September 8
One of the deadliest hurricanes in U.S. history hits Galveston, Texas and kills more than 6,000 persons. The storm caused so much destruction on the Texas coast that reliable estimates of the number of victims are difficult to make. Some think that as many as 12,000 perished, which would make it the most deadly day in American history. – 1900.
During World War II, German forces begin a siege of Leningrad, a major industrial center and the USSR’s second-largest city. The siege of Leningrad, known as the 900-Day Siege, though it lasted a grueling 872 days, results in the deaths of one million of the City’s civilians and Red Army defenders. – 1941.
U.S. workers give up their Labor Day weekend holidays to keep the munitions factories working to aid in the war effort. – 1942.
In a controversial executive action, U.S. president Gerald Ford pardons his disgraced predecessor, Richard Nixon, for any crimes he may have committed or participated in while in office. Ford later defended this action by explaining that he wanted to end the National divisions created by the Watergate scandal. – 1974.
September 9
Though it only had been a part of the United States for less than two years, California becomes the 31st state in the union, without ever even having been a territory. – 1850.
A Japanese floatplane drops incendiary bombs on an Oregon state forest, the only air attack on the U.S. mainland in World War II. President Franklin Roosevelt immediately called for a news blackout for the sake of morale. – 1942.
September 10
U.S. president Andrew Jackson announces that the government no longer will use the Second Bank of the United States, the country’s national bank. – 1833.
A 25-year-old London taxi driver named George Smith becomes the first person to be arrested for drunk driving after he slams his cab into a building. Smith later pled guilty and was fined 25 shillings. -1897.
September 11
Approximately 75,000 coal miners in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and West Virginia, end a 10-week strike after winning an eight-hour day, semi-monthly pay, and the abolition of overpriced company-owned stores, where they had been forced to shop. – 1897.
At 7:45 a.m. CDT an American Airlines Boeing 767 crashes into the north tower of the World Trade Center in New York City, N.Y.. The impact left a gaping, burning hole near the 80th floor of the 110-story skyscraper and instantly kills hundreds of individuals and traps hundreds more in higher floors. When the evacuation of the tower and its twin got under way, television cameras broadcast live images of what initially appears to be a freak accident. Then, 18 minutes after the first plane hit, a second Boeing 767 appears out of the sky and slices into the south tower at about the 60th floor. The collision causes a massive explosion that showered burning debris over surrounding buildings and the streets below. The United States was under attack. – 2001.
September 12
Forty-nine workers are killed, 200 injured in explosion at the Hercules Powder Company plant in Kenvil, N. J.. – 1940.
Six months after the death of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, Nikita Khrushchev succeeds him with his election as first secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Khrushchev, in 1961, authorized construction of the Berlin Wall in East Germany. – 1960.
Hurricane Gilbert slams into Jamaica. Approximately 80% of the island’s homes were either seriously damaged or destroyed and approximately 500,000 of the country’s two million residents were left homeless and more than 200 persons lost their lives. – 1988.
Representatives from the United States, Great Britain, France, and the Soviet Union sign an agreement to give up all occupation rights in Germany. The largely symbolic action cleared the way for East Germany and West Germany to reunite after being separated by the Berlin Wall during the Cold War. – 1990.
September 13
Francis Scott Key writes a poem which is later set to music and in 1931 becomes the U.S. National Anthem, “The Star-Spangled Banner.” – 1814.
Eleven prison employees and 29 inmates die in four days of rioting at New York State’s Attica Prison and the retaking of the prison. The riot caused the Nation to take a closer look at prison conditions, for inmates and their guards alike. – 1971.
September 14
U.S. president William McKinley dies after being shot by a deranged anarchist during the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, N.Y.. – 1901.