This+Day+in+History...

On this day in history...

August 27 :  * 1776 - British forces defeat the Patriots at the Battle of Long Island.  * 1859 - Edwin Drake drills the first successful commercial oil well in Pennsylvania.  * 1908 - Lyndon B. Johnson, the thirty-sixth U.S. President, is born.  * 1962 - NASA launches Mariner2, the first probe to fly by and gather data from Venus.

August 28 : * 1609 - English explorer Henry Hudson discovers Delaware Bay. * 1963 - Dr. Martin Luther King delivers his "I have a dream speech" from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.

August 29 : * 1869 - John Wesley Powell's expedition floats out of the Grand Canyon. * 1957 - Senator Strom Thurmond of S.C. ends the longest filibuster by one person. (24 hours, 18 min) Against a Civil Rights Bill. * 2005 - Hurricane Katrina hits the Gulf Coast destroying much of New Orleans and killing over 1,800 people.

August 30: * 1781 - A French fleet arrives at Yorktown, Virginia with 3,000 troops to help the Americans trap the British during the Revolutionary War. * 1836 - Texas was founded. * 1862 - Confederate forces defeat Union troops at the Second Battle of Manassas, Virginia. * 1967 - The Senate confirms Thurgood Marshall as the first black justice on the Supreme Court.

Sept 3: * 1777 - The Stars and Stripes is reportedly flown in battle for the first time at Cooch's Bridge, Delaware. * 1783 - The Treaty of Paris is signed to officially end the Revolutionary War.

Sept 4: * 1609 - Henry Hudson explores New York Harbor before sailing up the Hudson River. * 1886 - Apache leader Geronimo surrenders to U.S. troops in Arizona. * 1957 - Arkansas governor Orval Faubus calls out the National Guard to keep nine black students from entering an all-white high school in Little Rock.

Sept 5: * 1774 - The First Continental Congress assembles to draw up a declaration of rights and grievances against Britain. * 1882 - In New York city, 10,000 workers march in the first Labor Day parade.

Sept 6 : * 1781 - British troops under Benedict Arnold burn New London, Connecticut. * 1901 - President William McKinley is shot and mortally wounded by an anarchist in Buffalo, New York. * 2002 - Baltimore Orioles shortstop Cal Ripken Jr. plays in his 2,131st consecutive game breaking Lou Gehrig's record.

Sept 7: * The Pro Football Hall of Fame is dedicated in Canton, Ohio.

Sept 10: * 1608 - John Smith is elected president of the Jamestown council in Virginia. * 1794 - Oliver Hazard Perry send the message 'We have met the enemy and they are ours." after the Battle of Lake Erie.

Sept 11 : * 1789 - Alexander Hamilton is appointed the first secretary of the treasury. * 1814 - An American fleet destroys a British fleet in the Battle of Lake Erie during the War of 1812. * 2001 - Terrorists hijack four airliners for suicide attacks against the United States.

Sept 12: * 1857 - The SS Central America sinks in a hurricane off Cape Hatteras, North Carolina. 400 sailors die and a fortune of gold is lost. * 1918 - In France, U.S. forces launch their first major offensive of World War I.

Sept 13: * 1788 - Congress establishes New York City as the temporary national capital. * 1814 - Fort McHenry in Baltimore, Maryland is bombarded while Francis Scott Key looks on.

Sept 14 : * 1716 - Boston Light, the first lighthouse in America, is kindled for the first time. * 1847 - U.S. forces, including the Marines, capture Mexico City and raise the flag over the "halls of Montezuma." * 1975 - Elizabeth Ann Seton is canonized as the first American-born Catholic Saint.

Sept 17 : * 1630 - English Puritans led by John Winthrop founded Boston, Mass. * 1887 - The Constitutional Convention approves the final draft of the U.S. Constitution.

* 1862 - U.S. troops stop a Confederate invasion of Maryland at the Battle of Antietam.

Sept 18: * 1793 - George Washington lays the cornerstone of the U.S. Capitol. * 1850 - Congress passes the Fugitive Slave Act which outlaws helping runaway slaves.

