Today in history02:39 Sep 12 2008
Times Read: 599
American Revolution
September 11, 1777
The Battle of Brandywine begins
On the afternoon of this day in 1777, General Sir William Howe and General Charles Cornwallis launch a full-scale British attack on General George Washington and the Patriot outpost at Brandywine Creek near Chadds Ford, in Delaware County, Pennsylvania, on the road linking Baltimore and Philadelphia.
Howe and Cornwallis spilt their 18,000 British troops into two separate divisions, with Howe leading an attack from the front and Cornwallis circling around and attacking from the right flank. The morning had provided the British troops with cover from a dense fog, so Washington was unaware the British had split into two divisions and was caught off guard by the oncoming British attack.
Although the Americans were able to slow the advancing British, they were soon faced with the possibility of being surrounded. Surprised and outnumbered by the 18,000 British troops to his 11,000 Continentals, Washington ordered his men to abandon their posts and retreat. Defeated, the Continental Army marched north and camped at Germantown, Pennsylvania. The British abandoned their pursuit of the Continentals and instead began the British occupation of Philadelphia. Congress, which had been meeting in Philadelphia, fled first to Lancaster, then to York, Pennsylvania, and the British took control of the city without Patriot opposition.
The one-day battle at Brandywine cost the Americans more than 1,100 men killed or captured while the British lost approximately 600 men killed or injured. To make matters worse, the Patriots were also forced to abandon most of their cannon to the British victors after their artillery horses fell in battle.
Automotive
September 11, 1903
Milwaukee Mile opens
The oldest major speedway in the world, the Milwaukee Mile, opened today as a permanent fixture in the Wisconsin State Fair Park. The circuit had actually been around since the 1870s as a horseracing track, but the proliferation of the automobile brought a new era to the Milwaukee Mile. However, the horses stuck around until 1954, sharing the track with the automobiles until the mile oval was finally paved. At one point, the horses and autos also had to make room for professional football. The Green Bay Packers played in the track's infield for almost 10 years during the 1930s, winning the National Football League Championship there in 1939.
September 11, 1918
Packard leads the war on the homefront
Often called the "war of the machines," World War I marked the beginning of a new kind of warfare, fought with steel and shrapnel. Automotive manufacturers led the way in this new technology of war, producing engines for planes, building tanks, and manufacturing military vehicles. Packard was at the forefront of these efforts, being among the first American companies to completely cease civilian car production. Packard had already been the largest producer of trucks for the Allies, but the company began devoting all of its facilities to war production on this day, just a few months before the end of the war. Even after Packard resumed production of civilian vehicles, its wartime engines appeared in a number of vehicles, from racing cars and boats to British tanks in the next world war.
September 11, 1970
Pinto competes with imports
The Ford Pinto was introduced on this day at a cost of less than $2,000, designed to compete with an influx of compact imports. But it was not the Pinto's low cost that grabbed headlines. Ford's new best-selling compact contained a fatal design flaw: because of the placement of the gas tank, the tank was likely to rupture and explode when the car was involved in a rear end collision of over 20mph. In addition, it was eventually revealed that Ford knew about the design flaw before the Pinto was released. An internal cost-benefit analysis prepared by Ford calculated that it would take $11 per car to correct the flaw at a total cost of $137 million for the company. When compared to the lowly estimate of $49.5 million in potential lawsuits from the mistake, the report deemed it "inefficient" to go ahead with the correction. The infamous report assigned a value of $200,000 for each death predicted to result from the flaw. Ford's irresponsibility caused a public uproar, and it 1978, a California jury awarded a record-breaking $128 million to a claimant in the Ford Pinto case.
Civil War
September 11, 1861
Cheat Mountain Campaign
Confederate troops under General Robert E. Lee move into position against a Union stronghold on Cheat Mountain in western Virginia, only to retreat three days later without firing a shot.
The first few months of the war in western Virginia did not go well for the Confederates. The independent-minded inhabitants of the region generally rejected secession, and a movement was under way to separate from Virginia and remain with the Union. Lee said of the area, "Our citizens beyond this point are all on their side." In the summer of 1861, Union forces had defeated the Confederates several times and secured the mountainous region's major east-west transportation routes. Now, Confederate President Jefferson Davis dispatched Lee, his top military advisor, to the field in order to salvage the region. Although he arrived as a consultant to General William Loring, Lee was the ranking officer.
The Union commander in western Virginia, General William Rosecrans, established a long front between the Kanawha and Potomac Rivers, along which the Federals established a stronghold on Cheat Mountain. Lee felt that an offensive against Cheat Mountain was the only way to break the Union front. He realized that the Rebel forces in the area where hardly in shape for such a move. Many were sick, and the weather was particularly rainy.
However, the Confederates found a hidden and unguarded route to the top of Cheat Mountain. On September 11, Colonel Albert Rust, commander of the 3rd Arkansas, led a party up the trail and positioned for an assault. The plan called for a surprise attack by Rust, who would be joined by other Confederate detachments from the valley. But after capturing some Union pickets, Rust was convinced that the Union garrison numbered at least 4,000 with reinforcements on the way. In fact, just 300 Yankees manned the defenses on the mountain.
Discouraged, Rust retreated while the main Confederate column waited in the valley below. On September 14, the Confederates pulled away without firing a shot. The campaign was a fiasco, and it damaged Lee's reputation. Part of the problem at Cheat Mountain was that Lee's role was not well defined, and Loring often dismissed his suggestions. It was an ignominious start to Lee's Civil War career, but his future achievements easily erased any tarnish the Cheat Mountain campaign put on his reputation.
Cold War
September 11, 1971
Nikita Khrushchev dies
Former Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, one of the most significant figures of the Cold War and certainly one of the most colorful, dies. During the height of his power in the late 1950s and early 1960s, Khrushchev was involved in some of the most important events of the Cold War.
