September 25 is

First Comic Book Day *

One-Hit Wonder Day

World Dream Day *

National Quesadilla Day

National Psychotherapy Day *

Research Administrators Day

Day of Remembrance for Murder Victims *

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MORE! Lilian Ngoyi, Shel Silverstein and Doris Matsui, click

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WORLD FESTIVALS AND NATIONAL HOLIDAYS

Canada – Maple Leaf Day

France – Harkis Recognition Day
(Anti-Algerian independence Muslim fighters)

Mozambique – Armed Forces Day

Nauru – Youth Day

Rwanda – Kamarampaka Day
(Abolition of the monarchy)

Switzerland – Obwalden: Saint Nicholas
of Flüe Day (Swiss patron saint)

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On This Day in HISTORY

275 – After Roman Emperor Aurelian is murdered in Thrace while leading his army to attack the Sassanid Empire in the Middle East, the Roman Senate proclaims Marcus Claudius Tacitus as Emperor, but Tacitus dies of a fever less than a year later; he is the last Emperor to be elected by the Roman Senate

1066 – The Battle of Stamford Bridge in Yorkshire is a decisive victory for English King Harold Godwinson over an invading Norwegian force led by King Harald Hardrada and Harold’s brother Tostig Godwinson, who are both killed; both sides lose about a third of their armies

1237 – England and Scotland sign the Treaty of York, ending dispute over the border between their countries

1396 – Ottoman Emperor Bayezid I routs an allied European crusader army led by Holy Roman Emperor Sigismund at the Battle of Nicopolis in the Bulgarian Empire

Battle of Nicopolis (1396) – by Sebastien Mamerot

1493 – Christopher Columbus embarks from Cadiz, Spain with 17 ships on his second voyage to the Western Hemisphere

1513 – Spanish explorer Vasco Nunez de Balboa reaches the ocean after crossing the Isthmus of Panama, and calls it the South Sea, first European to see the Pacific Ocean

1599 – Francesco Borromini born, Italian Baroque architect

1613 – Claude Perrault born, French physician, architect and engineer

1683 – Jean-Phillipe Rameau born, French composer and music theorist

1690 – Publick Occurrences Both Forreign and Domestick, the first newspaper to appear in the Americas, is published for the first and only time

1775 – The British capture Ethan Allen when the attack of his forces on Montreal fails

1758 – Josepha Barbara Auernhammer born, Austrian pianist and composer. She studied with Mozart, who dedicated his Violin Sonatas K. 296 and K. 376–80 to her in 1781.  After her marriage in 1786, she continued to participate in concerts in private venues and at the Burgtheater in Vienna, and was the first to perform the Piano Concerto in C major, Op 15 by Ludwig van Beethoven. Most of her compositions are for the piano

1785 – George Pinto born, English composer and keyboard virtuoso

1789 – U.S Congress adopts ten amendments to the Constitution, now known as the Bill of Rights

1790 – Peking opera is born when the Four Great Anhui Troupes perform for the Qianlong Emperor’s 80^th birthday

Anhui Troupe stock characters

1828 – Mutinous officers attempt to assassinate Simón Bolívar in Bogotá, but he is aided in escaping by his lover, Doña Manuela Sáenz, revolutionary and women’s rights activist

1837 – Rodolphe Töpffer publishes The Adventures of Obadiah Oldbuck, considered the first comic book *

1843 – Melville Bissell born, American inventor of the carpet sweeper

1844 – Sarah Bernhardt born, legendary French actress; manager, artistic director and star of the Théâtre de la Renaissance in Paris (1893-1899), first to impose a rule that ladies in the audience must remove their hats to avoid blocking the view of others

Sarah Bernhardt as Cleopatra

1847 – Lavinia “Vinnie”Ream Hoxie born, American sculptor; her most famous work is the statue of Abraham Lincoln in the US Capitol Rotunda

1886 – May Godfrey Sutton born, tennis champion, the first American to win a singles title at Wimbledon

1897 – William Faulkner born, American Southern author; awarded 1949 Nobel Prize , and 1954 Pulitzer Prize; The Sound and the Fury, As I Lay Dying, Light in August

1888 – The Royal Court Theatre opens in London

1890 – Sequoia National Park in California becomes the third U.S National Park

Sequoia National Park, photo by Alison Taggart

1903 – Mark Rothko born, American Abstract Expressionist painter

1904 – Columbus Iselin born, American oceanographer

1905 – ‘Red’ Smith born, influential American syndicated sports columnist; 1976 Pulitzer Prize for Commentary

1906 –Phyllis Pearsall born, British portrait painter and mapmaker; she founded the Geographer’s A-Z Map Company in 1936, which produced popular detailed and indexed maps of London, because she frequently became lost when going to first appointments with new subjects. During WWII, selling maps was forbidden so she went to work for the Ministry of Information, and after the war, she had to have the new edition of A-Z maps printed in Amsterdam because of paper shortages in Great Britain. In 1966, she turned the Geographers’ A-Z Map Co. into a trust, ensuring it could never be bought out, and securing the future of the company and its employees. Through her donation of her shares to the trust, she was able to include her standards in the company’s statutes. She was active in the company, and painted prolifically, until her death from cancer in 1996, just a month before her 90^th birthday

