In Calendar Form

September 23

484BC Birth: Euripides, Greek playwright, (Trojan Women).

63BC Birth: Augustus Caesar (Octavian), first Roman Emperor (27 BC-14 AD), will introduce Pax Romana, the era of peace.

1122 The Concordat of Worms is reached between Pope Callistus II and Holy Roman Emperor Henry V, settling the Investiture Controversy over who has the right, bishop or emperor, to choose replacement clergy for vacant positions in church offices.

1459 Wars of the Roses: The Yorkists defeat the Lancastrians at the Battle of Blore Heath.

1553 The Sadians defeat the last of their enemies and establish themselves as rulers of Morocco.

1561 Philip II of Spain gives orders to halt colonizing efforts in Florida.

1577 William of Orange makes his triumphant entry into Brussels, Belgium.

1595 Spain launches an intensive missionary campaign in the American Southeast. During the following two years, about 1,500 American Indians are converted to the Catholic faith.

1642 The first commencement at Harvard College, in Cambridge, MA.

1667 In Williamsburg, Virginia, a law is passed, barring slaves from obtaining their freedom by converting to Christianity.

1719 Liechtenstein becomes an independent principality within the Holy Roman Empire.

1739 The Austrians sign the Treaty of Belgrade after having lost the city to the Turks.

1745 Birth: John Sevier, in Tennessee, indian fighter, (Governor-R-Tennessee).

1779 US Revolutionary War: The Father of the US Navy, Captain John Paul Jones, commander of the American warship Bonhomme Richard, leads a stunning victory over the British warship, HMS Serapis. Jones engages the British frigate in the North Sea, sailing in daringly close, lashing his vessel to the British ship, and fighting the battle at pointblank range.

During the fight two of his cannon burst, and the British captain asks Jones if he is ready to surrender. Replies Jones: "Sir, I have not yet begun to fight." The American crew finally boards the Serapis after the British had struck her colors, and from the deck of the Serapis they watch the USS Bonhomme Richard sink into the North Sea.

1780 US Revolutionary War: British agent Major John Andre is captured with papers revealing that Benedict Arnold is going to surrender West Point, NY, to the British.

1788 Louis XVI of France declares the Parliament restored.

1795 A national plebiscite approves the new French constitution, but the results are suspect.

1800 Birth: William Holmes McGuffey, author, educator; will be famous for his book Eclectic Readers, or McGuffey Readers. Above: Henry Ford, during a visit to the McGuffey birthplace, does a little eclectic reading.

1803 British forces under British Major General Sir Arthur Wellesley defeat the army of the Sindhia of Gwalior at Assaye, India, in the second British-Mahratta War.

1805 Lieutenant Zebulon Pike pays the Sioux $2,000 for a 9-square-mile tract at the mouth of the Minnesota River that will be used to establish a military post: Fort Snelling.

1806 Lewis and Clark: Meriwether Lewis and William Clark arrive back in St. Louis, from the first return expedition to the US Pacific coast. The journey of the Corps of Discovery had lasted two years and four months.

1817 Spain signs a treaty with Britain to end slave trade.

1819 Birth: French physicist Armand Fizeau. Will be the first to measure the speed of light successfully without using astronomical calculations.

1838 Birth: Victoria Chaflin Woodhull, feminist, reformer, free love, the first woman presidential candidate (1872) in the United States.

1846 The planet Neptune is discovered by astronomers Johann Gottfried Galle and Heinrich Louis d'Arrest. It is no great surprise. The existence of Neptune had been predicted earlier by Jean Joseph Le Verrier and John Adams Couch who, working independently, used mathematical calculations of planetary orbits to make their prediction.

1848 John Curtis produces the first commercially available chewing-gum, which he calls State of Maine Pure Spruce Gum.

1852 Birth: William Stewart Halsted, will establish the first US surgical school and introduce operations for hernia and breast cancer.

