In Calendar Form

September 29

1066 William the Conqueror completes the landing of a Norman force in southern England and begins his campaign against King Harold.

1197 Death: Emperor Henry VI, in Messina, Sicily.

1349 The people of Krems, Austria accuse Jews of poisoning the wells and causing the 'Black Plague' then ravaging parts of Europe. While it is difficult to establish just how many Jews die in the inevitable massacre, it is documented that 92 survivors eventually find safe haven in Vienna.

1364 Battle of Auray: English forces defeat the French at Brittany.

1399 The first British monarch to abdicate, Richard II, surrenders without a fight to Bolingbroke. Richard's cousin, Henry of Lancaster, declares himself king under the name Henry IV.

1650 Henry Robinson opens the first marriage bureau in England.

1755 Birth: Robert Lord Clive (Clive of India), will found the British empire in India.

1758 Birth: Lord Horatio Nelson, in Burnham Thorpe, England. British naval commander at the Battle of Trafalgar, Nelson will defeat the French and her allies on numerous occasions.

1785 The Chaidic sect in Cracow, Poland, is excommunicated.

1789 The first US Congress adjourns after voting to create and establish a US army of several hundred men.

1803 The first Roman Catholic Church in Boston is formally dedicated. Catholics had not been permitted any religious freedom within this predominantly Puritan colony prior to the Massachusetts Constitution of 1780.

1829 Scotland Yard: Britain's first police force is founded by Home Secretary Sir Robert Peel. They are nicknamed Bobbies or Peelers after Sir Robert Peel and are met with jeers from political opponents.

1833 A civil war breaks out in Spain between Carlisists, who believe Don Carlos deserves the throne, and supporters of Queen Isabella.

1838 Birth: Henry Hobson Richardson, US Romanesque revival architect.

1853 The Emigrant ship "Annie Jane" sinks off Scotland, drowning 348 people.

1859 A great auroral display is seen in the US.

1864 US Civil War: Union troops capture the Confederate Fort Harrison, outside Petersburg, Virginia.

1879 Dissatisfied Ute Indians kill Agent Nathan Meeker and nine others in the "Meeker Massacre".

1895 Death: Louis Pasteur.

1900 Boer War: Lord Kitchener replaces General Roberts as Commander-in-Chief.

1901 Birth: Enrico Fermi, Italian-born US physicist who will lead the group which creates the first man-made nuclear chain reaction. (Nobel-1938).

1902 Birth: Miguel Alemin, president of Mexico (1946-52).

1907 Construction begins on the Washington National Cathedral.

1913 Death: Rudolf Diesel, inventor of the diesel engine, apparently drowns after he mysteriously disappears from the mail steamer Dresden while crossing the English Channel. Legend has it that he is carrying secret plans for a new engine that runs on nothing but pure water.

1913 Treaty of Constantinople: Turkey recovers the greater part of the province of Adrianople from Bulgaria.

1918 WW1: General Ludendorff declares that a true democratic constitutional monarchy is to be setup 'overnight.'

1918 WW1: Bulgaria asks for and receives an armistice.

1921 Volkishness: Brockhusen's constitution for the Germanenorden is accepted, providing for a complex organization of grades, rings, and provincial "citadels (Burgen) supposed to generate secrecy for a nationwide system of local groups having many links with militant völkisch associations, including the Deutschvölkischer Schutz und Trutzbund. (Bundesarchiv, Koblenz; Roots)

1930 The Boqueren battle ends the Paraguay border dispute.

1932 A five-day work week is established for General Motors workers.

1933 Holocaust: Hitler excludes all Jews from agriculture and establishes the Reich Chambers of Culture, instituting mandatory guilds for employees in the fields of film, theater, music, the fine arts and journalism under the control of Joseph Goebbels (above), who prohibits Jews from joining the guilds, and thus, from working. (Apparatus)

1933 The Dutch government sponsors a resolution urging the League of Nations to formulate plans for an international solution to the German refugee problem.

1934 Italy reaffirms the 1928 friendship treaty with (Abyssinia) Ethiopia.

1938 The Munich Conference: On this first day of the conference, Britain and France (Czechoslovakia's supposed allies) quickly agree to turn over Czechoslovakia's Sudetenland to Hitler, who in return promises to make no further territorial demands in Europe. Czechoslovakia is excluded from participation in the conference as demanded by Hitler and Mussolini. Note: Unlike Austria, Czechoslovakia is a democratic state, and its president, Eduard Benes, is prepared to militarily resist Hitler's demands, but decides it is hopeless without British and French assistance.

