In Calendar Form

September 9

1087 Death: William the Conqueror in Rouen, France. William Rufus takes the throne.

1513 The Battle of Flodden: Near Branxton, in the English County of Northumberland, the forces of James IV of Scotland battle English troops. The Scots are heavily defeated and James IV is killed along with all his nobles.

1585 Birth: Duc de Richelieu, French statesman and Roman Catholic cardinal.

1752 Alberne Unsinn, now banished from Lächerlicher, Pennsylvania, spends some time playing chess with the encumbered one's companion, safe in the knowledge that time is truly on his side. Note: There are only a mere three tasks to be accomplished in the next four days. (See Sep 10)

1754 Birth: Captain William Bligh, Captain of the HMS Bounty.

1776 The second Continental Congress officially changes the name of the nation from 'The United Colonies' to 'The United States.'

1828 Birth: Leo Tolstoy, Russian author.

1835 The so-called 'September Laws' are introduced in France, suppressing the radical movement and censoring the press.

1836 Abraham Lincoln receives his license to practice law.

1850 California joins the US as the 31st state, only two years after the population boom of the California Gold Rush. As part of the North-South Compromise of 1850, California is admitted as a free state.

1887 Birth: Alf Landon, the Kansas Republican who will lose the 1936 presidential election to Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt.

1901 Death: Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, artist, at 36; due to heavy drinking and varied ailments, compounded by mental illness.

1904 Mounted police are used for the first time in the City of New York, with a horse division for use in Central Park and other areas not easily patrolled on foot.

1911 Italy declares war on the Ottoman Turks and annexes Libya, Tripolitania, and Cyrenaica in North Africa.

1914 WW1: Lt. Col. Richard Hentsch, a trusted staff officer sent by Moltke to assess the situation and issue orders if necessary, discovers that von Bulow's Second Army had been pushed back by the French Fifth, and that the BEF is moving into the gap between the German First and Second Armies, Hentsch then orders both armies to retreat to the Aisne River. Kluck retreats to prevent his army from being encircled.

1914 WW1: Russian troops are expelled from East Prussia, after the German Eighth Army defeats the Russian First Army in the First Battle of the Masurian Lakes.

1932 One year after a semiautonomous Catalonian Republic is proclaimed, the Spanish government and the Generalitat (Catalonian government) agree to a Statute of Autonomy. Francesc Macia is the first president of the first Generalitat in modern times. Note: This newly gained political autonomy is lost when General Francisco Franco takes power in Spain in 1939, and brutally represses regional sentiments.

1933 Church and Reich: Papal Secretary of State Pacelli, at the request of Cardinal Bertram, puts in "a word on behalf of those German Catholics" who are of Jewish descent and for this reason suffering "social and economic difficulties." The future Pope Pius XII makes no other mention of the "Jewish question." (Lewy)

1936 Goebbels accuses Czechoslovakia of providing secret bases for Soviet aircraft.

1937 Sachsenburg concentration camp is closed.

1939 Church and Reich: Hitler issues an amnesty for Catholic priests accused of minor infractions of German law (See March 11, 1940). (Lewy)

1939 Holocaust: All Jewish men in the small Ruhr town of Gelsenkirchen are deported to the concentration camp at Sachsenhausen, near Berlin. The women and children are left to fend for themselves. (Atlas)

1939 WW2: Polish Army launches a counterattack between Lodz and Warsaw, surprising the Germans; after three days of bitter fighting, German manpower tips the scale. The German 4th Panzer Division is beaten off in the suburbs of Warsaw.

1940 WW2: About 200 well escorted German bombers make another raid on London. Intercepted by the RAF, many drop their bombs before reaching the target.

1941 WW2: Lord Beaverbrook meets with Rudolf Hess.

1941 Diary of Leon Gladun: We arrived at a camp near Saratov.

1942 WW2: A submarine launched Japanese aircraft drops incendiary bombs near Brookings, Oregon, in an attempt to set fire to the forests. The plane, piloted by Nobuo Fujita, drops even more bombs 20 days later. Both raids are unsuccessful. This is the first and only time that the continental US has been bombed from the air. Note: In 1962, the city of Brookings will invite Fujita and his family for a visit as a gesture of goodwill, and in gratitude for his bad aim.