Khrushchev was born in Russia in 1894. He was an early adherent to the communist cause in Russia, but his rise to power really began in the 1930s. His loyalty to Soviet leader Joseph Stalin served him well during that tumultuous decade, as many other communist party leaders fell to Stalin's wrath and suspicions. Khrushchev worked his way up the party hierarchy, and his organizational skills in the areas of Russian industry and agriculture brought him praise during World War II. After the war, Stalin brought Khrushchev into the highest echelons of both the party and government. When Stalin died in 1953, many observers outside of Russia thought it unlikely that the brusque and seemingly uneducated Khrushchev could survive without his mentor. Khrushchev fooled them all, however, and through a series of alliances with others in the party and the military, succeeded in removing any opposition to his power by 1955. After that year, Khrushchev was thoroughly in charge in Russia. He surprised many of his colleagues and Western observers when he began to talk about the idea of "peaceful coexistence" with the United States. He also moved to decentralize some of the rigid state economic controls that he believed were stifling Soviet economic development. In a 1956 speech before the Congress of the Soviet Communist Party, he denounced Stalin and his police state tactics.
In terms of international relations, Khrushchev cut an interesting figure. Many people dismissed him as a boorish, ignorant peasant. However, the Russian leader was an adept and clever negotiator, who often used those negative perceptions to his advantage. During the late 1950s, he tried to work for closer relations with the United States, and in 1959 became the first Soviet leader to visit America. Relations quickly soured, however, when the Soviets shot down an American U-2 spy plane over Russia in 1960. A planned U.S.-Soviet summit was canceled. During that same year, Khrushchev achieved instant celebrity status when, during a debate at the United Nations, he took off his shoe and pounded the table to get attention.
In 1962, the Soviet Union and the United States nearly went to war when the Russians attempted to install nuclear missiles in Cuba and U.S. naval forces quarantined the island. Tense negotiations with President John F. Kennedy followed, the Russian missiles were withdrawn, and the United States promised not to invade Cuba in an attempt to overthrow communist leader Fidel Castro. While war was averted, the incident cost Khrushchev dearly in terms of support at home. Many communist party officials and a growing number of military men had grown anxious about Khrushchev's idea of "peaceful coexistence" with America, and his calls for a reduced military budget convinced some that he would reduce Russia to a second-class power. The 1962 Cuban missile crisis was viewed as a terrible embarrassment for the Soviet Union. In 1964, Khrushchev's opponents organized a political coup against him and he was forced into retirement. The remainder of his life was rather solitary-he was forgotten by most and reviled by many in Russia.
Crime
September 11, 1921
Silent-film star arrested for murder
Fatty Arbuckle, a silent-film era performer at the height of his fame, is arrested in San Francisco for the rape and murder of aspiring actress Virginia Rappe. Arbuckle was later acquitted by a jury, but the scandal essentially put an end to his career.
Roscoe Conkling Arbuckle was born on March 24, 1887, in Smith Center, Kansas. He worked as a vaudeville performer and starting in 1913, began appearing in Mack Sennett’s Keystone Cops comedies. Arbuckle became known for his comedic pratfalls and pie-throwing. In 1917, Arbuckle formed his own company and began writing and directing films, many of which starred his friend and fellow comedian Buster Keaton. In 1919, the heavy-set actor signed a $1 million per year deal with Paramount Pictures, an extraordinary sum for the time.
In early September 1921, Arbuckle went to San Francisco with two male friends for a short vacation and checked into the St. Francis Hotel. The men hosted a party in their suite, during which a guest named Virginia Rappe, who had been drinking, became ill. Rappe, who was in her twenties, died several days later from peritonitis caused by a ruptured bladder. Maude Delmont, another guest at the party, claimed Arbuckle had raped Rappe and injured her bladder.
Arbuckle’s arrest on September 11 by the San Francisco police soon generated a massive scandal. Arbuckle maintained his innocence, but he was lambasted in the press and the public, unused to Hollywood scandal, boycotted his films. The politically ambitious San Francisco district attorney was determined to prosecute Arbuckle, even though Delmont turned out to be a questionable witness, with a criminal record of her own. Several other witnesses would later claim the prosecution had intimidated them into giving false testimony.
After two mistrials, the jury in Arbuckle’s third trial found him not guilty and even issued him an apology. Despite this favorable outcome for Arbuckle, the U.S. film industry nevertheless temporarily banned him. He subsequently attempted a comeback and even directed several films under the pseudonym William B. Goodrich, but his career never fully recovered and he struggled with alcoholism. Arbuckle died of heart failure at age 46 on June 29, 1933, in New York City.
Disaster
September 11, 1991
Commuter plane crashes
A Continental Express commuter plane crashes in Texas near Houston, killing 14 people, on this day in 1991. The accident was caused by poor communication by the maintenance crew during a shift change.
The Brazilian-made Embraer 120 aircraft was scheduled for maintenance the afternoon before its scheduled 7 a.m. flight on September 11. Short of workers, an inspector was drafted to assist the afternoon maintenance crew. The inspector worked on putting the screws on the plane’s horizontal stabilizer but did not finish the job. When his shift was over, he told the foreman about the remaining screws but did not write it down, as proper procedure required. The foreman failed to tell the workers on the late-night shift about the unfinished work; they saw the horizontal stabilizer in its correct position and did not notice that all the screws were not properly in place.
The Embraer 120 took off on time as Continental Express Flight 2574 with 14 people on board. It broke up in the air over Eagle Lake, Texas, killing everyone on board. A subsequent investigation by the National Transportation and Safety Board (NTSB) clearly identified the direct cause of the crash though there was some disagreement about the underlying cause. The majority of the board held the maintenance technicians culpable for not following proper procedure. The NTSB’s Dr. Jon Lauber, however, blamed the corporate culture of Continental Express for the disaster. Lauber felt that Continental Express placed far more emphasis on getting airplanes to take off on time than on correctly following safety procedures.