1906 – Dimitri Shostakovich born, Russian composer

1908 – Jacqueline Audry, French film director, first commercially successful French woman director after WWII, specialized in literary adaptations

1909 – John V. Dodge born, American executive of the Encyclopedia Britannica

1911 – Lilian Masediba Ngoyi born, South African anti-apartheid activist; the first woman elected to the executive committee of the African National Congress; also helped launch the Federation of South African Women

1912 – Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism is founded in NYC

1916 – Jessica M. Anderson born, Australian novelist-short story writer; during WWII, she worked as a fruit picker in the Australian Women’s Land Army. She published her first novel, An Ordinary Lunacy, at age 47, in 1968. She won the Miles Franklin Literary Award for Tirra Lirra by the River in 1978, and in 1981 for The Impersonators. She died at age 93 in 2010

1926 – The International Convention to Suppress the Slave Trade and Slavery is first signed, under the auspices of the League of Nations; still in effect, with amendments;  99 countries so far have committed to participation in its aim of ending slavery

1929 – Jimmy Doolittle performs the first blind flight from Mitchel Field, proving that full instrument flying from take off to landing is possible

Instrument panel in cockpit of Dolittle’s plane

1929 – Barbara Walters born, American broadcast journalist, author and TV personality; first woman co-anchor on a network evening news program on ABC

1930 – Shel Silverstein born, American writer and poet, known for cartoons, songs and children’s books; among his many notable works are: Now Here’s My Plan, The Giving Tree, Uncle Shelby’s Story of Lafcadio: The Lion Who Shot Back, Where the Sidewalk Ends, A Light in the Attic, and his Grammy-winning albums: Boy Named Sue and Other Country Songs and Where the Sidewalk Ends

1932 – Glenn Gould born, Canadian pianist

1933 – The voice of silent movie cowboy star Tom Mix is first heard by the public when his show debuts on NBC Radio

1937 – Mary Allen Wilkes born, computer programmer, logic designer and attorney; she worked on the LINC computer in the 1960s, now considered the first minicomputer, and a forerunner to the PC. In 1972, she left the computer field to attend Harvard Law School, and became a trial lawyer in 1975, both in private practice and as head of the Economic Crime and Consumer Protection Division of the Middlesex County District Attorney’s Office in Massachusetts. Wilkes taught in the Trial Advocacy Program at the Harvard Law School (1983-2011), and also was a judge for the school’s first- and second-year Ames (moot court) competition. In 2001, she became an arbitrator for the American Arbitration Association, primarily on cases involving computer science and information technology

1940 – American intelligence agents crack Japan’s diplomatic code, known as “Purple”

1940 – Tim Severin born, British explorer, historian and author; noted for retracing legendary journeys of historical figures. In 1961, while still an under graduate at Oxford, he and two friends retraced Marco Polo’s 13^th century journey from Venice to Asia, but on motorcycles. After much hardship, they arrived at the border of China, only to be turned back because of visa problems. This became his first book, Tracking Marco Polo. It’s been followed by 15 more non-fiction books about other journeys on land and sea, and 3 historic fiction series: Viking, Saxon, and The Adventures of Hector Lynch. He has received the Founder’s Medal of the Royal Geographical Society, the Livingstone Medal of the Royal Scottish Geographical Society, and the Gold Medal of the Maritime Institute of Ireland

1941 – Vivien Stern born, Baroness Stern of Vauxhall; crossbench member of the House of Lords, appointed as a Life Peer in 1999; Secretary General of Penal Reform International (1989-2006); Director of NACRO, a national social justice charity in England and Wales (1977-1996); lecturer in education (1970-1977). Author of Bricks of Shame: Britain’s prisons, and a patron of the Prisoners’ Education Trust

1944 – Doris Okada Matsui born, American Democratic politician; U.S. Representative from California since March, 2005, originally elected to take her husband’s seat after his death from cancer in January, 2005. She was born in a WWII internment camp for Japanese Americans in Arizona, but her family returned to California after the war. Matsui was a volunteer for Bill Clinton’s 1992 presidential campaign, and then served on his transition team. She was appointed as deputy special assistant to the president and deputy director of public liaison (1993-1998), then to the board of Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in 2000. She is pro-labor, pro-choice and pro-gay rights, and opposes any move to privatize Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid

1945 – Kathleen Brown born, American attorney and Democratic politician; Treasurer of the state of California (1991-1995); Los Angeles Board of Public Works (1987-1989); Los Angeles City Board of Education (1975-1983)

1948 – Mimi Kennedy born, American actress and activist; best known for playing Dharma’s mother Abby on the TV sitcom Dharma & Greg; chair of the board of Progressive Democrats for America, a charter member of Artists United to Win Without War, and an advocate for human rights, the environment, and labor