Sept 19: * 1676 - Nathaniel Bacon burns Jamestown in an uprising over land rights and government assistance. * 1777 - Patriot forces withstand a British attack in the Battle of Saratoga, New York. * 1881 - President James Garfield dies of wounds suffered during a July 2 shooting. * 1960 - Chubby Checker's recording of the "Twist" hits number one on the record charts and starts a new dance sensation.

Sept 20: * 1863 - Confederates win the Battle of Chickamauga in Georgia * 1881 - Chester A. Arthur becomes the twenty-first U.S. president after James Garfield's death. * 2001 - President Bush declares "war of terror" in an address to Congress.

Sept 21 : * 1789 - Benedict Arnold gives detailed plans of West Point to the British.

Sept 24 : * 1789 - Congress passes the Judiciary Act which establishes the U.S. Supreme Court & federal court system.

Sept 25 : * 1789 - Congress sends twelve amendments to the Constitution to the states for ratification. Later, 10 of them become the Bill of Rights. * 1918 - Eddie Rickenbacker earns the Medal of Honor in the skies near Verdun, France. * 1981 - Sandra Day O'Connor is sworn in as the first female U.S. Supreme Court justice.

Sept 26 : * 1774 - John Chapman, a.k.a. Johnny Appleseed, is born in Leominster, Mass. * 1777 - British troops occupy Philadelphia during the Revolutionary War. * 1789 - George Washington names Thomas Jefferson as the first secretary of state.

Sept 27: * 1722 - Samuel Adams, a leader in the call for independence from Britain, is born in Boston. * 1777 - Lancaster, Pennsylvania, becomes the national capital for one day as Congress flees from British-held Philadelphia to York, Penn.

Sept 28: * 1781 - American & French troops begin a siege of the British Army at Yorktown, Virginia. * 1787 - Congress votes to transmit the new Constitution to the states for ratification. * 2012 - Mr. B. catches two possums under his deck and gives them a military burial.

Oct 1 : * 1811 - The first steamboat to travel down the Miss. River, the New Orleans, reaches it namesake city after a monthlong trip from Pittsburgh. * 1908 - Henry Ford introduces the Model T automobile, priced at $850

Oct 2: * 1780 - British major John Andre is hanged as a spy after he is captured carrying papers for traitor Benedict Arnold. * 1835 - The Texas Revolution against Mexico begins a American settlers resist Mexican troops at Gonzales. * 1919 - President Woodrow Wilson suffers a stroke that leaves him an invalid. * 1950 - The comic strip Peanuts by Charles M. Schulz is first published. * 1967 - Thurgood Marshall, the first black justice on the U.S. Supreme Court, is sworn in.

Oct 3: * 1922 - Rebecca L. Felton becomes the first woman to serve in the U.S. Senate when the governor of Georgia appoints her to fill a vacancy. * 1955 - Captain Kangaroo & the Mickey Mouse Club debut on TV. * 1974 - Frank Robinson of the Cleveland Indians becomes the first black manager in baseball's major leagues.

Oct 4 : * 1822 - Rutherford B. Hayes, the 19th U.S. president, is born in Delaware, Ohio. * 1927 - Carving begins on Mount Rushmore National Memorial. * 1993 - In Mogadishu, Somalia, a bloddy two-day firefight ends after the dowing of two U.S. helicopters and the rescue of several trapped soldiers. This inspires the book and movie //Black Hawk Down//.

Oct 5: * 1829 - Chester A. Arthur, the twenty-first U.S. president, is born in Fairfield, Vermont. * 1947 - The first televised White House address is given by President Truman about sending food aid to Europe.

Oct 8: * 1860 - A telegraph line between Los Angeles & San Francisco opens. * 1871 - The Great Chicago Fire begins, reportedly when Mrs. O'leary's cow kicks over a lantern; fire destroys downtown, kills 250. * 1918 - Sgt. Alvin York almost single-handedly kills two dozen Germans soldiers and caputres 132 prisoners in France's Argonne Forest.