Entertainment
September 11, 1847
Stephen Foster's first hit
"Oh! Susanna," by Stephen Foster, is performed for the first time. The song, which became Foster's first big hit, was played at a concert in a Pittsburgh saloon and soon became a standard for minstrel troupes. Foster wrote several other classic popular songs, including "Old Folks at Home" and "Beautiful Dreamer."
September 11, 1921
Fatty Arbuckle arrested
The San Francisco police arrest actor and director Fatty Arbuckle on suspicion of manslaughter. Starlet Virginia Rappe had died of a ruptured bladder several days after an alleged sexual assault by the 350-pound Arbuckle at a wild drinking party in San Francisco. Although a jury eventually found Arbuckle not guilty, the scandal destroyed his career.
Born Roscoe Arbuckle in 1887 in Kansas, Arbuckle worked as a plumber's assistant before launching his performing career. After appearing on the vaudeville circuit, Arbuckle--nicknamed Fatty for his generous physique--began appearing in short comedies. He signed with production company Keystone in 1913 and appeared regularly as a Keystone Kop--the bumbling, slapstick police force that were a staple of many Keystone movies between 1914 and the early 1920s. Arbuckle made various other silent comedies with prominent co-stars, including Charlie Chaplin. In 1916, he began writing and directing his own movies, and in 1917 he discovered comedian Buster Keaton, who became one of the most sought-after film comedians of the 1920s and '30s.
Arbuckle's involvement in Rappe's death created the largest scandal in the history of early Hollywood. After two hung juries, Arbuckle was acquitted in 1922, but his films were banned and his career seemed finished. However, in 1925, he began directing again, under the pseudonym William Goodrich, and worked with such stars as Marion Davies and Eddie Cantor. An attempt to rehabilitate his acting career in 1932 through a European tour failed. He died the following year.
General Interest
September 11, 1814
America victorious on Lake Champlain
During the Battle of Plattsburg on Lake Champlain, a newly built U.S. fleet under Master Commandant Thomas Macdonough destroys a British squadron, forcing the British to abandon their siege of the U.S. fort at Plattsburg and retreat to Canada on foot. The American victory saved New York from possible invasion and helped lead to the conclusion of peace negotiations between Britain and the United States in Ghent, Belgium.
The War of 1812 began on June 18, 1812, when the United States declared war on Britain. The war declaration, opposed by a sizable minority in Congress, had been called in response to the British economic blockade of France, the induction of American seamen into the British Royal Navy against their will, and the British support of hostile Indian tribes along the Great Lakes frontier. A faction of Congress known as the "War Hawks" had been advocating war with Britain for several years and had not hidden their hopes that a U.S. invasion of Canada might result in significant territorial gains for the United States.
In the months after President James Madison proclaimed the state of war to be in effect, American forces launched a three-point invasion of Canada, all of which were decisively unsuccessful. In 1814, with Napoleon Bonaparte's French empire collapsing, the British were able to allocate more military resources to the American war, and Washington, D.C., fell to the British in August. In Washington, British troops burned the White House, the Capitol, and other buildings in retaliation for the earlier burning of government buildings in Canada by U.S. soldiers.
In September 1814, the tide of the war turned when Thomas Macdonough's American naval force won a decisive victory at the Battle of Plattsburg, New York. The American victory on Lake Champlain led to the conclusion of U.S.-British peace negotiations in Belgium, and on December 24, 1814, the Treaty of Ghent was signed, formally ending the War of 1812. By the terms of the agreement, all conquered territory was to be returned, and a commission would be established to settle the boundary of the United States and Canada.
British forces assailing the Gulf Coast were not informed of the treaty in time, and on January 8, 1815, the U.S. forces under Andrew Jackson achieved the greatest American victory of the war at the Battle of New Orleans. The American public heard of Jackson's victory and the Treaty of Ghent at approximately the same time, fostering a greater sentiment of self-confidence and shared identity throughout the young republic.
September 11, 1851
The Christiana Riot
In Christiana, Pennsylvania, a group of African Americans and white abolitionists skirmish with a Maryland posse intent on capturing four fugitive slaves hidden in the town. The violence came one year after the second fugitive slave law was passed by Congress, requiring the return of all escaped slaves to their owners in the South. One member of the posse, landowner Edward Gorsuch, was killed and two others wounded during the fight. In the aftermath of the so-called Christiana Riot, 37 African Americans and one white man were arrested and charged with treason under the provisions of the Fugitive Slave Law. Most were acquitted.
In February 1793, Congress passed the first fugitive slave law, requiring all states, including those that forbade slavery, to forcibly return slaves who had escaped from other states to their original owners. The law stated that "no person held to service of labor in one state, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due."
As Northern states abolished slavery, most relaxed enforcement of the 1793 law, and many passed laws ensuring fugitive slaves a jury trial. Several Northern states even enacted measures prohibiting state officials from aiding in the capture of runaway slaves or from jailing the fugitives. This disregard of the first fugitive slave law enraged Southern states and led to the passage of a second fugitive slave law as part of the "Compromise of 1850" between North and South.
The second fugitive slave law called for the return of slaves "on pain of heavy penalty" but permitted a jury trial under the condition that fugitives be prohibited from testifying in their own defense. Fugitive slave trials like the Dred Scott case of 1857 stirred up public opinion on both sides of the Mason-Dixon Line. Meanwhile, fugitive slaves circumvented the law through the "Underground Railroad," a network of persons, primarily free African Americans, who helped fugitives escape to freedom in the Northern states or Canada.
