August 29th
 

1632 ~ Birthday of John Locke, Philosopher.

1896 ~ Chop suey was invented in New York City.

1949 ~ The Soviet Union tested its first nuclear weapon at Semipalatinsk, Kazakhstan.

1952 ~ Premiere of John Cage's 4'33" in Woodstock, New York.

1957 ~ Sen. Strom Thurmond, D-S.C., ended the longest filibuster in Senate history after talking for 24 hours, 18 minutes against a civil rights bill.

1966 ~ The Beatles performed their last concert, at Candlestick Park in San Francisco.

1981 ~ Birthday of Lanny Barbie, Canadian Porn actress.

1982 ~ Death of Ingrid Bergman, Swedish actress.

1991 ~ The Downfall of the Soviet Union: The Supreme Soviet suspended all activities of the Soviet Communist Party.

2005 ~ Hurricane Katrina made landfall along the Louisiana coast, overwhelming the levees protecting New Orleans and causing massive flooding.

August 30th
 

1862 ~ Union forces were defeated by the Confederates at the Second Battle of Bull Run in Manassas, Va..

1871 ~ Birthday of Ernest Rutherford, Physicist, awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1908.

1909 ~ Burgess Shale fossils discovered by Charles Doolittle Walcott.

1918 ~ Birthday of Baseball hall-of-famer Ted Williams.

1940 ~ Death of J.J. Thomson, English physicist, Nobel Prize in Physics 1906. Prof. Thomson identified the electron as a subatomic particle, the first one to be discovered. In one of the greater ironies of modern physics his son, G.P. Thomson later received the prize for proving that the electron was also, in fact, a wave.

1963 ~ Hotline between U.S. and Soviet leaders went into operation.

1963 ~ Death of Guy Burgess, English-born Soviet spy.

1987 ~ Thurgood Marshall confirmed as Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.

1999 ~ East Timorese voted for independence in a referendum.

2006 ~ Death of Glenn Ford, Canadian-born actor.

August 31st
 

1879 ~ Birthday of Alma Mahler Gropius Werfel. This woman knew how to live!

1888 ~ Mary Ann Nichols murdered. She was perhaps the first of Jack the Ripper's victims.

1918 ~ Birthday of Alan Jay Lerner, American composer ( Brigadoon, Paint Your Wagon, My Fair Lady).

1935 ~ Birthday of Frank Robinson, Baseball Player, Manager.

1945 ~ Birthday of Itzhak Perlman, Violinist.

1945 ~ Birthday of Van Morrison, Irish musician (“Brown-Eyed Girl", "Moondance" and "Domino").

1962 ~ Trinidad and Tobago became independent.

1980 ~ Solidarity labor union formed in Poland.

1997 ~ Death of Diana, Princess of Wales, in a car crash in Paris.

2006 ~ Edvard Munch's stolen painting "The Scream" was recovered.

September 1st
 

1653 ~ Birthday of Johann Pachelbel, Composer. Remember the theme music of “Ordinary People”? That’s “Pachelbel's Canon”.

1914 ~ The last Passenger Pigeon died in captivity in the Cincinnati Zoo.

1939 ~ Germany attacked Poland, beginning World War II.

1946 ~ Birthday of Barry Gibb, English singer (Bee Gees).

1967 ~ Death of Ilse Koch, "The Bitch of Buchenwald", Nazi war criminal.

1967 ~ Death of Siegfried Sassoon, English poet.

1972 ~ Bobby Fischer beat Boris Spassky to become the world chess champion.

1976 ~ Birthday of Jada Fire, Porn actress.

1983 ~ Korean Air Flight KAL-007 was shot down by a Soviet Union jet fighter when the commercial aircraft entered Soviet airspace.

1985 ~ A joint American-French expedition located the wreck of the RMS Titanic.

1914 ~ The last Passenger Pigeon died in captivity in the Cincinnati Zoo.

I heard a rather loud mother telling her brood of brats at the museum in Cleveland that Passenger Pigeons were used for carrying messages in the First World War and had all died out because with radio they were no longer needed.

That is just crazy enough to be believable. :yikes: Tell me it aint so!

She didn't make the connection that the bird died out the year that WW1 started, probably didn't read that far. She must have been related to the Docent at the Smithsonian who insisted that John Glenn was the first man in space. Yuri Gagarin and Alan Shepard would have been surprised to hear that.

September 2nd
 

31 B.C. ~ Battle of Actium: Off the western coast of Greece, forces of Octavian defeat troops under Mark Antony and Cleopatra. This date is often used for the beginning of the Roman Empire.

1666 ~ The Great Fire of London started in Pudding Lane at the house of Thomas Farrinor near London Bridge. Samuel Pepys, a neighbor, was woken by the fire at around 1 AM. The fire burned for three days destroying 10,000 buildings including St. Paul's Cathedral, but only 16 people are known to have died.

1752 ~ The UK adopted the Gregorian Calendar, nearly two centuries later than most of Western Europe.

1898 ~ The Battle of Omdurman: British and Egyptian troops led by Horatio Kitchener defeated Sudanese tribesmen led by Khalifa Abdullah al-Taashi, establishing British dominance in the Sudan.

1945 ~ The official surrender of Japan was accepted by General Douglas MacArthur and Admiral Chester Nimitz from a delegation led by Mamoru Shigemitsu, aboard the battleship Missouri in Tokyo Bay, bringing World War II to an end.

1948 ~ Birthday of Christa McAuliffe, schoolteacher & astronaut.

1964 ~ Death of Alvin York, Hero. He was the most decorated American soldier of World War I.

1969 ~ Death of Ho Chi Minh, Vietmamese Revolutionary, President & Prime Minister.