1949 – Pedro Almodóvar born, Spanish filmmaker, screenwriter and producer-director,  co-founder of the film production company El Deseo in 1986; notable as part of La Movida Madrileña, a cultural renaissance in Spain after Franco’s death in 1975; Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (1988) was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film; All About My Mother (1999) did win the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film, and he won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay for Talk to Her (2002)

1952 – bell hooks born as Gloria Jean Watkins, American author, feminist and social activist; she has published over 30 books addressing race, class, capitalism and gender; known for Ain’t I a Woman? Black Women and Feminism; Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center; and We Real Cool: Black Men and Masculinity

1952 – Cherrie Moraga born, Chicana writer, poet, feminist activist, essayist and playwright; founding member of the social justice group La Red Xican Indigena, fighting for education, Indigenous and cultural rights; notable for This Bridge Called My Back (editor), and Heroes and Saints

1952 – Christopher Reeve born, American actor, best known for playing Superman and for the romantic film Somewhere in Time; after he was thrown from his horse during an equestrian competition in 1995, he was a quadriplegic, and needed a wheelchair and portable ventilator to breathe. He became an activist for people with spinal cord injuries and stem cell research; founding the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation to support research, treatment and cures for spinal cord injuries and other neurological disorders, which has given millions of dollars in grants for research, and for quality-of-life

1955 – Luanne Rice born, American novelist; noted for The Lemon Orchard, Little Night, The Silver Boat and Beach Girls. Rice is an environmental activist, and an advocate for families affected by domestic violence 

1956 – Transatlantic No. 1, the first transatlantic telephone cable system, laid between Gallanach Bay, near Oban, Scotland and Clarenville, is inaugurated, initially carrying 36 telephone channels

1957 – 300 U.S. Army troops standing guard, as nine black children are escorted to Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, days after unruly white crowds had forced them to withdraw

1962 – Cathy Sarrai born as Kalthoum Sarrai in Tunisia, French television anchor and presenter, and author of three books, including an autobiography. She died of cancer in 2010 at age 47

1964 – Rebecca Gablé born, German author of historical fiction and detective novels; Der König der purpurnen Stadt (The King of the Purple City)

1969 – Catharine Zeta-Jones born in Wales, Film star and actress, known for The Mask of Zorro, Traffic, Chicago, and Intolerable Cruelty. In 2010, she was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for her film and humanitarian work. She is a patron of Swansea’s Longfields Day Centre for the disabled, has raised funds for AIDS patients in Africa, a supporter of the International Centre for Missing & Exploited Children and the Noah’s Ark Appeal, and an ambassador of the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. Zeta-Jones has spoken openly about her struggles with bipolar II disorder and depression

1973 – The three crewmen of Skylab II land in the Pacific Ocean after 59 days aboard the space laboratory

1973 – Jenny Chapman born, British Labour Party politician; Member of Parliament for Darlington since 2010

1981 – Sandra Day O’Connor is sworn in as the first woman U.S. Supreme Court justice

1983 – Soviet officer Stanislav Petrov averts worldwide nuclear war when he declares a “U.S. attack” setting off the Soviet early warning system to be a false alarm. The satellite warning system had mistaken sunlight reflecting off clouds for enemy missiles

1990 – U.N. Security Council votes to impose an air embargo on Iraq – Cuba casts the only dissenting vote

1992 – A judge in Orlando FL grants 12- year-old Gregory Kingsley a divorce from his biological parents

1992 – NASA launches the Mars Observer, a $511 million probe to Mars, the first U.S. mission to the planet in 17 years; eleven months later, the probe stops transmitting

Mars Observer – artist’s impression – NASA science photo library

1995 – Mariah Carey’s “Fantasy” debuts at #1 on the Billboard Hot 100

1996 – The last of the Magdalene asylums closes in Ireland; after the discovery of a mass grave containing 155 corpses is discovered in 1993 on the grounds of one of the convents involved, a long investigation reveals abundant evidence of abusive practices; the Irish government issues a state apology in 2013, and sets up a ₤50 million compensation scheme for the survivors, to which the Catholic Church refuses to contribute

1999 – The first National Day of Remembrance for Murder Victims * is established by the National Organization of Parents of Murdered Children, which was founded by Charlotte and Robert Hullinger in 1978 after their daughter was murdered

2001 – Saudi Arabia cuts its relations with Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban

2012 – The first Psychotherapy Day * and the first World Dream Day *

2015 – The World Health Organization (WHO) announced at a meeting of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) that Nigeria has been removed from the list of polio endemic countries after the country had gone a year without a naturally occurring case of polio. Countries are not regarded as polio free until they have gone three years without any cases. Only Pakistan and Afghanistan remain on the endemic list

2019 – Just days after Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador sent the nation’s Congreso de la Unión a bill that would grant amnesty to women serving prison terms for abortion, lawmakers in the state of Oaxaca approved a bill to decriminalize abortion during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy. Oaxaca is the second region of the country, after Mexico City, to permit abortions. Pro-choice activist Pilar Muriedas declared, “The victory is not only for Oaxaca — the law, yes — but it means this gives hope to the other states where women who decide to have an abortion . . . are punished.”

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