September 6, 1995: Cal Ripken, Jr. of the Baltimore Orioles plays in his 2,131st consecutive game, breaking a record that had stood for 56 years.
**Sept 6, 1757: ** Marie Joseph du Motier, Marquis de LaFayette is born
September 6, 1869: The Avondale Mine Disaster in Pennsylvania kills 110.
This accident led Pennsylvania to pass new mining safety regulations and increased union membership among miners nationwide.
September 6, 1492: Christopher Columbus sails from La Gomera in the Canary Islands, his final port of call before crossing the Atlantic Ocean for the first time.
September 6, 1522: The Victoria returns to Sanlúcar de Barrameda in Spain, the only surviving ship of Ferdinand Magellan’s expedition and the first ship to circumnavigate the world.
September 6, 1620: The Pilgrims sail from Plymouth, England on the Mayflower to settle in North America. (Old Style date; September 16 per New Style date.)
September 6, 1628: Puritans settle Salem which became part of Massachusetts Bay Colony.
September 6, 1916: The first self-service grocery store Piggly Wiggly was opened in Memphis, Tennessee by Clarence Saunders.
September 6, 1976: Soviet Air Defence Forces pilot Viktor Belenko lands a Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-25 jet fighter at Hakodate in Japan and requests political asylum in the United States; his request is granted.
September 7, 1943: The Gulf Hotel Fire in Houston kills 55. It is the deadliest fire ever in that city.
September 7, 1921: In Atlantic City, New Jersey, the first Miss America Pageant, a two-day event, is held.
** September. 7, 1968** -Led Zeppelin performed together for the first time, but not under that now-famous name. Using the name The New Yardbirds, Jimmy Page, Robert Plant, John Paul Jones and John Bonham played at the modest Gladsaxe Teen Club of Gladsaxe, Denmark.
September 8, 1934: The SS Morro Castle catches fire and burns killing 137 passengers and crew. The ocean liner was travelling between Havana and New York and the accident, if it was an accident, occurred just off the coast of New Jersey.
The Morro Castle disaster is surrounded in mystery. The Captain, Robert Willmott, had died mysteriously just after eating dinner the night before the fire. His body was burned in the inferno with no hope of salvageable forensic evidence. The Chief Officer who replaced him had little experience handling the rough weather that ship would encounter just before the fire broke out. The Radio Officer George Rogers was initially considered a hero after issuing a distress call without obtaining proper permission, and thus saving hundreds of lives. Except later Rogers is accused of burning his failing business. He joined the police and was convicted of making a bomb to try and kill his partner. His injured partner spent years afterwards trying to prove Rogers was responsible for the Morro Castle fire. Though convicted of trying to kill his partner, Rogers was released to fight in World War II, but the military didn’t want him. He was later convicted of murdering his neighbors for money and died in prison.
So was the Captain poisoned and the fire deliberately set by the villainous Rogers? Or does the fault lie with an inexperienced crew? Or perhaps were the numerous safety violations later found on the ship really to blame? Many questions and no definitive answers.
September 8, 1966: The TV series Star Trek premieres with its first-aired episode, “The Man Trap”.
September 9, 1965: Hurricane Betsy strikes just west of New Orleans. 76 in Louisiana are killed. This storm is the first hurricane in US history to cause over a billion dollars in damages.
September 9, 1947: First case of a computer bug being found: A moth lodges in a relay of a Harvard Mark II computer at Harvard University.
September 10, 1897: The Lattimer Massacre. Police in Pennsylvania shoot and kill 19 unarmed striking mine workers and wound another 38. Though there is a trial, none are ultimately held accountable. Most of the striking immigrant mine workers spoke little if any English.
September 10, 1898: Empress Elisabeth of Austria is assassinated by Luigi Lucheni.
September 10, 2001: Charles Ingram cheats his way to £1 million on the UK game show Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?
September 10, 1960: At the Summer Olympics in Rome, Abebe Bikila becomes the first sub-Saharan African to win a gold medal, winning the marathon in bare feet.
September 11, 2001– Four planes hijacked by terrorists are flown into both of NYC’s Twin Towers, the Pentagon in DC and a field in Shanksville, PA. Almost 3,000 died that day, and people are till getting ill and dying from the toxic chemicals that were released.
NEVER FORGET!
September 13, 1969: Scooby Doo, Where Are You? premieres on CBS. It is the episode where the Black Knight comes to life.
September 13, 1906: The Santos-Dumont 14-bis makes a short hop, the first flight of a fixed-wing aircraft in Europe.
September 13, 1985: Super Mario Bros. is released in Japan for the NES, which starts the Super Mario series of platforming games.
September 13, 1501: Michelangelo begins work on his statue of David.
September 14, 1716: The Little Brewster Island Boston Light, the first lighthouse in the United States, is lit for the first time.
September 15, 1935: Nazi Germany adopts a new national flag bearing the swastika.