1862 US Civil War: President Lincoln's Emancipation is published in Northern Newspapers.

1863 Birth: Mary Church Terrell, educator and civil rights advocate.

1863 US Civil War: The Confederate siege of Chattanooga begins.

1864 US Civil War: Confederate and Union forces clash at Mount Jackson, Front Royal, and Woodstock in Virginia, during the Valley campaign.

1865 Birth: Baroness Emmuska Orczy, author of The Scarlet Pimpernel.

1868 In a revolt known as the Lares Cry ("Grito de Lares"), the Republic of Puerto Rico is proclaimed. The uprising uses a plantation in the town of Lares belonging to Manuel Rojas as headquarters. The revolt fails because of lack of popular support and because the Spanish authorities knew about the revolt in advance.

1877 Death: Urbain JJ Leverrier, co-predictor of Neptune.

1879 A Baldwin steam motors tram is first tried in Sydney, Australia.

1880 Birth: John Boyd Orr, nutritionist, UN's FAO (Nobel 1949).

1889 Birth: Walter Lippmann, in New York City; journalist, political writer (Men of Destiny), one of the founders of The New Republic Magazine in 1914.

1900 Birth: Louise Nevelson, US sculptor, (Sky Cathedral).

1914 WW1: British Air Command bombs Dusseldorf.

1915 Birth: Clifford G. Shull, physicist, will improve techniques for exploring the atomic structure of matter.

1915 Volkishness: A circular of the Franconian Germanenorden clarifies its aims, rules and rituals. The principal aim of the order is the monitoring of the Jews and their activities by the creation of a center to which all antisemitic material would flow for distribution. Subsidiary aims include mutual aid of brothers in respect to business introductions, contracts and finance. Lastly, all brothers are committed to the circulation of volkisch journals, especially the Hammer, their "sharpest weapon against Jewry and other enemies of the people." Note: The articles of the Germanenorden state that all nationals, male or female, of flawless Germanic descent are eligible for admission. Application forms request details about the color of the applicants hair, eyes and skin. The ideal coloration is blond to dark blond hair, blue to light brown eyes, and pale skin. Details regarding the parents, grandparents and spouse are also required. A guide to recruitment states that physically handicapped or "unpleasant looking" people are barred. (Roots)

1916 Volkishness: Baron Rudolf von Sebottendorff visits Hermann Pohl, leader of the mysterious Germanenorden in Berlin. Pohl tells Sebottendorff he first became interested in the esoteric study of the runes through Guido von List (above), and that he is convinced racial miscegenation, especially with Jews, was responsible for obscuring the "Aryan's" knowledge of the mystical powers of the runes. Pohl says he believes this gnosis can be revived once the race has been purified of foreign contamination. (Sebottendorff; Roots)

1919 Walter Riehl sends copies of the Austrian Nazi program to Anton Drexler, chairman of the German DAP. Riehl suggests that Drexler change the name of his German organization to coincide with that of Riehl's Austrian Nazi party (DNSAP). (Forgotten Nazis)

1922 Hitler gives a rousing speech indicative of his early style. "Then some one has said: 'Since the Revolution the people have gained "Rights." The people governs!' Strange! The people have now been ruling three years and no one has in practice once asked its opinion. Treaties were signed which will hold us down for centuries: and who has signed the treaties? The people? No!..."

1932 The Kingdom of Hejaz and Nejd is renamed the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

1933 Nazi Eugenics: Genetic Health Courts are organized set up through out Germany. Beginning in January 1934, they will eventually order the sterilization of almost 400,000 German citizens. (32,268 during 1934; 73,174 in 1935; 63,547 in 1936. In the US 60,166 people were sterilized from 1907-1958) (Lewy)

1933 Karl Maria Weisthor (Wiligut) joins the SS under the pseudonym Karl Maria Weisthor and is appointed head of a department for Prehistory and Early History within the SS Race and Resettlement Main Office in Munich. He had earlier been personally introduced to Himmler by his old friend Richard Anders.

