In Calendar Form

September 14

1607 The Earls of Tyrone and Tyrconnell flee Ireland for France and Spain, leaving the six counties of Ulster open to the 'plantation,' which lies at the root of today's conflict.

1752 Alberne Unsinn awakens in his bed in Lächerlicher, Pennsylvania, and sets about his morning routine. For a reason he cannot explain, he feels unusually content with his lot this particular morning, and finishes his chores well before breakfast. If not for the lingering memories of a dream, something to do with a leap-frog and a yearling, all would be well indeed. (See Feb 29)

1752 The last 11 days disappear as England and the American colonies adopt the Gregorian calendar. "After the unification of the Papacy in Rome, in the fifteenth century, Popes began to consider calendar reform. After several false starts, a commission under the leadership of the Jesuit mathematician and astronomer Christoph Clavius (1537-1612) succeeded. Several technical changes were instituted having to do with the calculation of Easter, but the main change was simple.

In 1582 Pope Gregory XIII (hence the name Gregorian Calendar) ordered ten days (1 added later to make 11) to be dropped from October, thus restoring the vernalequinox at least to an average of the 20th of March, close to what it had been at the time of the Council of Nicea. In order to correct for the loss of one day every 130 years, the new calendar dropped three leap years every 400 years..." Note: Riots occur in many places as the calendar reform is ill-understood by the mostly illiterate populace, who assume that the government and/or church have succeded in stealing 11 days from their lives; especially if ones birthday or any other significant anniversary happens to fall within the eradicated time period. (A ridiculous few even believe they lived those 11 days in an alternate reality, not unlike the modern day phenomenon of alien abductions.) It doesn't help matters when landlords refuse to prorate monthly rents, or lenders bring default charges on debtors in a like spirit.

1759 'A journey through Europe' or the 'play of geography,' the earliest dated English board game, goes on sale.

1812 War of 1812: Napoleon's troops capture and occupy Moscow, which is set on fire by Russians.

1814 Francis Scott Key had composed the lyrics to The Star-Spangled Banner after witnessing the massive British bombardment of Fort McHenry in Maryland during the War of 1812. Key, an American lawyer and social worker, watches the siege while under detainment on a British ship, and pens the famous words after observing that the US flag over Fort McHenry had survived the 1,800-bomb assault. After beginning circulation this day as a handbill, the patriotic lyrics will be published in a Baltimore newspaper on 20 September 1814. Key's words are later set to the tune of "To Anacreon in Heaven," a popular English song. Throughout the nineteenth century, "The Star-Spangled Banner" is regarded as the national anthem by the US armed forces and other groups, but it is not until 1916, and the signing of an executive order by President Woodrow Wilson, that it is formally designated as such. In 1931, the US Congress will pas an act confirming Wilson's presidential order, and on 3 March President Hoover will sign it into law.

1847 Mexican-American War: US forces finalize their control of Mexico City under the leadership of General Winfield Scott.

1852 Death: The Duke of Wellington, at Walmer Castle in Kent; British military commander, victor at Waterloo, statesman and Tory prime minister, at 83.

1901 Death: President William McKinley, from wounds suffered when he was shot last week in Buffalo, New York. McKinley is the third US President to be assassinated. The fatal incident occurred at the Pan-American Exhibition in Buffalo on 7 September. As the President greeted admirers he was shot at pointblank range by Leon Czolgosz, the son of Polish immigrants. The mantle of the presidency is passed to the vice-president, Theodore Roosevelt, who at age 42 becomes the 26th US president.

1902 Angela Hitler (left), Adolf's half-sister, marries Leo Raubal, an Austrian civil servant. Note: The union will produce Geli Raubal, who will commit suicide in Hitler's Munch apartment, and Leo Raubal, Jr., a Bavarian citizen who is the remaining relative of Hitler able to claim the rights to Mein Kampf, among other things. Leo, however, has no desire to make the claim. which would involve suing the Bavarian government, which now controls said rights. Even though the legacy is worth millions, Leo wants no part of it whatsoever. His final words on the subject are, "I just want to be left alone."

1911 Russian Prime Minister Pyotyr Stolypin is assassinated while watching an opera with the Czar in Kiev. The assassin, Dmitri Bogrov, is said to be a terrorist, but is later discovered to be a police agent.

1914 WW1: General Moltke, blamed for the failure at the Marne and with violating the Schlieffen Plan, is relieved by the Kaiser and ordered to report to Berlin. He is replaced by General Erich von Falkenhayn (above).

