September 15th is

Cheese Toast Day

Greenpeace Day *

International Dot Day *

Felt Hat Day

Crème de Menthe Day

UN International Day of Democracy *

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MORE! Porfirio Díaz, Agatha Christie and Terry Shay, click

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WORLD FESTIVALS AND NATIONAL HOLIDAYS

Bhutan – Thimphu: Thimphu Dtubchen
(sacred dance for goddess Pelden Lhamo)

Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala,
Honduras and Nicaragua – Independence Day

Great Britain – Battle of Britain Day

Japan – Ibaraki: Kamisu Buttyage
(Fireworks Display)

Morocco – Marrakech: Oasis at the Source

Slovakia – Our Lady of Many Sorrows

Spain – Cantabria: Nuestra Señora de la
Bien Aparecida (Our Lady of Good Advent)

Wales – Flintshire:
The Good Life Experience

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On This Day in HISTORY

994 – Battle of Orontes is won by forces of Manjutakin, the Fatimid vizier of Damascus, over allied armies of the Byzantine Empire and Hamdanids, led by Michael Bourtzes, attempting to relieve Fatamid siege of Apamea by the Orontes River in Syria

1440 – Gilles de Montmorency-Laval, Baron de Rais, is arrested, Jean de Malestroit, Bishop of Nantes, accuses him of murdering dozens of children after committing sodomy and torture on them between 1432 and 1440; one of the earliest known serial killers, he  is executed on October 26, 1440

1616 – First non-aristocratic free public school in Europe opens in Frascati, Italy

1776 – American Revolution: British forces occupy New York City

1789 – U.S. Department of Foreign Affairs renamed Department of State

1789 – James Fenimore Cooper born, American novelist; his Leatherstocking Tales help create an American style of literature; best known for The Last of the Mohicans

1821 – Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and El Salvador become independent from Spain

1830 – The Liverpool-to-Manchester railway line opens in Great Britain

1830 – Porfirio Díaz born, Mexican general and politician who served seven terms as President of Mexico (1976-1880 and 1884-1911)

1835 – Charles Darwin, aboard HMS Beagle, arrives at the Galápagos Islands

1846 – George Franklin Grant born, the first African American professor at Harvard, in the department of mechanical dentistry, a practicing dentist, and inventor of a wooden golf tee

1853 – Reverend Antoinette Brown Blackwell ordained, first U.S. female minister

1857 – Timothy Alder patents a typesetting machine

1857 – William Howard Taft born, the only person to serve as both U.S President and Chief Justice of the Supreme Court

1857 – Anna Winlock born, American astronomer, and one of “the Harvard computers” who made her era’s most complete catalogue of stars near the north and south poles, and contributed substantial work to the Astronomishcen Gesellschaft. Also remembered for calculations and studies on asteroids 433 Eros and 475 Oclio

1858 – Jenő Hubay born, Hungarian violinist and composer

1867 – Bruno Walter born, German conductor

1868 – Lida Shaw King born, American classical scholar; professor of classical literature and archaeology at Vassar (1894-1897); dean of the Women’s College at Brown University (1905-1922); published in the American Journal of Archaeology

1876 – Frank Gannett born, American newspaper publisher, called the “Great Hyphenator” because he frequently bought two not-very-successful newspapers in an area and merged them, beginning with the Elmira Star-Gazette

1877 – Yente Serdatzky born in the Russian Empire Koveno Governorate (now Lithuania), Jewish-American Yiddish-language author of short stories, sketches and one-act plays

1881 – Ettore Bugatti born, Italian builder of racing and luxury automobiles

1883 – The University of Texas at Austin opens

1894 – Prudente de Morais is elected as President of Brazil; the first country’s civilian president, the first elected by popular ballot under Brazil’s 1891 Constitution, and first to serve his term in its entirety (1894-1898); previously he had served as President of the Federal Senate (1891-1894), and Governor of the State of São Paulo (1889-1890)

1889 – Robert Benchley born, American drama critic, actor and humorist

1890 – Agatha Christie born, DBE, British mystery writer and playwright; featured the characters Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple in many of her mysteries

1894 – First Sino-Japanese Way, Battle of Pyongyang: An army of Meiji Japan defeats China’s Qing Dynasty in Pyongyang, now the capital of North Korea

1903 – Roy Acuff born, American country music singer-songwriter

1915 – Fawn M. Brodie born, American biographer, historian; noted for psychobiography of Thomas Jefferson: An Intimate History and No Man Knows My History, a biography of Joseph Smith

1916 – Tanks are first used in warfare, at the WWI Battle of the Somme

1918 – Margot Loyola born, folk singer, musician and musical ethnographer and anthropologist, who published numerous books on folk music and customs of Chile and other South American countries

1919 – Heda Margolius Kovály born, Czech writer and translator; noted for her memoir Under a Cruel Star – A Life in Prague 1941-1968