September 11, 1973
Allende dies in coup
Chile's armed forces stage a coup d'État against the government of President Salvador Allende, the first democratically elected Marxist leader in Latin America. Allende retreated with his supporters to La Moneda, the fortress-like presidential palace in Santiago, which was surrounded by tanks and infantry and bombed by air force jets. Allende survived the aerial attack but then apparently shot himself to death as troops stormed the burning palace, reportedly using an automatic rifle given to him as a gift by Cuban dictator Fidel Castro.
The U.S. government and its Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) had worked for three years to foment a coup against Allende, who was regarded by the Nixon administration as a threat to democracy in Chile and Latin America. Ironically, the democratically elected Allende was succeeded by the brutal dictator General Augusto Pinochet, who ruled over Chile with an iron fist for the next 17 years.
Salvador Allende Gossens was born into an upper-middle-class Chilean family in 1908. He became a Marxist activist and worked as a doctor and in 1933 was a founding member of Chile's Socialist Party. Elected to the Chamber of Deputies in 1937, he later served as minister of health in the leftist government of President Pedro Aguirre Cerda. In 1945, he became a senator. He unsuccessfully ran for president several times in the 1950s and 1960s, and in September 1970 won a three-sided presidential race with 36.3 percent of the vote. Because he lacked a popular majority, his election had to be confirmed by the Chilean Congress.
After the victory of Allende and his leftist coalition, U.S. President Richard Nixon summoned CIA Director Richard Helms to the White House and ordered him in no uncertain terms to prevent Allende from coming to power or to unseat him. Allende, after all, had threatened to nationalize U.S.-owned industries in Chile, and Nixon did not want another Fidel Castro coming to power in an American hemisphere during his watch. President Nixon authorized $10 million for the covert operation against Allende and instructed that it be carried out without the knowledge of the U.S. embassy in Chile.
With its mandate from Washington, the CIA attempted to bribe, coerce, and blackmail Chile's Congress and military into denying Allende the presidency, launched an international campaign of disinformation against Allende, and paid a right-wing general to assassinate General Rene Schneider, the chief of Chile's armed forces. Although a conservative, Schneider was staunchly opposed to a coup or any other military interference in Chile's democratic processes. He was murdered by a gang led by right-wing General Roberto Viaux. One month later, the group received a check for $35,000 from the CIA. Years later, the CIA would claim it only wanted Schneider kidnapped.
With only one week remaining before the Chilean Congress was to vote on Allende's election, CIA headquarters sent a cable to its Chilean office that read: "It is firm and continuing policy that Allende be overthrown by a coup. It would be much preferable to have this transpire prior to 24 October but efforts in this regard will continue vigorously beyond this date."
After a heated debate in the Chilean Congress, the mostly conservative body decided to confirm Allende's election on October 24 after he promised support of 10 libertarian constitutional amendments. In spite of U.S. opposition, respect for Chile's democratic tradition--the oldest in Latin America--had won out over ideological hysteria. A few days later, a bungled coup by a group of Chilean military officers helped to rally the country around Allende, who was inaugurated on November 3.
In his nearly three years as Chilean president, Allende worked to restructure Chilean society along socialist lines while retaining democratic government and respecting civil liberties and the due process of law. Meanwhile, the CIA worked to destabilize Allende's government, spending a total of $8 million on the effort. Opposition groups received funding from the CIA, anti-Allende propaganda efforts continued, strikes were instigated in key sectors of the Chilean economy, and CIA agents maintained close contact with the Chilean military. However, the real cause of the 1973 coup against President Allende was not the insidious activities of American spies but rather the U.S.-led international backlash against his economic policies, which had a disastrous effect on the Chilean economy.
In 1971, President Allende began nationalizing foreign businesses in Chile, including U.S.-owned copper mines--Chile's main source of protection--and a large U.S.-run telephone company. Nixon was outraged, and he created an interagency task force to organize economic reprisals against Chile. The task force plotted steps to sink the world price of copper and ordered a complete ban on U.S. economic aid. The World Bank was successfully pressured to end all loans to Chile, and the Export-Import Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank likewise turned their back on the country. Meanwhile, other foreign investment in Chile dried up out of fears of nationalization.
By 1973, the Chilean economy was in shambles. Inflation, labor strikes, and food shortages were rampant, and violence between the right and the left became a daily occurrence. President Allende still had the support of many workers and peasants, but the middle class was united in opposition to him. There was open talk of an impending military coup, and conspirators needed little help from the CIA to put it in motion. The CIA, however, was informed of the planned coup in advance, and on September 10 this information was passed on to President Nixon.
The next day--September 11, 1973--Chile's three armed forces launched a concerted attack against Chile's democratic government. Allende gathered with his loyal presidential guard at La Moneda, the presidential palace. He was photographed inspecting the palace's defenses, rifle in hand. Tanks and troops surrounded La Moneda, and Allende and his supporters were ordered to surrender by 11 a.m. or face attack by the Chilean air force. Allende refused.
At 11 a.m., via telephone, Allende's voice was broadcast over Radio Magallanes, the Communist Party radio station. "I can only say this to the workers: I will not resign," he declared. "With my life I will pay for defending the principles dear to our nation. I have faith in Chile and its destiny. Other men will overcome this gray and bitter moment where betrayal threatens to impose itself. Continue knowing, all of you, that much sooner than later, the great avenues will open through which will pass free men in order to construct a better society. These are my last words having the certainty that this sacrifice has not been in vain."
Just before noon, two fighter jets flew over Santiago and descended on La Moneda, firing rockets with pinpoint accuracy through the doors and windows of the north side of the palace. Six more attack waves came during the next 20 minutes. The palace was in flames, but Allende survived in a wing of the building. Sometime around 2 p.m., Allende allegedly died by placing his rifle under his chin and firing. Reportedly, a gold metal plate affixed to the stock of the gun had an inscribed message that read, "To my good friend Salvador Allende from Fidel Castro."
