In Calendar Form

September 11
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1297 Battle of Stirling Bridge: Scotsman William Wallace defeats the English forces of Sir Hugh de Cressingham.

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1752 Alberne Unsinn wishes desperately the he were back in Lächerlicher, Pennsylvania. The encumbered ones red companion had never before lost a game of chess, and he is a poor loser, indeed. Stranded and abandoned, Alberne's doggerel proves insufficient to find his way to a sane plane. Only time, eternally limited, is his ally. (See Sep 12)

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1777 US Revolutionary War: General George Washington and his Continentals engage British forces under William Howe at the Battle of Brandywine. "...Howe advanced slowly bringing forward supplies from his station near the Brandywine. Howe's troops were still weak from their long confinement aboard ship and few horses were ready for battle. Howe's military intelligence made up for these setbacks. When Howe reached Kennett Square, he split his army of 12,500 in two. 5,000 went with Knyphausen, the other 7,500 went with Cornwallis. Knyphausen was to make a secondary attack against Chadd's Ford. The two groups of British forces moved out at dawn on September 11, 1777. Washington learned early in the morning that the British were advancing towards Chadd's Ford, and alerted his troops. At 8 o'clock, Maxwell's covering force was in contact, and in two hours they had withdrawn back across the creek. By 10:30 Knyphausen was in position along the creek and his activity was limited to a relatively harmless exchange of cannonballs with Porter's American artillery on the left bank. When the British didn't make an attempt to cross at Chadd's Ford, Washington and his officers suspected they would cross elsewhere. At 11 o'clock the Americans got reports of Cornwallis' movement. Colonel Moses Hazen sent word from Jones’ Ford to Chadd's that an enemy column was marching to the forks of the Brandywine. Hazen's report was confirmed by Lt. Col. James Ross, who was patrolling Great Valley Road with 70 men. In his message he said about 5,000 men and 16 or 18 guns were moving up the road toward Taylor's and Jeffrie's Fords. Washington sent a message to Col. Bland, who was with the cavalry screen on the right, to have an officer verify Hazen's report by reconnaisance.

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Washington then directed Alexander and Stephen to march their divisions to the Birmingham Meeting House. The meeting house was on the road which the British were most likely to move if they really were attempting a turning movement. Washington noticed the opportunity open to him if Howe detached 5,000 men for this maneuver. Washington figured he could counterattack with the divisions of Sullivan, Lincoln, and Green to destroy the enemy forces across Chadd's Ford. The operation had almost started when..."

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1789 Alexander Hamilton is appointed by US President George Washington to be the first Secretary of the Treasury.

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1814 War of 1812: Despite superior enemy firepower, an American naval force defeats a squadron of British ships at Plattsburgh Bay in the Battle of Lake Champlain, VT. Note: The American victory is a significant turning point in the War of 1812. The victory breaks the British waterborne supply lines and forces British troops to retreat back into Canada.

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1841 All the members of President John Tyler's Cabinet resign, except Secretary of State Daniel Webster, in protest of Tyler's veto of a banking bill.

1842 1200 Mexican troops under General Adrian Wolf capture San Antonio, then retreat with prisoners.

1933 Hungary prohibits the use or display of the swastika by private citizens or organizations.

1935 Hitler, at the Seventh Nazi Party Congress in Nuremberg, announces that German scientists have solved the problem of synthetic rubber (buna) production.

1935 Britain urges the League of Nations to resist aggressive actions. (Edelheit)

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1936 Franklin D. Roosevelt dedicates Boulder Dam (now Hoover Dam) by pressing a key in Washington to signal the startup of the dam's first hydroelectric generator in Nevada. Hoover Dam is 726 feet tall and 660 feet thick at its base. Enough rock is excavated in its construction to build the Great Wall of China. Contrary to urban myths, no workers are buried in the dam's concrete.

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1941 US President Franklin D. Roosevelt gives orders to attack any German or Italian vessels found US defensive waters. Note: The US had not officially entered WW2 at this time.

1941 WW2: Charles Lindbergh, speaking in Des Moines, Iowa, tells an audience of 7,500 that Jews are seeking to force America into the war and warns them of the consequences. He is accused of anti-Semitism for blaming "the British, the Jewish and the Roosevelt administration" for trying to draw the United States into World War II.

