September 12th in History

September 12 is the 255th day of the year (256th in leap years). There are 110 days remaining until the end of the year. (Photo: Jesse Owens at the 1936 Olympic Games. (Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-R96374 / CC-BY-SA 3.0))

Today in History

  • The Greeks defeat the Persians at the Battle of Marathon (490 BCE)
  • Henry Hudson’s Half Moon starts up the Hudson River (1609 CE)
  • The largest cavalry charge in history takes place at the Battle of Vienna (1683 CE)
  • Elizabeth Barrett elopes with Robert Browning (1846 CE)
  • The “Ship of Gold” sinks (1857 CE)
  • Adolf Hitler joins the Nazi Party (1919 CE)
  • Leó Szilárd conceives the idea of a nuclear chain reaction (1933 CE)
  • The Lascaux Cave Paintings are discovered (1940 CE)
  • The Battle of Edson’s Ridge begins (1942 CE)
  • Otto Skorzeny rescues Benito Mussolini at Gran Sasso (1943 CE)
  • The Phantom of Flatwoods appears in West Virginia (1952 CE)
  • JFK and Jackie marry (1953 CE)
  • Bonanza, the first regularly scheduled TV show in color, premiers (1959 CE)
  • Luna 2 reaches the Moon (1959 CE)
  • Gemini 11 is launched (1966 CE)
  • Haile Selassie is deposed (1974 CE)
  • A plane crashes on the White House lawn (1994 CE)
  • Hong Kong Disneyland opens (2005 CE)

Birthdays

  • Yao Ming, basketball player (1980)
  • Angel Cabrera, golfer (1969)
  • Louis C. K., comic (1967)
  • Vernon Maxwell, basketball player (1965)
  • Michael Dobson, author (1952)
  • Irina Rodnina, figure skater (1949)
  • Barry White, singer (1944)
  • Leonard Peltier, convicted activist (1944)
  • Linda Gray, actress (1940)
  • Ian Holm, actor (1931)
  • George Jones, singer (1931)
  • Stanislaw Lem, author (1921)
  • Desmond Llewellyn, “Q” (1914)
  • Jesse Owens, Olympic athlete (1913)
  • Irene Joliot-Curie, scientist (1897)
  • Alfred A. Knopf, publisher (1892)
  • Arthur Hays Sulzberger, publisher (1891)
  • Maurice Chevalier, actor and singer (1888)
  • H.L. Mencken, sage of Baltimore (1880)
  • Richard Gatling, machine gun inventor (1818)

Deaths

  • David Foster Wallace, writer (2008)
  • Johnny Cash, musician (2003)
  • Tom Ewell, actor (1994)
  • Raymond Burr, actor (1993)
  • Anthony Perkins, actor (1992)
  • Robert Lowell, poet laureate (1977)
  • Steve Biko, activist (1977)
  • Tommy Armour, golfer (1968)
  • Hugo Schmeisser, weapons designer (1953)
  • Hajime Sugiyama, Japanese minister of war (1945)
  • Peter Mark Roget, thesaurus lexicographer (1869)
  • Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher, field marshal (1819)

Holidays and Celebrations

  • Defenders Day (Maryland)
  • National Day (Cape Verde)
  • Day of Conception (Russia)
  • Programmer’s Day (International)
  • Saint Patrick’s Battalion Commemoration (Mexico)

(*O.S., or Old Style, when used, refers to the fact that Russia did not convert from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar until 1918.)