Oct 9 : * 1635 - Religious dissident Roger WIlliams is banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony. * 1876 - Alexander Graham Bell & Thomas Watson hold the first telephone conversation over outdoor wires. * 1936 - Boulder (now Hoover) Dam begins sending electricity across 266 miles of mountains and deserts to Los Angeles.

Oct 10: * The U.S. Naval Academy opens in Annapolis, Maryland, with 56 students. * The Chesapeake & Ohio canal is completed and opened. It was 185 miles long.

Oct 11: * 1776 - In the Battle of Valcour Island on Lake Champlain, New York, American ships suffer defeat but thwart a British plan to cut the colonies inhalf. * 1811 - The world's first steam-powered ferryboat, the Juliana, begins operation between New York City and New Jersey.

Oct 12 : * 1492 - Christopher Columbus makes landfall at an island he calls San Salvador. * 1892 - I celebration of the 400th anniversary of Columbus's landing, American school children first recite the newly written Pledge of Allegiance. * 2000 - In Yemen, al-Qaeda suicide bombers ram into the destroyer USS Cole, killing 17 sailors.

Oct 15: * 1860 - Brace Bedell writes Abham Lincoln, urging him to grow a beard. * 1878 - Thomas Edison incorporates the Edison Electric Light Company to finance his work on the incandescent lamp. * 1976 - Walter Mondale & Bob Dole square off in the first televised debate between vice-presidential nominees.

Oct 16: * 1859 - Abolitionist Joh Brown, hoping to start a slave rebellion, leads a raid at Harper's Ferry, Virginia. * 1962 - President Kennedy learns that there are missle bases in Cuba, triggering the Cuban Missle Crisis. * 2002 - President signs a congressional resolution authorizing force against Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq.

Oct 17: * 1777 - British forces surrender at Saratoga, New York. This victory helps secure Frances assistance in the Rev. War. * 1933 - Physicist Albert Einstein, fleeing Nazi Germany, arrives in the United States.

Oct 18 : * 1767 - Charles Mason & Jeremiah Dixon complete their survey of the boundary between Pennsylvania & Maryland, the Mason-Dixon Line. * 1842 - In New York Harbor, Samuel Morse lays the first underwater telegraph cable. * 1867 - The United States takes possession of Alaska from Russia.

Oct 19 : * 1781 - Lord Cornwallis surrenders his British army at Yorktown, Virginia, effectivly ending the Revolutionary War. * 1829 - Baltimore's monument to George Washington, a 178-foot-high- marble column, is completed.

Oct 22 : * 1836 - Sam Houston is inaugurated as president of the Republic of Texas. * 1962 - John F. Kennedy announces a blockade of Cuba in response to the discovery of Soviet missle sites on the island. * 1968 - Apollo 7, the first manned Apollo mission, returns safely to Earth.

Oct 23 : * 1824 - John Stevens completes the first steam locamotive to pull a train on a track. * 1864 - Union forces win the Battle of Westport, in Kansas City, Missouri, one of the largest battles west of the Miss. River. * 1983 - A suicide truck bombing of a Marine Corps barracks in Beirut, Lebanon by Hezbollah terrorists, kills 241 servicemen.

Oct 24 : * 1861 - The first transcontinental telegraph message is sent from San Franciso to President Lincoln in Washington, D.C. * 1901 - A 63-year-old schoolteacher named Anna Edson Taylor becomes the first daredevil to go over Niagara Falls in a barrel.

Oct 25: * 1812 - Captain Stephen Decatur becomes a national hero when he defeats the British frigate Macedonian. * 1940 - Ben O. Davis becomes the first black general in the U.S. Army.

Oct 29 : * 1929 - Stock prices plunge an the New York Stock Exchange, marking the beginning of the Great Depression. * 1998 - at age seventy-seven, John Glenn returns to space to become the oldest person to orbit in space.

Oct 30 : * 1735 - John Adams, the second U.S. president, is born in Braintree, Massachusetts. * 1938 - Many listeners believe America is being invaded by Martians when Orson Welles broadcasts his //War of the Worlds// radio play. * 1974 - Muhammad Ali knocks out George Foreman in the 8th round in the "Rumble in the Jungle" boxing match in Zaire.