa Clause in one of the most famous editorials of all time. “Yes Virginia there is a Santa Clause” becomes an instant classic that has been republished countless times over the decades. 

VIRGINIA, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men’s or children’s, are little. In this great universe of ours man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect, as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.

Yes, VIRGINIA, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus. It would be as dreary as if there were no VIRGINIAS. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.

Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies! You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas Eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if they did not see Santa Claus coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that’s no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.

You may tear apart the baby’s rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived, could tear apart. Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, VIRGINIA, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.

No Santa Claus! Thank God! he lives, and he lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay, ten times ten thousand years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.”

The Sun; 1897

September 22: Nathan Hale at the age of 21 is hanged at Dove Tavern on the corner of 66th and Third Avenue. His final words are: “I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country.” He is America’s first spy and his death became a rallying cry of the revolution. He was a teacher and graduate of Yale University in Connecticut, in 1985 he became the official State Hero of Connecticut. A replica of the statue at Yale University is on the grounds of the CIA headquarters in Langley Virginia, legend has it that members of the CIA toss a coin at the feet of Nathaniel Hale for good luck before departing internationally. A statue of his hands bound behind his back standing resolute in defiance of British rule stands across from one of Ben Franklin at New York City Hall. City Hall Park in New York City is also referred to as Nathan Hale Park; 1776. President Abraham Lincoln issues a preliminary Emancipation Proclamation effective January First 1863; 1862. 

September 23: The Corps of Discovery led by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark arrive in St. Louis Missouri after leaving two and a half years earlier to try to find the northwest passage. Many in the press and elsewhere presumed they died at some point in their journey. They encountered freezing hikes in the Rocky Mountains, countless numbers of previously unknown animal and plant species. Lewis and Clark also were guided on their journey by a Native American woman by the name of Sacagawea who guided them along ancient trails through the Bitteroot Mountains. After navigating though rapids and going around the Idaho Falls they found the Columbia River and became some of the first Americans to travel to the Pacific Ocean via land. After the expedition Meriwether Lewis was appointed as Governor of the Louisiana Territory and made his base of operation in St. Louis. Scandals and a bad drinking habit and the fact that his secretary did not like him led to Lewis gaining a reputation as a poor leader and incompetent. He also was having difficulty completing his journals of the journey and was under constant pressure to have them published by Thomas Jefferson. He traveled to New Orleans to try to get a ship to Washington DC to try to get reimbursed by the federal government for some expenses, he looked over his will before he left, but Lewis could not find a ship so he decided to take a land route. While staying the night in an Inn in Tennessee he was shot and died, many historians believe Lewis died by suicide. The post William Clark story is much less tragic and far more successful. William Clark was appointed as a Superintendent of Indian affairs for the territory of upper Louisiana and was responsible for negotiating treaties. Even though officials in Washington DC constantly did not honor their word when it came to these treaties, William Clark gained a well deserved reputation among the tribes of the midwest and west as a man who was fair and did his best to hold Washington DC accountable. William Clark was held in high regard among many of the chiefs of the midwest and west and he served six presidents. Sacagawea died at 25 leaving behind two children and her husband the French trader Toussaint was presumed dead leaving the children orphaned. William Clark had his assistant go to court and adopted the children or at the very least he paid for their education and care. Jean Baptiste Clark became an educated man and lived in Europe for six years before returning to America where he worked as a trapper for Jim Bridger and Kit Carson, he settled in California and worked at the San Luis Rey Mission as a magistrate, on the way to Montana in the search for gold he developed pneumonia and died at 61 in 1866. The fate of Sacagewa’s other child Lisette is unknown. William Clark owned a slave named York who is one of the few slaves in history to have been known to carry a firearm and York went with Lewis and Clark on the journey. Upon return York wanted his freedom but William Clark refused and even after 10 years after they returned from their journey York was still enslaved and working for the Clark family. York never saw the wife he left in Kentucky again, in 1832 Washington Irving interviewed William Clark and asked about York, according to that interview William Clark eventually granted York his freedom but he was unhappy about getting his freedom and returned to Clark before dying of cholera. However, that story may be a fiction, the same year a fur trader in Wyoming wrote about finding a negro man who was living with and among the Crow of Central Wyoming. This negro man claimed to have first visited this area years ago on the Lewis and Clark journey and found his way back to Wyoming about 10 years prior. York may have spent the last couple decades of his life as a free man living with the Native Americans of Wyoming. One of the pivotal days in the lives of these people was the day they returned to St. Louis from their long journey which was September 23; 1806. 

September 24: John Marshall was born in Germantown Virginia, he would go on to become a Chief Justice of the Supreme Court; 1755. The US Attorney General Office is created and George Washington appoints John Jay as the first Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court; 1789. Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald was born in St. Paul Minnesota, he would write classic novels like The Great Gatsby and This Side of Paradise; 1896. 