1936 Karl Maria Weisthor (Wiligut) is promoted to SS-Brigadefuehrer (Brigadier) on Himmler's personal staff. Note: An undated typescript in the Bundesarchiv in Koblenz is a blueprint for the reestablishment of the Irminist religion in Germany, with detailed provisions for restrictions on the priesthood, the nationalization of all ecclesiastical property, and the restoration and conservation of ancient monuments. (Roots)

1938 Sudeten Crisis: Jewish synagogues at Cheb and Marienbad in Czechoslovakia are burned by German-speaking citizens of the Sudetenland. The new Czech government mobilizes its army. (Atlas)

1938 Sudeten Crisis: Mussolini offers to mediate the Czechoslovakian crisis. A conference is called to settle the issue at Munich, setting the stage for an Anglo-French sellout of Czechoslovakia, whose representatives are not even invited to attend.

1938 A time capsule, to be opened in 6939, is buried at the World's Fair in New York City. The capsule contains a woman's hat, a man's pipe and 1,100ft of microfilm.

1939 Holocaust: All German Jews are ordered to turn in their radios to the local police. (Persecution)

1939 Death: Sigmund Freud, at 83, induced by an intentional morphine overdose after decades of pain and suffering due to mouth cancer.

1940 WW2: The George Cross, the highest British civilian award for acts of courage, is instituted.

1939 WW2: Mussolini makes a speech stating that there is no reason to continue the war now that the Polish question has been settled.

1939 Diary of Leon Gladun: (Poland) After a few days I'm writing further. So many unbelievable events have unfolded that it all seems like a dream! It's simply unbelievable! After returning to the barracks at Wlodzimierz Wolynski on September 19, we went to sleep. In the morning we awake to bad news: the barracks are surrounded by Russian tanks. So many of our soldiers, horses, weapons--all of it given up without a single shot. We had an order to lay down our arms and a promise that whoever wants to leave could do so. Jozek and I decided on the West and what remains of the Polish army. But that's bunk as the Soviets have all of us working and carrying water. Note: From September-November the NKVD will ship 15,400 Polish officers to prisons at Kozielsk, Ostashkov and Starobielsk in the USSR. The vast majority will not survive the war.

1939 Holocaust: In Piotrkow, Germans force several thousand Polish POWs, among them Jews, to relieve themselves in a synagogue and to clean the excrement with sacred objects.

1942 Holocaust: The SS launches the "Gehsperre" action designed to make the Lodz ghetto a "working ghetto." All children under 10, all men and women over 60, and the sick or disabled are deported to the death camp at Chelmno. Within two weeks more than 16,000 are gassed. (Atlas)

1943 WW2: Hitler meets with Ion Antonescu and asks him not to receive an anti-Mussolini Italian envoy, and to dismiss Mihai Antonescu. Marshal Antonescu refuses to comply. Above: Ion Antonescu, middle, seen here with Horia Sima, left and Radu Mironovici.

1943 Holocaust: The Vilna ghetto is liquidated by the Germans.

1943 Church and Reich: Ernst von Weizsäcker (above), the new German Ambassador at the Vatican, reports to Berlin that Secretary of State Maglione regards the fate of Europe as dependent upon "the victorious resistance of Germany at the Russian front." If the German armies collapse there, the only possible bulwark against Bolshevism will fall and European civilization will be lost. (Lewy)

1944 WW2: The First Polish Independent Parachute Brigade, under General Stanislaw Sosabowski (above), suffers heavy casualties in capture of the bridge over the Rhine at Arnhem.

1949 President Harry Truman announces evidence of the USSR's first nuclear device detonation.

1950 The US Congress adopts the Internal Security Act, which provides for the registration of communists, though it is later ruled unconstitutional by the US Supreme Court.

1952 Candidate for US vice-president, Senator Richard Nixon, responds on national television to charges of a secret slush fund for his personal use funded by California businessmen. Known as the 'Checkers Speech' due to Nixon's reference to the family dog, Checkers, which the Nixon's had received as a gift. Nixon melodramatically declares that they love the dog and will not give it back. The pathos goes over, somehow, and Nixon is not dropped from the ticket, as many had been urging Eisenhower for weeks. The two, though successful partners for two terms, are never close.