A few weeks later, Fidel Castro would tell the Cuban people that Allende died while advancing on army troops and firing his gun. The fascist soldiers, Castro said, cut him down in a hail of bullets. This account was taken up by many supporters of Allende and persists in various forms to this day. However, Allende's personal surgeon reported having seen the president shoot himself with the rifle, and a 1990 autopsy of Allende's remains confirmed that he died from a single shot that shattered his skull.
In the aftermath of the coup, General Augusto Pinochet Ugarte, commander in chief of the armed forces, became dictator of Chile. He rounded up hundreds of Allende's supporters, including two American citizens, and had them tortured and executed. The United States immediately offered military and economic aid to the new ruler of Chile--"the savior of democracy"--and the CIA may have helped him identify and capture dissidents. In his 17 years of repressive authoritarian rule, more than 3,000 political opponents were assassinated or "disappeared." His assassination squads were also active outside Chile, and in 1976 Orlando Letelier, Allende's former defense minister, was killed by a car bomb in Washington, D.C.
In 1988, Pinochet agreed to a national referendum on the future of Chile, and a majority of Chileans rejected the continuation of his dictatorship. Democratic elections were held in 1989, and in 1990 Pinochet stepped down as President Patricio Aylwin AzÓcar was sworn in as Chile's new leader. That year, Salvador Allende's remains were exhumed and given an official burial.
Pinochet remained head of Chile's armed forces until 1998, whereupon he was made a "senator-for-life." That October, during a trip to Britain, he was arrested after Spain sought his extradition for his execution of Spanish nationals. Under pressure from prosecutors in Europe, U.S. President Bill Clinton ordered the CIA and other U.S. agencies to declassify all documents concerning their operations in Chile during the early 1970s. The CIA refused to release many of the documents, however, citing fears that they would reveal operational methods still in use around the world by the CIA.
After a long legal tug of war, Britain's home secretary declared in January 2000 that the 84-year-old Pinochet was unfit to stand trial and ordered him sent back to Chile. Back in Chile he resigned his senatorial seat in 2002 after a Supreme Court ruling that he could not stand trial based on his failing health. Then, in May 2004, Chile's supreme court finally ruled that he was capable of standing trial. In December 2004 he was charged with several crimes.
September 11, 2001
Attack on America
At 8:45 a.m. on a clear Tuesday morning, an American Airlines Boeing 767 loaded with 20,000 gallons of jet fuel crashes into the north tower of the World Trade Center in New York City. The impact left a gaping, burning hole near the 80th floor of the 110-story skyscraper, instantly killing hundreds of people and trapping hundreds more in higher floors. As the evacuation of the tower and its twin got underway, television cameras broadcasted live images of what initially appeared to be a freak accident. Then, 18 minutes after the first plane hit, a second Boeing 767--United Airlines Flight 175--appeared out of the sky, turned sharply toward the World Trade Center, and sliced into the south tower at about the 60th floor. The collision caused a massive explosion that showered burning debris over surrounding buildings and the streets below. America was under attack.
The attackers were Islamic terrorists from Saudi Arabia and several other Arab nations. Reportedly financed by Saudi fugitive Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda terrorist organization, they were allegedly acting in retaliation for America's support of Israel, its involvement in the Persian Gulf War, and its continued military presence in the Middle East. Some of the terrorists had lived in the United States for more than a year and had taken flying lessons at American commercial flight schools. Others had slipped into the U.S. in the months before September 11 and acted as the "muscle" in the operation. The 19 terrorists easily smuggled box-cutters and knives through security at three East Coast airports and boarded four flights bound for California, chosen because the planes were loaded with fuel for the long transcontinental journey. Soon after takeoff, the terrorists commandeered the four planes and took the controls, transforming the ordinary commuter jets into guided missiles.
As millions watched in horror the events unfolding in New York, American Airlines Flight 77 circled over downtown Washington and slammed into the west side of the Pentagon military headquarters at 9:45 a.m. Jet fuel from the Boeing 757 caused a devastating inferno that led to a structural collapse of a portion of the giant concrete building. All told, 125 military personnel and civilians were killed in the Pentagon along with all 64 people aboard the airliner.
Less than 15 minutes after the terrorists struck the nerve center of the U.S. military, the horror in New York took a catastrophic turn for the worse when the south tower of the World Trade Center collapsed in a massive cloud of dust and smoke. The structural steel of the skyscraper, built to withstand winds in excess of 200 mph and a large conventional fire, could not withstand the tremendous heat generated by the burning jet fuel. At 10:30 a.m., the other Trade Center tower collapsed. Close to 3,000 people died in the World Trade Center and its vicinity, including a staggering 343 firefighters and paramedics, 23 New York City police officers, and 37 Port Authority police officers who were struggling to complete an evacuation of the buildings and save the office workers trapped on higher floors. Only six people in the World Trade Center towers at the time of their collapse survived. Almost 10,000 other people were treated for injuries, many severe.
Meanwhile, a fourth California-bound plane--United Flight 93--was hijacked about 40 minutes after leaving Newark International Airport in New Jersey. Because the plane had been delayed in taking off, passengers on board learned of events in New York and Washington via cell phone and Airfone calls to the ground. Knowing that the aircraft was not returning to an airport as the hijackers claimed, a group of passengers and flight attendants planned an insurrection. One of the passengers, Thomas Burnett, Jr., told his wife over the phone that "I know we're all going to die. There's three of us who are going to do something about it. I love you, honey." Another passenger--Todd Beamer--was heard saying "Are you guys ready? Let's roll" over an open line. Sandy Bradshaw, a flight attendant, called her husband and explained that she had slipped into a galley and was filling pitchers with boiling water. Her last words to him were "Everyone's running to first class. I've got to go. Bye."