1973 ~ Death of J. R. R. Tolkien, British writer.

1991 ~ The U.S. recognized the independence of the Baltic states: Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania.

September 3rd
 

301 ~ San Marino, the world's oldest republic still in existence, was founded by Saint Marinus.

1658 ~ Death of Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector of England.

1875 ~ Birthday of Ferdinand Porsche, German automotive engineer.

1893 ~ Death of James Harrison, Australian pioneer of mechanical refrigeration.

1939 ~ World War II: France and the United Kingdom declared war on Germany.

1954 ~ The last new episode of The Lone Ranger was aired on radio after 2,956 episodes over a period of 21 years.

1976 ~ The Viking 2 spacecraft landed on Mars and took the first close-up, color photos of the planet's surface.

1991 ~ Death of Frank Capra, film director.

1995 ~ eBay founded.

2004 ~ More than 300 people die at the end of a three-day siege at a school in Beslan, Russia.

1658 ~ Death of Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector of England.

. . . . as told so wonderfully by the Monty Python crew.

September 4th
 

476 ~ Romulus Augustus, the last emperor of the Western Roman Empire, was deposed.

1781 ~ Los Angeles was founded as El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Angeles de Porciúncula (The City of Our Lady, the Queen of the Angels of Porciuncula).

1824 ~ Birthday of Anton Bruckner, Composer.

1888 ~ George Eastman registered the trademark Kodak.

1907 ~ Death of Edvard Grieg, Norwegian Composer.

1957 ~ The Ford Motor Company introduces the Edsel.

1957 ~ The Committee on Homosexual Offences and Prostitution in Great Britain came to the conclusion that outlawing homosexuality impinged upon civil liberties.

1965 ~ Death of Albert Schweitzer, Physician, J.S. Bach interpreter, awarded the Nobel Peace Prize 1952.

1995 ~ Death of William Kunstler, Attorney.

1998 ~ Google was founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin.

September 5th
 

1735 ~ Birthday of Johann Christian Bach, Composer, son of Johann Sebastian Bach.

1793 ~ The French National Convention voted to implement terror measures to enforce the principles of the French Revolution.

1847 ~ Birthday of Jesse James, outlaw.

1857 ~ Birthday of Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, Visionary & Pioneer of Astronautics.

1882 ~ The first Labor Day parade in the U.S. was held in New York City.

1939 ~ The U.S. declared its neutrality in World War II.

1957 ~ “On the Road” by Jack Kerouac was published.

1972 ~ A Palestinian terrorist group called "Black September" attacked Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympic Games.

1982 ~ Death of Douglas Bader, World War II RAF fighter pilot.

1997 ~ Death of Mother Teresa, Inspiration.

September 6th
 

1620 ~ The Pilgrims set sail on the Mayflower from Plymouth, England, to settle in North America.

1766 ~ Birthday of John Dalton, British chemist and physicist. He was one of the earlier proponents of the atomic theory.

1847 ~ Henry Thoreau left Walden Pond and moved in with Ralph Waldo Emerson and his family in Concord, Massachusetts.

1928 ~ Birthday of Robert Pirsig, Author (Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance).

1941 ~ The requirement to wear the Star of David with the word "Jew" inscribed, was extended to all Jews over the age of 6 in German-occupied areas.

1965 ~ India invaded West Pakistan.

1986 ~ Birthday of Raven Riley, Porn Actress.

1995 ~ Cal Ripken Jr. broke Lou Gehrig's record of playing 2,131 consecutive baseball games.

1996 ~ Eddie Murray became the 15th member of the 500 home run club with a home run at Oriole Park in Baltimore, Maryland.

2005 ~ The California Legislature became the first legislative body in the U.S. to approve same-sex marriages.

September 7th
 

1776 ~ World's first submarine attack. American submersible craft Turtle attempted to attach a bomb to the hull of the British flagship Eagle in New York Harbor.

1907 ~ RMS Lusitania set sail on her maiden voyage from Liverpool, England to New York City.

1908 ~ Birthday of Dr. Michael DeBakey, Heart Surgeon and inventor of the MASH.

1912 ~ Birthday of David Packard, Electrical Engineer.

1940 ~ The Blitz – Under orders from Adolf Hitler, the Luftwaffe began to bomb London. This was the first of 57 consecutive nights of bombing.

1977 ~ The U.S. agreed to transfer control of the Panama Canal to Panama at the end of the 20th century.

1986 ~ Desmond Tutu becomes the first black to lead the Anglican Church in South Africa.

1992 ~ Ciskei soldiers kill 24 at political rally.

1994 ~ Death of James Clavell, Author (Shogun) & Screenwriter (To Sir, with Love; The Great Escape).

1997 ~ Death of Mobutu Sese Seko, dictator of Zaire.

September 8th
 

1636 ~ Harvard College founded as the first college in the Americas.

1886 ~ Birthday of Siegfried Sassoon, Poet.

1925 ~ Birthday of Peter Sellers, Actor (A Shot in the Dark, Dr. Strangelove, The Pink Panther, etc.).

1930 ~ 3M began marketing Scotch transparent tape.

1941 ~ Siege of Leningrad began.

1944 ~ London was hit by a V2 rocket for the first time.

1949 ~ Death of Richard Strauss, Composer.

1966 ~ The first episode of the science fiction television series “Star Trek” aired.

1970 ~ Death of Percy Spencer, inventor of the microwave oven.

1974 ~ President Ford granted an unconditional pardon to former President Nixon.

1981 ~ Death of Hideki Yukawa, the Japanese physicist who proposed the meson elementary particle, awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics 1949.