1918 WW1: Pershing's American forces continue their drive on the Saint-Mihiel salient.

1921 Adolf Hitler physically attacks political opponent Otto Ballerstedt, and is later sentenced to a month in jail.

1927 Death: American dancer Isadora Duncan is strangled by her scarf in Nice when the fringe catches in the wheel of her Bugatti sports car.

1930 The Nazis become Germany's second largest party. 107 National Socialist deputies are elected to the Reichstag (Hitler receives 6,406,000 votes: 20%). The Social Democrats remain the largest party in the Reichstag.

1933 The Ministry of Education in Holland establishes a numerous clauses based on race for foreign students attending Dutch universities.

1935 Italy rejects a League of Nations compromise on the Abyssinian (Ethiopian) crisis.

1936 Press Reaction to Hitler's September 12 Speech: "There was no expression of a wish to acquire these resources (Russian) and there was distinctly no threat. Yet when the cheers that greeted this passage had died away one was conscious that a thought had been cast into the pool of German mentality and that the ripples created by it might spread far indeed....To the shop stewards and factory leaders there assembled Hitler spoke extemporaneously and at length, quite simply; his voice rising at times to passionate earnestness."--New York Times

1936 Spanish Revolution: After a majority of the Spanish Catholic hierarchy has sided with General Franco and called for a crusade against Communism, Pope Pius XI gives his blessing to "those who have assumed the difficult and dangerous task of defending and restoring the rights and honor of Church and religion." (Lewy)

1936 Hitler makes the closing speech at the Nuremburg Party Rally. "These are only some of the grounds for the antagonisms which separate us from communism. I confess: these antagonisms cannot be bridged. Here are really two worlds that do but grow further apart from each other and can never unite. When in an English newspaper a Parliamentarian complains that we wish to divide Europe into two parts, then unfortunately we are bound to inform this Robinson Crusoe living on his happy British Island that - however unwelcome it may be - this division is already an accomplished fact.... That one should refuse to see a thing does not mean that it is not there. For many a year in Germany I have been laughed to scorn as a prophet; for many a year my warnings and my prophecies were regarded as the illusions of a mind diseased..."

1936 Press Reaction to Hitler's September 14 Speech: "Against a background of marching troops and massed airplanes the fourth official rally of the National Socialist party will be brought to an end at Nuremberg today, and a murmur of relief will surely rise from the lips of all who hope and work for the pacification of Europe.... Herr Hitler alternated between invocations of peace and a call to stand fast against the Russian terror, which must bring to many minds the former warnings of the ex-Kaiser against the Yellow peril. . .From the Fuehrer himself downwards it has always been a stock theme of Nazi writings and oratory that Germany ought to have more territory to the East in which to hold her cramped population. The alarm of the two countries (France and Russia) and their determination to help each other is therefore wholly understandable…"--London Times

1938 The Graf Zepplin II (VS-300), the largest airship ever built, departs Germany on its maiden voyage. Note: The craft is partially designed on helicopter technology patented by Igor Sikorsky.

1940 The Selective Service Act is passed by the US Congress providing the first peacetime draft in United States.

1940 A formal understanding between the Romanian Legionary Movement and General Ion Antonescu is sanctioned by King Michael and a National Legionary State is proclaimed. Ion Antonescu becomes President; Horia Sima, Vice President and Commandant of the Legionary Movement and Prince Michael Sturdza, Minister of Foreign Affairs.

1939-1945

1960 The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) is founded, with core members Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Venezuela.

1975 Rembrandt's 'The Night Watch' is slashed a dozen times in an attack in Amsterdam.

1982 Bashir Gemayel, Lebanon's president-elect, is killed by a bomb at his party's headquarters in east Beirut.

1983 The US House of Representatives votes 416-0 in a resolution condemning the Soviet Union for the shooting down of a Korean jet on September 1.

1985 Reverend Benjamin Weir, an American missionary, is released after being held captive for 16 months by Shiite Muslim kidnappers in Lebanon.

1998 Israel announces that they have successfully tested the Arrow-2 missile defense system.

2001 Offices, shops and factories across the UK fall silent for three minutes as Britian mourns the victims of the US terrorist attacks.

2002 The UN is ready to set a deadline for Iraq to readmit weapons inspectors, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw proclaims.

2002 US President Bush meets with the Prime Minister of Italy at the ill-named Camp David facility in the dismal state of Maryland.

2003

2004

2004

2004