The passengers fought the four hijackers and are suspected to have attacked the cockpit with a fire extinguisher. The plane then flipped over and sped toward the ground at upwards of 500 miles per hour, crashing in a rural field in western Pennsylvania at 10:10 a.m. All 45 people aboard were killed. Its intended target is not known, but theories include the White House, the U.S. Capitol, the Camp David presidential retreat in Maryland, or one of several nuclear power plants along the eastern seaboard.
At 7 p.m., President George W. Bush, who had spent the day being shuttled around the country because of security concerns, returned to the White House. At 9 p.m., he delivered a televised address from the Oval Office, declaring "Terrorist attacks can shake the foundations of our biggest buildings, but they cannot touch the foundation of America. These acts shatter steel, but they cannot dent the steel of American resolve." In a reference to the eventual U.S. military response he declared: "We will make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them."
Operation Enduring Freedom, the U.S.-led international effort to oust the Taliban regime in Afghanistan and destroy Osama bin Laden's terrorist network based there, began on October 7. Although the Taliban is no longer in power, fighting in Afghanistan continues, and Osama bin Laden is still at large.
Literary
September 11, 1930
Flowering Judas, by Katherine Anne Porter, is published
Katherine Anne Porter's first collection of short stories, Flowering Judas, is published on this day in 1930.
The title story, which appeared earlier that year in Hound and Horn magazine, centered on a young American teacher of Indian children whose ideals are compromised. The collection won Porter both critical and popular success and helped her win a Guggenheim Fellowship.
Porter was born Callie Porter in Indian Creek, Texas, on May 15, 1890. She grew up in poverty and was raised mostly by her grandmother, whose first name she later adopted.
When Porter's grandmother died in 1901, Porter was sent to convent school in New Orleans. At age 16, she married the 27-year-old son of a rancher, but the marriage was a failure. In 1911, Porter left for Chicago, where she worked as a reporter. She later spent two years traveling around Texas as a ballad singer and in 1918 became a reporter for the Rocky Mountain News in Denver. After a grave illness in 1918, Porter moved to Mexico for several years. Her first published work of fiction, the short story Maria Conception (1922), received almost immediate appreciation from critics.
In 1925, she married again but soon divorced. After the publication of Flowering Judas and Other Stories (1930), she moved to Europe and lived in Berlin and Paris from 1931 to 1937. She married and divorced several more times. In 1938, she returned to the United States with her fourth husband and settled in Baton Rouge. In the 1940s, she wrote film scripts and lectured at universities. During her lifetime, she published only 25 stories and one novel, Ship of Fools, which took her more than two decades to complete. She died in 1980 in Maryland.
Old West
September 11, 1857
Mormons and Paiutes murder 120 emigrants at Mountain Meadows
On this day in 1857, Mormon guerillas, stoked by religious zeal and a deep resentment of decades of public abuse and federal interference, murder 120 emigrants at Mountain Meadows, Utah.
Although historical accounts differ, the conflict with the wagon train of emigrants from Missouri and Arkansas apparently began when the Mormons refused to sell the train any supplies. Some of the emigrants then began to commit minor depredations against Mormon fields, abuse the local Paiute Indians, and taunt the Mormons with reminders of how the Missourians had attacked and chased them out of that state during the 1830s. Angered by the emigrants' abuse and fired by a zealous passion against the growing tide of invading gentiles, a group of Mormons guerillas from around Cedar City decided to take revenge. Cooperating with a group of Paiute Indians who had already attacked the train on their own initiative, the Mormon guerillas initially pretended to be protectors. The guerillas persuaded the emigrants that they had convinced the Paitues to let them go if they would surrender their arms and allow the Mormons to escort the wagon train through the territory. But as the train again moved forward under the Mormon escort, a guerilla leader gave a pre-arranged signal. The Mormons opened fire on the unarmed male emigrants, while the Paiutes reportedly murdered the women. Later accounts suggested that some Mormons had only fired in the air while others killed as few of the emigrants as they could. But when the shooting stopped in Mountain Meadows, 120 men and women were dead. Only 18 small children were spared.
As a direct result of the Mountain Meadows Massacre, the U.S. government demanded a new settlement from Brigham Young. In 1858, the Mormons agreed to accept a continued presence of federal troops and a Gentile governor for Utah Territory. No further significant Mormon-Gentile violence occurred, and the Latter Day Saints were thereafter largely left to govern themselves. But the era of complete Mormon domination of Utah ended as a result of the tragedy that day in Mountain Meadows.
Presidential
September 11, 2001
Bush learns of attack on World Trade Center
On the morning of September 11, 2001, President George W. Bush is en route to a visit with schoolchildren in Florida when he receives word that a passenger jet had just crashed into one of the World Trade Center towers in New York City. Within an hour of this first report, Bush was reading along with children in a classroom when he was informed that a second airliner had crashed into a second tower.
Earlier that morning, Bush had received a scheduled security briefing and learned that there was a heightened but non-specific threat of a terrorist attack that day. Warned but undeterred, he continued with a pre-arranged trip to visit Booker Elementary School in Sarasota, Florida, to promote a new education bill. On the way from his hotel to the school, aides passed word to the president’s car in the motorcade that a passenger jet had crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center at 8:46 am EST. Bush initially thought, as he later told a reporter, that the crash was the result of a terrible accident or pilot error. Bush arrived at the school shortly after the initial report and was waiting in an empty classroom at Booker Elementary with his Secret Service detail when the earliest news footage of the first plane crashing into the tower played on the school’s television screens. Just moments before the second plane hit, Bush was whisked into the classroom where he proceeded to meet with a group of first graders.
