September 6
U.S. president William McKinley is shaking hands at the Pan-American Exhibition in Buffalo, N.Y., when a 28-year-old anarchist approaches him and fires two shots into his chest. President McKinley dies September 14. – 1901.
September 7
The United States gets its nickname, Uncle Sam. The name is linked to Samuel Wilson, a meat packer from Troy, N.Y., who supplied barrels of beef to the United States Army during the War of 1812. Wilson, 1766-1854, stamped the barrels with “U.S.” for United States, but soldiers began referring to the grub as “Uncle Sam’s.” The local newspaper picked up on the story and Uncle Sam eventually gained widespread acceptance as the nickname for the U.S. federal government. – 1813.
September 8
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.
September 9
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.
September 11
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. 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. – 2001.
September 12
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.
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.
Sources: History.com, Toil and Trouble, by Thomas R. Brooks; American Labor Struggles, by Samuel Yellen; IWW calendar, Solidarity Forever; Historical Encyclopedia of American Labor, edited by Robert E. Weir and James P. Hanlan; Southwest Labor History Archives/George Meany Center; Geov Parrish’s Radical History; workday Minnesota; Andy Richards and Adam Wright, AFL-CIO Washington DC Metro Council.