1939 WW2: Germany and the Soviet Union officially partition Poland per their previous agreements.

1939 Diary of Leon Gladun: 3 days [...] to Shepetovka [...]. In the morning at the train station we see so many Polish soldiers. ...look at newspaper pictures such as: "No change in the West." Our old guys get happy as children whenever anything happens, when they're given something or get some relief. Generally the further we travel the better things get somehow. Except that we've gotten so sick of that canned carp that we can't eat anymore. We're heading for Kiev. Note: Leon and thousands of officers have been loaded into rail boxcars and are being shipped to an unknown destination on a trip that will take almost two weeks and even go through Moscow.

1939 WW2: Food rationing is strongly enforced in Czechoslovakia.

1939 Holocaust: Nazi officials initiate the euthanasia program in occupied Poland. Thousands of mental patients, the chronically ill and the feeble are murdered by "medical teams."

1941 Holocaust: More than 30,000 Jews are machine-gunned at Babi Yar, a ravine on the outskirts of Kiev, by an SS killing squad aided by Ukrainian militiamen. (Atlas)

1943 Adolf Hitler's book Mein Kampf is published in the United States.

1943 Birth: Lech Walesa, in Popowo, Poland, Polish labor leader who will found the Solidarity party and later become the president of Poland. (Nobel 1983).

1943 WW2: US Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower and Italian Marchal Pietro Badoglio sign an armistice aboard the British ship Nelson.

1947 Nuremberg War Crimes Trials: Tribunal II of the War Crimes trials begins in Nuremberg. 24 SS defendants including SS Colonel Otto Ohlendorf appear before Justice Michael A. Musmanno, President Judge of the tribunal.

1950 Korea: General Douglas MacArthur officially returns Seoul, South Korea, to President Syngman Rhee.

1959 The Sultan of Brunei promulgates a constitution.

1962 US President John F. Kennedy nationalizes the Mississippi National guard in response to city officials defying a federal court order to enroll James Meredith at the University of Mississippi.

1962 Alouette 1, the first Canadian satellite, is launched on a US Delta rocket.

1970 The New American Bible is published by the St. Anthony Guild Press. It represents the first English version Roman Catholic Bible to be translated from the original Biblical Greek and Hebrew languages. The Rheims-Douai Version of 1610 had been based on Jerome's Latin Vulgate.

1977 The Soviet space station Salyut 6 is launched into Earth orbit.

1979 Gold hits a record $400.20 an ounce in Hong Kong.

1982 In Chicago, Illinois, people begin to die from cyanide poisoning, but the source of the poison remains a mystery for two days and five more deaths. On 1 October, authorities will determine that someone bought or stole bottles of Tylenol, laced the popular acetaminophen painkiller with cyanide poison, and replaced the contaminated containers on store shelves around the city. A suspect for the murders is never found, but the tragedy leads to the introduction of safety seals on most consumer products.

1983 The War Powers Act is used for the first time by the US Congress when they authorize President Reagan to keep US Marines in Lebanon for 18 more months.

1986 Nicholas Daniloff, a US journalist that had been held on spying charges, is released by the Soviet Union.

1988 Death: Charles Addams, at 76 of a heart attack; cartoonist, created the Addams Family.

1988 The 26th Space Shuttle mission, Discovery 7, is launched.

1988 UN peacekeeping forces win the Nobel Peace prize.

1990 In Washington, DC, the magnificent Washington National Cathedral is completed after 83 years of construction. Its official name is the Cathedral Church of St. Peter and St. Paul.

Begun this day in 1907, the Gothic edifice had been used in its incomplete form since 1912. Note: It is the most impressive building this writer has ever walked through.

1993 Bosnia's parliament votes overwhelmingly to reject an international peace plan unless Bosnian Serbs return land that had been taken by force.

1994 The End of the Three Martini Lunch: The US House votes to end the practice of lobbyist buying meals and entertainment for members of Congress.

1995 Three US servicemen are indicted on rape charges concerning a 12-year-old Okinawan girl and are handed over to Japanese authorities.

1998 Hasbro announces plans to introduce an action figure of retired US General Colin Powell.

2000 Civil rights campaigners urge the UK Government to heed the House of Lords, which voted to reject a Bill scrapping the right to choose a trial by jury.

2001 In a national radio address, President Bush says the nation's defense against more attacks will be
to "aggressively and methodically" disrupt and destroy terrorism.

2001 Thousands rally in Washington, DC, San Francisco, and Barcelona, Spain to discourage armed retaliation. Antiwar protests draw hundreds in Austin, Texas, and Athens, Greece.

2001 The United Nations resumes food shipments to prevent starvation in Afghanistan.

2001 UK journalist Yvonne Ridley is seized by the Taliban in Afghanistan.

2001

2002

2004

2004

2004

2004