1923 – Oklahoma Governor John Calloway Walton declares martial due to Ku Klux Klan terrorism – national newspapers begin to expose the Klan’s illegal activities

Ku Klux Klan in Tulsa OK, 1923

1928 – Alexander Fleming discovers penicillin in the mold Penicillium notatum

1928 – Cannonball Adderley born, American jazz saxophonist and bandleader

1929 – Eva Burrows born, Australian Salvation Army officer; at 56, she became the organization’s youngest commander, the 13th General of the Salvation Army

1930 – Hoagy Carmichael records “Georgia on My Mind”

1935 – Nazi Germany enacts the Nuremberg Laws, stripping all German Jews of civil rights, and they adopt the swastika as their official symbol

1936 – Sara J. Henderson born, Australian cattle station owner and author, noted for her autobiography From Strength to Strength published in 1993

1940 – Anne Moody born as Essie Mae Moody, American author and civil rights worker, known for her acclaimed autobiography Coming of Age in Mississippi which won the Brotherhood Award from the National Council of Christians and Jews and the Best Book of the Year Award from the National Library Association

Woolworth sit-in Jackson Mississippi – Moody center right, and close-up insert 

1940 – WWII: The Royal Air Force inflicts heavy losses on the Luftwaffe as the tide turns in the Battle of Britain

1945 – Jessye Norman born, American dramatic soprano, famed for her Wagnerian repertoire, Grammy Award winner

1947 – Diane E. Levin born, American professor of education, author, and authority on media effects on children; noted for Teaching young children in violent times: building a peaceable classroom and So sexy so soon: the new sexualized childhood, and what parents can do to protect their kids

1948 – F-86 Sabre sets the world aircraft speed record of 671 mph

1949 – “The Lone Ranger” premieres on ABC with Clayton Moore as the Lone Ranger and Jay Silverheels as Tonto

1950 – Korean War: UN forces land ay Inchon, southern Korea, driving toward Seoul

1955 – Betty Robbins, first woman cantor officially appointed by a congregation, leads Rosh Hashanah services at Temple Avodah in Oceanside NJ

1961 – Helen Margetts born, British political scientist specializing in digital era governance and politics; Director of the Oxford Internet Institute, and Professor of Internet and Society at the University of Oxford

1963 – Four black girls are killed when the African American 16^th Street Baptist Church is bombed in Birmingham, Alabama

1966 – President Lyndon Johnson, reacting to the sniper shootings at the University of Texas at Austin, urges Congress to enact gun control legislation

1965 – “Green Acres” and “Lost in Space” premiere on CBS

1968 – Soviet spaceship Zond launched, becomes first space craft to circle the Moon and re-enter Earth’s atmosphere

1971 – Greenpeace is founded by 17 activists in Vancouver protesting off-shore nuclear testing in Alaska – In 2011, on the 40^th anniversary of Greenpeace, Vancouver city officials plant a yellow cedar tree and proclaim Greenpeace Day *

1975 – Martina Krupičková born, Czech post-impressionist painter

1977 – Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie born, Nigerian Author of novels, short stories and nonfiction; her work includes the novels Purple Hibiscus, Half of a Yellow Sun, and Americanah, her short story collection The Thing Around Your Neck, and the book-length essay We Should All Be Feminists; awarded a MacArthur Genius Grant in 2008

1982 – USA Today: first issue goes to press

1983 – Huey Lewis and the News release their album Sports

1995 – Closing Day of  the U.N. Fourth World Conference on Women, held in Beijing

2000 – The Summer Olympics open in Sydney, Australia

2004 – Morocco recalls its ambassador to South Africa after Pretoria formally recognizes the self-proclaimed Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic government in the disputed territory of Western Sahara which Morocco had annexed in 1975

2005 – George W. Bush addresses the nation from storm-ravaged New Orleans, acknowledging the government has failed to respond adequately to Hurricane Katrina and urging Congress to approve a massive reconstruction program.

2008 – The first UN International Day of Democracy * proclaimed in 2007 by the General Assembly, in keeping with article 21(3) of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: “The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government; this  shall be expressed in periodic and genuine elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret vote or by equivalent free voting procedures.”

2009 – Terry Shay starts International Dot Day * when he shares The Dot by Peter H. Reynolds with his students, which is the story of a teacher who challenges her insecure student to “Just make a mark and see where it takes you.”

2017 – The Cassini-Huygens probe, a collaborative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and Italian Space Agency, sent to enter Saturn’s orbit and study the planet and its rings; launched in 1997, it was active in space for almost 20 years. On this day it was sent into Saturn’s upper atmosphere to burn up, to prevent any risk of it contaminating Saturn’s moons. The mission had continued nine years past its original end date, exceeding all expectations, and revolutionizing human understanding of the Saturn system

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