Video cameras were filming Bush’s school visit when White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card slipped into the room at 9:06 a.m. and whispered in the president’s ear that the World Trade Center had been hit by a second airplane and that the nation was under attack by an unknown entity. Bush appeared momentarily stricken, yet maintained his composure and continued to listen to the children read aloud for an additional eight to nine minutes. Bush explained in a White House press conference a week later that his reaction that fateful morning was one of slowly comprehending shock: "I’m sitting in the midst of a classroom with little kids, listening to a children’s story and I realize I’m the Commander in Chief and the country has just come under attack." At the end of the story, Bush commended the children on their reading skills and encouraged them to continue to read more and to watch less television. He then posed for photos with the children, their teacher and school administrators. Under bright lights, while cameras clicked and whirred, a reporter could be heard asking the president if he was aware of the attacks. Not wishing to frighten the children, Bush replied tersely, "I’ll talk about it later."
After the photo opportunity, Bush was escorted into an empty classroom, where he watched updated news reports of the attacks and consulted with Vice President Dick Cheney and New York Governor George Pataki by phone. Still on the school grounds at 9:29 a.m., Bush made his first of several live announcements that day regarding the unfolding tragedy. Secret Service agents then rushed Bush to Air Force One, which was waiting on the tarmac at Sarasota’s airport. On his way to the airport, Bush heard about a third attack, this time on the Pentagon in Washington, D.C.
Once aboard Air Force One, the plane’s pilot flew in circles at cruising altitude while Bush and Vice President Cheney discussed via phone where the president would be safest. The presidential plane stopped briefly at an air base in Louisiana before proceeding to Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska. Bush did not remain away from the capital for long: by 6:42 p.m., he was back in Washington.
Sports
September 11, 1985
Pete Rose hits into the record books
On this day in 1985, Cincinnati Reds player-manager Pete Rose gets the 4,192nd hit of his career, breaking Ty Cobb’s major league record for career hits. Rose was a folk hero in Cincinnati, a homegrown talent known as "Charlie Hustle" for his relentless work ethic.
Pete Rose was just 5 feet 10 inches tall and 140 pounds when he graduated from Cincinnati’s Western Hills High School. Despite his slight build, the switch-hitter was drafted by the Reds in 1960. Determined to improve after an unremarkable debut season in the minors, Rose committed to an intense weight-lifting regimen, long before such training became de rigueur in baseball. By the time he reached the majors, Rose was 5’ 11" and 205 pounds of muscle, with 27-inch thighs. In 1963, he hit .273 and scored 101 runs and was named Rookie of the Year. Rose went on to hit .312 in 1965, and then over .300 in 15 of the next 17 seasons, leading the National League in hitting three times. On "The Big Red Machine," as the impressive Reds teams of the 1970s were called, Rose was the spark plug, leading the team to back-to-back World Series victories in 1975 and 1976. Rose signed with the Philadelphia Phillies as a free agent in 1979, then led the Phillies to the first World Series championship in their 97-year history in 1980. On August 10, 1981, Rose broke Stan Musial’s career record for hits as a National Leaguer when he collected his 3,631st hit.
In 1984, Rose returned to the Reds after a stint with the Montreal Expos. On September 8, 1985, he tied Cobb’s 57-year-old record for career hits (4,191) with two hits against the Chicago Cubs. Three days later on September 11, Rose came to the plate in the first inning of a game against the San Diego Padres in front of a home crowd at Cincinnati’s Riverfront Stadium. Rose watched the first pitch to gauge pitcher Eric Show’s speed, fouled off the second pitch and then laid off the third pitch. With the count at 2-1, Rose lined a hanging slider into left-center field for a single. The Reds rushed out of the dugout to surround the new hits king and Rose’s longtime teammate Tony Perez lifted him in the air in celebration. The Cincinnati crowd of 47,237 stood and applauded for a full seven minutes as their hometown hero wiped tears from his eyes. (Show started to take warm-up tosses with the catcher during the tribute, and then sat down on the mound to wait, a move many in baseball found in appropriate.)
Pete Rose retired as a player during the 1986 season, but remained in his position as Reds manager until August 24, 1989, when he was banned from baseball for life for gambling on Reds games.
Vietnam War
September 11, 1965
1st Cavalry Division arrives in country
1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile) begins to arrive in South Vietnam at Qui Nhon, bringing U.S. troop strength in South Vietnam to more than 125,000. The unit, which had a long and storied history, was the first full U.S. Army division deployed to Vietnam. The division consisted of nine battalions of airmobile infantry, an air reconnaissance squadron, and six battalions of artillery. The division also included the 11th Aviation Group, made up of three aviation battalions consisting of 11 companies of assault helicopters, assault support helicopters, and gunships.
The division used a new concept by which the ground maneuver elements were moved around the battlefield by helicopters. Initially deployed to the II Corps area at Qui Nhon, the division took part in the first major engagement between U.S. and North Vietnamese forces during the Battle of the Ia Drang Valley fought in November, just two months after the division began arriving in Vietnam. Later, the division moved further north to I Corps in 1968 to relieve the embattled U.S. Marines at Hue during the Tet Offensive; in October of the same year, they redeployed to III Corps to conduct operations to protect Saigon; and in 1970, the division took part in the invasion of Cambodia and conducted operations in both III and IV Corps (the Mekong Delta). Thus, the 1st Cavalry Division, popularly known as the "First Team," was the only American division to fight in all four corps tactical zones. The bulk of the division began departing Vietnam in late April 1970, but the 3rd Brigade remained until June 1972. The 1st Cavalry Division was awarded the Presidential Unit Citation and "First Team" soldiers won 25 Medals of Honor, 120 Distinguished Service Crosses, 2,766 Silver Stars, 2,697 Distinguished Flying Crosses, and 8,408 Bronze Stars for Valor.