1954 East German police arrest 400 citizens as US spies.

1956 Britain and France refer the Suez Canal dispute to the UN Security Council.

1957 Nine black students withdraw from Little Rock Central High School in Arkansas due to the white mob waiting for them outside.

1957 Romania's request to join the Balkan Pact is refused by Greece.

1967 The Soviets sign a pact to send more aid to Hanoi.

1972 Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos declares martial law.

1973 In a remarkable comeback, Juan Domingo Peron is reelected Argentinean president after having been deposed and overthrown almost 18 years earlier in 1955. Peron is an army general who became president of Argentina in 1946, and was greatly aided by his popular wife Evita (Maria Duarte Eva Peron). Peron was ousted by the military in 1955, and went into exile to Spain. His second wife, Isabel, became vice president and succeeded him when he died 10 months later.

1973 The largest known prime number, 2 ^ 132,049-1, is discovered.

1976 The Ford-Carter TV debate is held.

1976 Soyuz 22 returns to Earth.

1976 South Africa decides to allow multiracial teams to represent the country in international sport.

1977 The third test of the Space Shuttle Enterprise.

1978 100,000 cheering Egyptians welcome President Sadat home from the Camp David summit.

1981 The Reagan administration announces plans for what will become known as Radio Marti.

1986 Japanese newspapers quote Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone as saying that 'minorities' lower the 'intelligence level' of America.

1990 Swiss citizens vote to ban the construction of nuclear power plants for the rest of the century but not to abandon nuclear power altogether.

1990 Desert Sheild: Iraq publicly threatens to destroy Middle East oil fields and to attack Israel if any nation tries to force it from Kuwait.

1991 Armenia declares its independence from the Soviet Union.

1991 UN weapons inspectors find documents detailing Iraq's secret nuclear weapons program. The find in Baghdad triggers a standoff with authorities in Iraq. 44 UN inspectors are detained in Baghdad when they attempt to remove the secret plans for building nuclear weapons.

1992 General Le Duc Anh, Vietnam's top military man and a powerful communist party official, is elected state president by the national assembly.

1993 Blacks are allowed a role in the South African government after a parliamentary vote.

1993 The Israeli parliament ratifies the Israel-PLO accord.

1993 Russian President Boris Yeltin announces presidential elections in June 1994.

1994 The UN Security Council votes to lift some sanctions against the former Yugoslavia.

1999 Russian planes begin three days of attacks on various targets in Chechnya, in response to several deadly bombings in Moscow and other Russian cities, apparently carried out by terrorists from the breakaway republic.

1999 NASA announces it had lost communication with a Mars probe that was to have entered orbit around the Red Planet.

1999 A 17-month-old girl falls 230 feet from the Capilano Suspension Bridge in North Vancouver, British Columbia. The girl has bruises but no broken limbs from the fall onto a rocky ledge.

2001 The United States steps up its mobilization of forces ahead of the 'War on Terror' strike on Afghanistan.

2001 In the aftermath of the terrorist attacks on the US, America remains on increased alert, the hunt for possible suspects continues in the US and troops in Afghanistan search for Osama bin Laden and his terrorist network. The FAA meanwhile halts crop dusting activities, fearing they might be used to spread toxic substances.

2001 US Secretary of State Colin Powell promises to lay out evidence against Osama bin Laden.

2001 Donald Rumsfeld confirms the United States lost contact with an unmanned spy plane over Afghanistan.

2001 The Taliban leadership says it can't find bin Laden to advise him to leave the country. US officials dismiss the claim.

2001 President Bush returns the American flag to full staff at Camp David, symbolically ending the period of national mourning.   

2002 UK Liberal Democrat leader Charles Kennedy warns of the "extreme dangers" of waging war against Saddam Hussein.

2004

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