September 14 |
1146 |
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Zangi of the Near East is murdered. The Sultan Nur ad-Din, his son, pursues the conquest of Edessa. |
1321 |
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Dante Alighieri dies of malaria just hours after finishing writing Paradiso. |
1544 |
|
Henry VIII’s forces take Boulogne, France. |
1773 |
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Russian forces under Aleksandr Suvorov successfully storm a Turkish fort at Hirsov, Turkey. |
1791 |
|
Louis XVI swears his allegiance to the French constitution. |
1812 |
|
Napoleon Bonaparte’s invasion of Russia reaches its climax as his Grande Armee enters Moscow–only to find the enemy capital deserted and burning, set afire by the few Russians who remained. |
1814 |
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Francis Scott Key writes the words to the “Star Spangled Banner” as he waits aboard a British launch in the Chesapeake Bay for the outcome of the British assault on Fort McHenry during the War of 1812. |
1847 |
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U.S. forces under Gen. Winfield Scott capture Mexico City, virtually bringing the two-year Mexican War to a close. |
1853 |
|
The Allies land at Eupatoria on the west coast of Crimea. |
1862 |
|
At the battles of South Mountain and Crampton’s Gap, Maryland Union troops smash into the Confederates as they close in on what will become the Antietam battleground. |
1901 |
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Vice President Theodore Roosevelt is sworn in as the 26th President of the United States upon the death of William McKinley, who was shot eight days earlier. |
1911 |
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Russian Premier Piotr Stolypin is mortally wounded in an assassination attempt at the Kiev opera house. |
1943 |
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German troops abandon the Salerno front in Italy.. |
1960 |
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Iraq, Iran, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia form OPEC. |
1966 |
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Operation Attleboro, designed as a training exercise for American troops, becomes a month-long struggle against the Viet Cong. |
1975 |
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Mother Elizabeth Ann Seton becomes the first native-born American saint in the Roman Catholic Church. |
1979 |
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Nur Muhammad Taraki, president and former prime minister of Afghanistan, is assassinated in a coup in which prime minister Hafizullah Amin seizes power. |
1982 |
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Bachir Gemayel, president-elect of Lebanon, is killed along with 26 others in a bomb blast in Beirut. |
1984 |
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Joe Kittinger, a former USAF fighter pilot during the Vietnam War, becomes the first person to pilot a gas balloon solo across the Atlantic Ocean. |
1994 |
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Major League Baseball players strike over a salary cap and other proposed changes, forcing the cancellation of the entire postseason and the World Series. |
2007 |
|
Northern Rock Bank suffers the UK’s first bank run in 150 years. |
Born on September 14 |
1769 |
|
Baron Freidrich von Humbolt, German naturalist and explorer who made the first isothermic and isobaric maps. |
1849 |
|
Ivan Pavlov, Russian physiologist who studied dogs’ responsiveness. |
1860 |
|
Hamlin Garland, author who wrote about the Midwest in novles such as A Son of the Middle Border and The Book of the American Indian. |
1864 |
|
Lord Robert Cecil, one of the founders of the League of Nations and its president from 1923 to 1945. |
1867 |
|
Charles Dana Gibson, illustrator, creator of the ‘Gibson Girl.’ |
1879 |
|
Margaret Sanger, birth-control advocate and founder of Planned Parenthood. |
1898 |
|
Hal B. Wallis, film producer (The Maltese Falcon, Casablanca). |
1921 |
|
Constance Baker Motley, first African-American woman to be appointed a federal judge. |
1930 |
|
Allan Bloom, writer (The Closing of the American Mind). |
1934 |
|
Kate Millet, feminist writer, author of Sexual Politics. |
1936 |
|
Ferid Murad, Albanian-American physician and pharmacologist, is co-winner of Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his research on nitroglycerin’s effects the cardiovascular system. |
1948 |
|
Marc Reisner, author and environmentalist best known for his book Cadillac Desert, a history of water management in the Western portion of the US. |
1955 |
|
Geraldine Brooks, Australian-American journalist and author; her novel March won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction (2005). |
1961 |
|
Wendy Thomas (Melinda “Wendy” Thomas Morse), namesake, mascot and spokesperson for the Wendy’s chain of fast-food restaurants. |
1983 |
|
Amy Winehouse, singer-songwriter; her five Grammy wins (out of six nominations) for her Back to Black album (2006) tied the existing record for most wins by a female artist in a single night; won Brit Award for Best British Female Artist (2007). |