September 11, 1968
Heavy fighting rages in Tay Ninh
On this day, a major battle begins for control of Tay Ninh City. More than 1,500 North Vietnamese and Viet Cong attacked the provincial capital, capturing part of the city. The next day, 2,000 South Vietnamese reinforcements were sent in to aid the local garrison and after a four-day battle, the North Vietnamese were driven out of the city. Elsewhere, South Vietnamese forces launched Operation Lam Son 261 in Thua Thien and Quang Tri Provinces in I Corps Tactical Zone. The operation lasted until April 24, 1969, resulting in 724 enemy casualties.
Wall Street
September 11, 1789
First Treasury secretary is named
With the nation in need of a strong financial leader, President Geroge Washington American Revolutionist and stalwart Federalist Alexander Hamilton to step in as the first secretary of the treasury. The move came a week after the official founding of the Treasury Department. Hamilton was Washington's aide-de-camp during the American Revolution, and was instrumental in the formation of the U.S. Constitution. During Washington's administration, Hamilton, with his support of strong federal government and conservative property rights, often came into conflict with Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson, a Democratic idealist who favored states' rights.
September 11, 1841
Cabinet abandons Tyler over bank issue
With his unusual platform of states' rights zeal and pro-Constitutional fervor, President John Tyler, known to some as "his accidency," had always wavered between Whig and Democrat policies. The ideological vacillation finally took its toll on September 11, 1841, when all the members of his cabinet, except for Secretary of State Daniel Webster, resigned over Tyler's decision to veto a Whig-sponsored bank bill. Disagreement over the bank issue had been building throughout the summer. In late July, Tyler vetoed an initial version of the legislation, which he deemed unconstitutional due to its mandate for state bank offices. Undaunted, Congress revised the legislation, most notably by making the adoption of state offices a matter of consent rather compulsion. Though the bill was built to appease the President, Tyler nonetheless struck it down. Along with his staff, Tyler lost much of his remaining political credibility. The state-centric Whigs, who had supported his rise to the Oval Office, summarily dumped the President from their party.
September 11, 1967
New NYSE head takes over
In 1967, Robert W. Haack took the reins of the New York Stock Exchange from departing President, Keith Fenston.
September 11, 1986
Dow falls sharply
September 11, 1986 was a grim day on Wall Street: the Dow dropped whopping 86.61 points to close the day at 1,792.89.
September 11, 2001
New York Stock Exchange closes
The NYSE closes from September 11-17, 2001, as a result of the September 11, terrorist attacks.
World War I
September 11, 1915
Zimmerwald Conference issues a call for immediate peace
On September 11, 1915, at Zimmerwald in Switzerland, delegates to the First International Socialist Conference call for an immediate end to the First World War.
Even as battle dragged on in the trenches of the Western Front and the war in the air intensified with increased German air strikes on London and its environs, a group of dedicated anti-war activists and committed socialists gathered in neutral Switzerland from September 5 to 11, 1915, as the First International Socialist Conference. Formally assembled by the Swiss and Italian Socialist parties, the conference included some 40 delegates from 11 countries, including Russia, Poland, France, Germany, Bulgaria, Romania, Italy, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Sweden and Norway. Among the more prominent attendees were Vladimir Lenin, exiled leader of the radical socialist Bolshevik Party; Leon Trotsky, Lenin’s former political rival and future second-in-command; and Karl Liebknecht, an elected representative to the German
Reichstag government who would later break from the Social Democratic party to found the Bolshevik-inspired Spartacist movement with Rosa Luxemburg.
According to the conference’s manifesto, "the war which has produced this chaos is the outcome of imperialism, of the attempt, on the part of the capitalist classes of each nation, to foster their greed for profit by the exploitation of human labor and of the natural treasures of the entire globe." In order to force an immediate end to the war, the conference insisted, workers within each country should try by any means necessary to convert the current capitalist struggle into a more enlightened one: an international workers’ revolution or civil war "between the classes" that would spread throughout Europe, and eventually the world.
Two years later, with revolution in full swing in Russia and Czar Nicholas II off the throne, Lenin returned to Russia from exile—smuggled in with the help of the Germans—to carry out what he saw as the first step in fulfilling the resolution decided upon at the Zimmerwald Conference. After seizing control of Russia from the provisional government, he and Trotsky consolidated power for the Bolsheviks, declaring an immediate armistice with the Central Powers and pulling Russia out of World War I by the end of 1917.
World War II
September 11, 1940
Hitler focuses East, sends troops to Romania
On this day in 1940, Adolf Hitler sends German army and air force reinforcements to Romania to protect precious oil reserves and to prepare an Eastern European base of operations for further assaults against the Soviet Union.
As early as 1937, Romania had come under control of a fascist government that bore great resemblance to that of Germany's, including similar anti-Jewish laws. Romania's king, Carol II, dissolved the government a year later because of a failing economy and installed Romania's Orthodox Patriarch as prime minister. But the Patriarch's death and peasant uprising provoked renewed agitation by the fascist Iron Guard paramilitary organization, which sought to impose order. In June 1940, the Soviet Union co-opted two Romanian provinces, and the king searched for an ally to help protect it and appease the far right within its own borders. So on July 5, 1940, Romania allied itself with Nazi Germany-only to be invaded by its "ally" as part of Hitler's strategy to create one huge eastern front against the Soviet Union.
King Carol abdicated on September 6, 1940, leaving the country in the control of the fascist Prime Minister Ion Antonescu and the Iron Guard. While Romania would recapture the territory lost to the Soviet Union when the Germans invaded Russia, it would also have to endure the Germans' raping its resources as part of the Nazi war effort. Besides taking control of Romania's oil wells and oil installations, Hitler would help himself to Romania's food crops-causing a food shortage for native Romanians.
COMMENTS
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gandalf1967
04:44 Dec 05 2008
Great Reading!!