September 6th is

Coffee Ice Cream Day

Louisa Ann Swain Day *

National Read a Book Day

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MORE! Ferdinand Magellan, Jane Addams and Eric Clapton, click

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WORLD FESTIVALS AND NATIONAL HOLIDAYS

Bonaire –Flag Day

Bulgaria – Unification Day

Pakistan – Defense Day

Sao Tome & Principe –
Armed Forces Day

Spain – Baza: Cascamorras
(Virgin statue contest)

Swaziland – Somhlolo
(Independence day)

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On This Day in HISTORY

1492 – Christopher Columbus sails from La Gomera in the Canary Islands, his last port before crossing the Atlantic Ocean for the first time

1522 – Victoria, only surviving ship from Ferdinand Magellan’s expedition, limps into Sanlúcar de Barrameda, Spain, with only 18 crew members on board, becoming the first ship to circumnavigate the earth

Magellan’s flagship Victoria, by an unknown artist

1620 – Isabella Leonarda born, Italian composer

1628 – Puritans settle Salem, which will become part of Massachusetts Bay Colony

1642 – The English Parliament issues an Ordinance suppressing all plays in theatres

1757 – Marquis de Lafayette born, French aristocrat who served as a Major General in the Continental Army during the American Revolution

1795 – Frances ‘Fanny’ Wright born in Scotland, British-American writer and activist for women’s rights, birth control, sexual freedom, public education, equality between the sexes and races, and the abolition of slavery; founder of Nashoba, a utopian community in Tennessee, which is a failed attempt at gradual manumission of slaves

1800 – Catharine Beecher born, American educator; although she was against women leaving their ‘sphere’ as homemakers and mothers, she was an outspoken advocate for women’s education and kindergarten for all children; campaigned against Andrew Jackson’s Indian Removal Bill (Congress passed it in 1830); founder of the Ladies’ Society for Promoting Education in the West

1803 – Scientist John Dalton uses symbols to represent atoms of different elements

1811 – James Gilliss born, American naval officer; founder of U.S. Naval Observatory

1819 – Thomas Blanchard receives U.S. patent for a lathe to turn gun barrels

1829 – Marie Zakrzewska born in Poland, pioneering woman physician in America; founded the New England Hospital for Women and Children, which gave women medical students the clinical experience they were denied at male-run hospitals, and had the first general training program for nurses in the U.S.; it was also the first hospital in Boston to offer gynecological and obstetrical care; campaigned with other women’s activists to raise $50,000 for a women’s medical training program, which Harvard turned down, but Johns Hopkins accepted, opening its doors to female students

1837 – Oberlin Collegiate Institute of Ohio begins admitting women as well as men

1857 – Zelia Nuttall born, American archeologist and anthropologist, specialized in Mesoamerican manuscripts and pre-Aztec culture

1860 – Jane Addams born, American social worker, philosopher, author, suffragist and peace activist, founder of Hull House, recipient of the 1931 Nobel Peace Prize

1870 – Louisa Ann Swain *, aged 69, of Laramie, Wyoming, becomes first U.S. woman to legally vote. She arose early, put on her apron, shawl and bonnet, and walked downtown with a tin pail in order to purchase yeast from a merchant. She walked by the polling place and concluded she would vote while she was there. The polling place had not yet officially opened, but election officials asked her to come in and cast her ballot. She was described by a Laramie newspaper as “a gentle white-haired housewife, Quakerish in appearance.”

1876 – The Southern Pacific rail line from Los Angeles to San Francisco is completed

1876 – J. J. R. Macleod born, Scottish physiologist; co-winner of 1923 Nobel Prize in Medicine for his role in the discovery of insulin

1890 – Claire Lee Chennault (“Old Leatherface”) born, American major general and aviator; leader of the First American Volunteer Group aka the “Flying Tigers”

1899 – Billy Rose born, American composer-songwriter and theatrical impresario

1901 – Leon Czolosz fatally wounds U.S. President William McKinley at the Pan American Exposition in Buffalo NY

1906 – Luis Federico Leloir born, Argentine biochemist, 1970 Nobel-Prize winner

1909 – Michael Riley Galitzen born, American Olympic diver; won two medals each in the 1928 and 1932 Olympics, one gold for 3 meter springboard in 1932

1916 – First self-service grocery store, Piggly Wiggly, opens in Memphis TN

1921 – Carmen Laforet born, influential Existentialist Spanish author; Nada,  La mujer nueva, Un matrimonio

1938 – Joan Tower born, American composer, conductor and pianist

1940 – Elizabeth Murray born, American painter

Elizabeth Murray in her studio, in front of one of her large-scale paintings

1941 – Jews over age 6 in German-occupied areas ordered to wear yellow Stars of David

1946 – U.S. Secretary of State James Byrnes announces policy of economic reconstruction of Germany

1952 – Canadian television begins broadcasting in Montreal

1962 – Archaeologist Peter Marsden discovers “Blackfriars” ship, first of four wrecks in the Blackfriars area of the Thames in London This first wreck is earliest known indigenous seagoing sailing ship found in northern Europe, dating back to the 2nd century AD.  A bronze votive coin of the Emperor Domitian was found in its mast

1966 – South African Prime Minister Dr. Hendrik Verwoerd, the progenitor of  Apartheid, is assassinated during a parliamentary meeting

1968 – Eric Clapton records a guitar solo on The Beatles’ “While My Guitar Gently Weeps”

1968 – Swaziland becomes independent from the U.K.

1975 – Czechoslovakian tennis player Martina Navratilova, in New York for the U.S. Open, requests political asylum

1982 – Paul McCartney releases single “Tug of War”

1990 – Iraq issues warning anyone caught trying to flee the country will get life in prison

1991 – Leningrad since 1924, Russia’s second largest city becomes St. Petersburg again

2002 – The Smithsonian “George Catlin and His Indian Gallery” exhibit opens, containing over 400 objects

2005 – The California Legislature becomes the first legislative body in the nation to approve same-sex marriages, but Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoes it

2008 – U.S. Congress designates September 6 as Louisa Ann Swain Day * (House Concurrent Resolution 378)

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