September 25: Spanish explorer Vasco Nunez de Balboa crosses the Panama Isthmus and becomes the first European to see the Pacific Ocean; 1513. The first printing press arrives in British America and was set up in Cambridge Massachusetts, it would print and publish the first books in the colonies and would remain running for over 150 years; 1639. The first printing press in the Americas arrived 100 years earlier in Mexico City, (but probably not on September 25). Turncoat General Benedict Arnold joins the British; 1780. US Congress proposes the Bill of Rights; 1789. President Benjamin Harrison establishes the second National Park and the first in California by creating Sequoia National Park; 1890. (Yosemite technically was not a national park even though Lincoln gave control of it to the state government of California as a place to be protected because of its majesty. Yosemite National Park would become a National Park in less then a week from this day in 1890)

September 26: British General William Howe begins to occupy Philadelphia, Washington’s army looted the entire city taking anything that could be of value, and many of the businessman and citizens fled before the British arrived; 1777. Groundbreaking ceremony for the Hollywood sign, the old sign that read Hollywoodland was torn down and replaced with just the word Hollywood. Originally erected as part of a real estate advertisement campaign for the film industry the sign fell into disrepair and needed renovation; 1949. The sign would again fall into a decrepit state in the 1970’s and a movement by developers had approval to have it removed. In Back to the Future like fashion there was an attempt by local historical preservationists and environmentalists to save the Hollywood sign. After a long search for some reason to get a judge to agree to issue an injunction preventing the removal of the sign the environmentalists found a threatened species on the hill, which was enough of a reason for a judge to issue a delay and give the group enough time to raise money to buy the land and turn it into a preservation preventing developers from building on it. For the next few months they went to business leaders in Los Angeles and got donations but they were a little short. The last $70,000 dollars happened on a whim, one of the local organizers decided to surprise Hugh Hefner while he was out on the town and ask if he wanted to buy the Y in the Hollywood sign for $70,000 in honor of the magazine he created Playboy. After explaining that the deadline was 48 hours away and there was no other person in town to go to for money Hugh Hefner wrote a check for $70,000. Hugh Hefner would later say something along the lines of that he wished he knew about the issue earlier so he could have thrown a party for the group and raised the money by inviting his friends. And sort of like the movie Blues Brothers the group paid the for the land at the very last minute thus saving the Hollywood sign from total destruction. The Hollywood Chamber of Commerce then raised money for another renovation and somehow convinced the patent office of the US Government to approve a copyright claim on the commercial use of the sign along with the story, so technically the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce could sue me for the information you just read because it technically is not within the “public domain” even though the original Hollywoodland sign was erected before 1927. 

September 27: Pope Paul II officially recognizes the Society of Jesus (Jesuit) co-founded by Ignatius of Loyola as a religious order of the Catholic Church; 1540. Mexican revolutionary forces occupy Mexico City forcing the Spanish to withdraw effectively ending the Mexican War of Independence; 1821. The Rosetta Stone is deciphered; 1822. Political cartoonist Thomas Nast is born in Landau Germany, he would go on to help create the image of Santa Clause collecting letters and responsible for the mascots of the Democrat and Republican parties; 1840. The first production Model T Ford rolls out of the factory in Detroit Michigan; 1908. The Warren Commission Report is issued stating a lone gunman is responsible for the assassination of President John F. Kennedy; 1964. 

September 28: The Mormon conquest of England begins as Duke William of Normandy lands in Sussex; 1066. Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo becomes the first explorer from Europe to see the land known as California when he arrives in the San Diego Bay. The land known as Alta California got her name from a fictional book of tales by the Spanish writer Garcia Ordonez de Montalvo who wrote about an island in the Pacific ruled only by Amazonian women who kept puma cats and jaguars as pets, these women would murder every man who attempted to get on the island. The book was popular among Spanish explorers and was published in Seville Spain in the 1490’s the same town where Columbus and Amerigo Vespucci did business. The expedition named the land to the north of Baja California, Alta California or “high or Upper” California. Actually earlier explorers had attempted to find Montalvo’s island and they actually reached the southern portion of Baja California about 10 years before Cabrillo arrived in San Diego, but those explorers failed to realize that it was a peninsula and there was a lot of land to the north. On this day Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo became the first European to set foot in present day California USA and claimed the land for Spain; 1542. Pope John Paul I dies after only 33 days in office; 1978. 

September 29: At the request of Sir Robert Peel the London Metropolitan Police Force is established from an act of Parliament. The nickname “Bobbies” comes from Sir Robert Peel. The force later became known as Scotland Yard which is the location of where their Headquarters are at. They are known as the first modern police force; 1829. Nazis kill 33,771 Jews during the Babi War massacre near Kiev Ukraine; 1941. 

September 30: Neville Chamberlain returns to England from Munich and declares there would be “peace in our time” after signing an agreement with Adolf Hitler; 1938. At the Nuremberg war trials 22 nazi leaders are sentenced to prison or death; 1946. Governor Earl Warren of California is appointed as Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court; 1953.