Tuesday, September 5, 2017

THIS DAY IN HISTORY ― SEPTEMBER 5

September 5 is the 248th day of the year (249th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 117 days remaining until the end of the year. This date is slightly more likely to fall on a Monday, Wednesday or Saturday (58 in 400 years each) than on Thursday or Friday (57), and slightly less likely to occur on a Tuesday or Sunday (56).

NATIONAL CHEESE PIZZA DAY  

1697 – War of the Grand Alliance (Nine Years War): A French warship commanded by Captain Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville defeated an English squadron at the Battle of Hudson's Bay.

1774 – First Continental Congress assembles in Philadelphia. 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 Massachusetts for the Boston Tea Party.

1836 – Sam Houston is elected as the first president of the Republic of Texas after Texas defeated Mexico in its battle for independence.

1877 – American Indian Wars: Oglala Sioux chief Crazy Horse is bayoneted by a United States soldier after resisting confinement in a guardhouse at Fort Robinson in Nebraska. 

1905 – Russo-Japanese War: In New Hampshire, United States, the Treaty of Portsmouth, mediated by U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt, ends the war. Roosevelt would later be awarded the Nobel Peace prize for his efforts.

1914 – World War I: First Battle of the Marne begins. Northeast of Paris, the French attack and defeat German forces who are advancing on the capital. The Second Battle of the Marne would be fought in 1918.

1921 – Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle party in San Francisco ends with the death of the young actress Virginia Rappe: One of the first scandals of the Hollywood community.  

1942 – World War II: Japanese high command orders withdrawal at Milne Bay, the first major Japanese defeat in land warfare during the Pacific War. 

1960 – Muhammad Ali (then Cassius Clay) wins the gold medal in the light heavyweight boxing competition at the Olympic Games in Rome. 

1969 – My Lai Massacre: U.S. Army Lieutenant William Calley is charged with six specifications of premeditated murder for the death of 109 Vietnamese civilians in My Lai. After several reductions, Calley's original sentence of life in prison was turned into an order of house arrest, but after three years, President Richard Nixon reduced his sentence with a presidential pardon.

1972 – Munich massacre: A Palestinian terrorist group called "Black September" attacks and takes hostage 11 Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympic Games. Two die in the attack and nine die the following day. The first major high tech media reporting error was committed when ABC news (Jim McKay) first announced the Israelis had been safely rescued at the Munich airport. Years later disavowed Israeli agents completed reprisals by killing all Black September members who had participated in the planning of the massacre. (See the movie MUNICH).

1975 – Sacramento, California: Jewish Manson Family member Lynette Fromme attempts to assassinate U.S. President Gerald Ford. 

1984 – STS-41-D: The Space Shuttle Discovery lands after its maiden voyage. Three commercial communications satellites were deployed into orbit during the six-day mission, and a number of scientific experiments were conducted. It later carried the Hubble Space Telescope into orbit. After spending almost a cumulative total of one year in space, Discovery was the first operational shuttle to be retired, followed by Endeavor and then Atlantis.

1986 – Pan Am Flight 73 with 358 people on board is hijacked at Karachi International Airport. 

1996 – Hurricane Fran makes landfall near Cape Fear, North Carolina as a Category 3 storm with 115 mph sustained winds. Fran caused over $3 billion in damage and killed 27 people. 

2012 – An accidental explosion at a Turkish Army ammunition store in Afyon, western Turkey kills 25 soldiers and wounds four others. 



TODAY'S BIRTHS

1638 – Louis XIV of France (d. 1715)

1817 – Aleksey Konstantinovich Tolstoy, Russian poet, author, and playwright (d. 1875)

1936 – Bill Mazeroski, American baseball player and coach (Pittsburgh Pirates)

1942 – Werner Herzog, German actor, director, producer, and screenwriter

1951 – Michael Keaton, American actor and producer (Pittsburgh, PA)

From Wikipedia and Googleexcept as noted.

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