1941 Holocaust: Niederhagen, the concentration camp for Wewelsburg castle, becomes independent.

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1941 Church and Reich: Hitler tells Papen that he is upset about the continuing confiscation's of Church property, and blames the hotheads of the Party for "this nonsense." (Papen)

1942 Holocaust: Meir Berliner, a young Jew from Argentina trapped in Warsaw by the war, uses his penknife to stab an SS officer to death at Treblinka. (Atlas)

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1941 In Arlington, VA, the groundbreaking ceremony for the Pentagon takes place.

1943 Holocaust: Danish sea captains and fishermen, on the eve of the Jewish deportations, ferry 5,919 Jews, 1,301 part-Jews, and 686 Christians married to Jews to safety in Sweden (See October 1). (Atlas)

1944 WW2: British troops enter Holland.

1944 WW2: The American Seventh Army joins up with the US Third Army near Dijon.

1959 The US Congress passes a bill authorizing the creation of food stamps.

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1970 The Ford Pinto is introduced at a cost of less than $2,000, designed to compete with an influx of compact imports. But it is not the Pinto's low cost that grabs headlines. Ford's new best-selling compact contains a fatal design flaw: because of the placement of the gas tank, the tank is likely to rupture and explode when the car is involved in a rear end collision of over 20 mph. In addition, it is eventually revealed that Ford knew about the design flaw before the Pinto was released. An internal cost benefit analysis prepared by Ford calculated that it would take $11 per car to correct the flaw at a total cost of $137 million for the company. When compared to the lowly estimate of $49.5 million in potential lawsuits from the mistake, the report deemed it 'inefficient' to go ahead with the correction. The infamous report assigned a value of $200,000 for each death predicted to result from the flaw. Ford's irresponsibility causes a public uproar, and in 1978 a California jury will award a record-breaking $128 million to a claimant in the Ford Pinto case.

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1971 Death: Former Soviet leader Nikita Krushchev at 77 from a heart attack in provincial exile (at which time he wrote his memoirs; highly recommended). Note: He is the first Soviet leader to die a natural death.

1973 Death: Chilean President Salvador Allende, in a violent coup. The official story is that he committed suicide. Note: The coup is widely believed to have been linked to the CIA.

1978 Bulgarian defector Georgi Markov is killed in London, stabbed by a poisoned umbrella point wielded by an unknown secret agent.

1990 Desert Shield: US President Bush vows "Saddam Hussein will fail" while addressing Congress on the Persian Gulf crisis.

1991 Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev announces negotiations to withdraw 11,000 Soviet military advisers from Cuba and eliminate a $2 billion annual subsidy.

1991 Israel releases 51 Lebanese and Palestinian prisoners after confirming the deaths of two missing Israeli soldiers in Lebanon.

1996 The Iraqis fire at, but miss, two American warplanes patrolling the no-fly zone. Washington orders US forces to the region.

1997 Scotland votes to create its own Parliament after 290 years of union with England.

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1997 NASA launches the Mars Global Surveyor. Its mission; to compile maps of the planet's surface.

2001 911: The Morning That Changed Everything.

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7:58 a.m. United Airlines Flight 175 departs Boston for Los Angeles, carrying 56 passengers, two pilots, and seven flight attendants. The Boeing 767 is hijacked after takeoff and diverted to New York.

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7:59 a.m.  American Airlines Flight 11 departs Boston for Los Angeles, carrying 81 passengers, two pilots, and nine flight attendants. This Boeing 767 is also hijacked and diverted to New York.

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8:01 a.m. United Airlines Flight 93, a Boeing 757 carrying 38 passengers, two pilots, and five flight attendants, leaves Newark, N.J., for San Francisco.

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8:10 a.m. American Airlines Flight 77 departs Washington's Dulles International Airport for Los Angeles, carrying 58 passengers, two pilots, and four flight attendants. The Boeing 757 is hijacked after takeoff.

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8:46 a.m. American Flight 11 from Boston crashes into the North Tower at the World Trade Center.

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9:03 a.m. United Flight 175 from Boston crashes into the South Tower at the World Trade Center. U.S. Federal Aviation Administration shuts down all New York area airports.

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9:21 a.m. Bridges and tunnels leading into New York City are closed.

9:25 a.m. All domestic flights are grounded by U.S. Federal Aviation Administration.

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9:45 a.m. American Flight 77 crashes into The Pentagon.

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10:05 a.m. The South Tower at the World Trade Center collapses.

10:05 a.m. The White House is evacuated.

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10:10 a.m. A large section of one side of The Pentagon collapses.

10:10 a.m. United Flight 93 crashes in a wooded area in Pennsylvania, after passengers confront hijackers.

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10:28 a.m. The North Tower at the World Trade Center collapses.

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...sigh...
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2004
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2004
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