1943 WW2: The American Fifth Army lands at Salerno, south of Naples. General Mark Clark's assault force of the 36th and 45th Infantry divisions and a ranger force, reinforced by the 82nd Airborne and the 3rd Infantry divisions. Clark loses the element of surprise and his advance is stopped at the beachhead.

1943 Holocaust: A circular letter concerning receipt of fees for racial "expert reports" states: "In the financial year 1942, 2,340.50 RM were received by the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Anthropology." Note: Assuming an average fee of 50 RM, approximately 50 "expert reports" were drawn up, each of them determining whether the Jew concerned was to live or to die. (Science)

1948 After the withdrawal of Soviet forces from North Korea, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea is proclaimed with Pyongyang as its capital.

1957 The first civil rights bill to pass Congress since Reconstruction is signed into law by US President Eisenhower.

1965 French President Charles de Gaulle announces that France is withdrawing from NATO to protest the domination of the US in the organization.

1971 More than 1,000 convicts take over the state prison at Attica, New York, and hold 35 convicts hostage. Four days later, 28 convicts and nine hostages are killed as state police retake the prison.

1976 Death: Communist Chinese leader Mao Tse-tung, at 82, after a series of strokes.

1981 France announces its intention to nationalize 36 private banks.

1986 Gennadiy Zakharov, a Soviet United Nations employee, is indicted by a New York jury on espionage charges.

1986 Frank Reed, the director of a private school in Lebanon, is taken hostage in Lebanon by pro-Iranian kidnappers. Note: He will be released 44 months later.

1990 Liberian President Samuel K. Doe is captured and later killed by rebels led by Prince Johnson, after visiting the headquarters of West African peacekeeping forces in Monrovia.

1990 Presidents George Bush of the United States and Mikhail Gorbachev of the Soviet Union end a summit in Helsinki, pledging unity in their 'struggle against Iraqi aggression.' Note: The summit occurs shortly after Iraq's invasion of Kuwait.

1991 The Soviet Central Asian republic of Tajikistan declares independence from Moscow.

1991 Iraq grounds foreign helicopters carrying UN weapons-plant inspectors.

1993 Israeli and PLO leaders agree to recognize each other. In a letter to Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, the PLO recognizes the right of the state of Israel to exist in peace and security. In turn, Rabin declares the PLO the representative of the Palestinian people.

1993 Four years after his death in exile, former Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos is buried in his homeland.

1993 US and Pakistani peacekeepers open fire on Somalis that are attacking other peacekeepers. About a hundred Somali gunmen and civilians are killed.

1994 The US agrees to accept about 20,000 Cuban immigrants a year in return for Cuba's promise to halt the flight of refugees.

1996 The Iraqi-backed Kurdistan Democratic Party captures the main stronghold of Sulaimaniya from its rival.

1996 Susan McDougal is jailed for contempt after she refuses to appear before the Whitewater grand jury on the grounds that she believes the special counsel is out to get the Clintons.

1997 Former president F. W. de Klerk, who freed South Africa from the scourge of his National Party's apartheid policies, retires from parliament.

1997 Sinn Fein, the IRA's political ally, formally renounces violence as it takes its place in talks on Northern Ireland's future.

1998 Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr delivers to the US Congress 36 boxes of material concerning his investigation of US President Clinton. Starr says the boxs contain "substantial and credible information...that may constitute grounds" for impeachment.

1998 Four tourists who had paid $32,500 each are taken in submarine to view the wreckage of the Titanic, 2 miles below the Atlantic off Newfoundland.

1999 More than 90 people die in the bombing of a Moscow apartment building. The blast is blamed on terrorists from the breakaway republic of Chechnya.

2002 Saddam Hussein could be 'months' away from assembling a nuclear bomb and has a stockpile of anthrax, claims a US 'intelligence' report on Iraq's military capabilities.

2002 Ground Zero workers arrive in early morning.

2002 US President Bush and Canada's PM Chrétien meet at the Detroit border.

2004

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2004