EVENTS
- 1741 – Composer George Frederick Handel finished Messiah after working on it nonstop for 23 days.
- 1752 – The British Empire adopts the Gregorian calendar. They miss eleven days from 9/2 to 9/14.
- 1812 – Napoleon and his troops first entered Moscow as the retreating Russians set the city on fire. Napoleon found it was impossible to stay through the winter in the ruined city. He then began a retreat from Moscow which became one of the great disasters of military history. Fewer than 20,000 of the original 500,000 men with him survived the Russian campaign.
- 1927 – In Nice, France, famed ballet dancer Isadora Duncan was killed in a freak accident as the long scarf she was wearing became caught in the moving wheel of the car in which she was riding, strangling her.
- 1930 – The Nazi Party became the second-largest party in Germany following a stunning election triumph by Adolf Hitler.
- 1948 – The building of the United Nations headquarters in New York City begins. Cornerstone was laid October 24, 1949.
- 1956 – IBM 305 RAMAC is Released. The 350 RAMAC was the first computer with a disk drive and was primarily targeted towards business that did real-time transactions. RAMAC stood for Random Access Method of Accounting and Control. The RAMAC 350, which was one of the last vacuum tube computers manufactured by IBM, was replaced by the IBM 1401 in the early 1960s.
- 1959 – The first man-made object reaches the moon when the Soviet probe Luna 2 crashes into it.
- 1960 – The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) was formed by representatives of oil-producing countries meeting in Baghdad.
- 1975 – Elizabeth Ann Seton became the first American saint.
- 1979 – The Afghan President is assassinated. Nur Muhammad Taraki had taken office less than a year ago when he was killed by gunfire at the behest of Hafizullah Amin. Amin took the seat of the president after the assassination and ruled for only 3 months before he was killed by the Soviets during Operation Storm-333.
- 1982 – Princess Grace of Monaco died following an accident in which her car plunged off a mountain road in Monte Carlo. Her daughter Stephanie, also in the car, survived and was treated for shock and bruises. Princess Grace (Grace Kelly) was a Hollywood actress who met Prince Rainier III of Monaco during filming of the Hitchcock film To Catch a Thief. She then gave up a successful acting career and married him in 1956.
- 1985 – ‘The Golden Girls’ make their television debut. The popular American sitcom about 4 single and older women living together in a Miami, Florida house ran for 6 seasons on NBC. The main characters in the show were played by Beatrice Arthur, Estelle Getty, Rue McClanahan, and Betty White, each of whom won the Emmys for their acting in the show. The series also won 2 Primetime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Comedy Series and 3 Golden Globe Awards for Best Television Series.
- 2000 – Microsoft Launches Windows ME. The Millennium Edition was the last of the operating systems of the Windows 9x series.
- 2001 – The Nintendo Gamecube is released in Japan.
BIRTHDAYS
- 1769 – Alexander von Humboldt (German geographer, explorer)
- 1879 – Margaret Sanger (American activist)
- 1965 – Dmitry Medvedev (Russian President)
- 1971 – Kimberly Williams (Actor)
- 1973 – NAS (Rapper)
- 1983 – Amy Winehouse (Singer)
- 1985 – Aya Ueto (Japanese actress, singer)
- 1989 – Jesse James (Actor)
DEATHS
- 407 – John Chrysostom (Turkish archbishop)
- 1836 – Aaron Burr (American politician, 3rd Vice President of the United States)
- 1852 – Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington (Irish/English field marshal, politician, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom)
- 1901 – William McKinley (American politician, 25th President of the United States)
- 1936 – Irving Thalberg (American screenwriter, producer)