September 21

Events

• 1745 - Battle of Prestonpans - Hanoverian army under the command of John Cope is defeated, in ten minutes, by the Jacobite forces of Prince Charles Edward Stuart
• 1780 - Benedict Arnold gives the British the plans to West Point
• 1792 - French National Convention votes to abolish the monarchy
• 1827 - Joseph Smith, Jr. claims that the angel Moroni gave him a record of gold plates, one-third of which is translated into The Book of Mormon
• 1860 - In the Second Opium War, an Anglo-French force defeats Chinese troops at the Battle of Baliqiao
• 1896 - British force under Horatio Kitchener takes Dongola in the Sudan
• 1897 - The "Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus" letter is published in the New York Sun
• 1898 - Empress Dowager Cixi seizes power in China
• 1921 - Cemical Storage Facility explosion in Oppau, Germany, 561 killed.
• 1937 - J. R. R. Tolkien publishes The Hobbit
• 1942 - B-29 Superfortress makes its debut
• 1950 - George Marshall was sworn in as the 3rd Secretary of Defense of United States
• 1964 - Malta becomes independent from the United Kingdom
• 1970 - Monday Night Football premieres
• 1972 - Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos issued Proclamation No. 1081 placing the entire country under martial law.
• 1981 - Belize granted full independence from the United Kingdom
• 1984 - Brunei gains its independence from the United Kingdom
• 2001 - Deep Space 1 flies within 2,200 km of Comet Borrelly's
• 2003 - Galileo probe has been mission was terminated by sending the probe into Jupiter's crushing atmosphere

Births

• 1756 - John MacAdam, road builder
• 1840 - Murat V, future Ottoman sultan
• 1842 - Abd-ul-Hamid II, future Ottoman sultan
• 1866 - H. G. Wells, science fiction author († 1946)
• 1874 - Gustav Holst, composer
• 1912 - Chuck Jones, animator († 2002)
• 1920 - Jay Ward, animator († 1988)
• 1931 - Larry Hagman, actor
• 1934 - Leonard Cohen, singer-songwriter
• 1935 - Henry Gibson, actor
• 1944 - Fannie Flagg, actress, novelist
• 1945 - Jerry Bruckheimer, film and television producer
• 1946 - Moritz Leuenberger, member of the Swiss Federal Council
• 1947 - Stephen King, author
• 1947 - Marsha Norman, playwright
• 1947 - Donald Felder, musician
• 1949 - Artis Gilmore, basketball star
• 1950 - Bill Murray, actor
• 1950 - Charles Clarke, British politician
• 1953 - Arie Luyendyk, Indianapolis 500 winner
• 1957 - Ethan Coen, film director
• 1960 - David James Elliott, actor
• 1961 - Nancy Travis, actress
• 1962 - Rob Morrow, actor
• 1963 - King Mohamed VI of Morocco
• 1968 - Ricki Lake, actress, talk show hostess
• 1971 - Luke Wilson, actor
• 1980 - Kareena Kapoor, Bollywood actress

Deaths

• 1558 - Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor
• 1832 - Sir Walter Scott, historical novelist and poet
• 1904 - Chief Joseph, Nez Perce leader
• 1954 - Kokichi Mikimoto, inventor of the cultured pearl
• 1957 - King Haakon VII of Norway
• 1974 - Jacqueline Susann, novelist
• 1974 - Walter Brennan, Academy Award winning actor
• 1998 - Florence Griffith Joyner, Olympic Games track-and-field star
• 2002 - Robert L. Forward, physicist, writer
• 2003 - Robert Lochner, creator of Kennedy's "Ish been oin Bear-lee-ner" ("Ich bin ein Berliner")

Holidays and observances

• In ancient Greece, the eighth day of the Eleusinian mysteries, when the secret rites in the Telesterion finish and the feast, Pannychis, begins.
• National Day in Belize
• Mabon - Neopagan festival of Mabon
• peace one day

See Also: January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December - more historical anniversaries

Referenced By