When Union forces discovered the battle plans of Robert E. Lee for his first invasion of the North on September 13, 1862, it offered Union general George McClellan the chance that all military commanders dream of—he knew the enemy’s plans in advance. He knew where Lee’s troops were and, furthermore, that Lee had split his […]
Month: September 2019
The First Drunk Driving Arrest in History
Today is the anniversary of the first known arrest for drunk driving. On September 10 of 1897, British authorities arrested taxi driver George Smith for drunk driving after he drove his cab into a building. It took a while for the idea to catch on in the United States. New York state passed the first […]
The Attica Prison Riot – Today in History
The largest prison riot in US history, the Attica prison riot, began on September 9, 1971. Attica was a maximum-security prison located in New York State near Buffalo. At the time of the riot it housed 2,200 inmates in a facility meant to hold fewer souls. Besides overcrowding, the grievances of the inmates included censorship, […]
The Anfal Campaign Against the Iraqi Kurds
The Anfal Campaign against the Iraqi Kurds – Today in History. September 7, 1988 is an important day for the ethnic minority Kurdish people of Iraq. September 7 and 8 marked the end of a major military drive by Iraqi forces in the Anfal Campaign against the Iraqi Kurds of northern Iraq. The military operations […]
Juan Sebastian de Elcano Reaches Spain in 1522
One of the great nautical feats of all time was the circumnavigation of the globe by the Ferdinand Magellan expedition. It left port in Spain in 1519, returning to Spain (without Magellan, who died en route) in 1522 under the leadership of a Basque mariner named Juan Sebastian de Elcano. Of the five ships and […]
The War of the Worlds Hoax of 1938
The finale of this brief series on hoaxes in history is about Orson Welles and the War of the Worlds Hoax. It is the most famous of all the hoaxes in my series, so I saved it for last. In 1938, CBS radio has a program titled Mercury Theatre on the Air that broadcast mostly […]