September 5 is the 248th day of the year (249th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 117 days remaining until the end of the year.
Holidays
- Christian feast day:
- Earliest date on which Jeûne genevois can fall, while September 11 is the latest; celebrated on Thursday after the first Sunday of September. (Canton of Geneva)
- International Day of Charity (International)
- Teachers’ Day (India)
History
In 917, Liu Yan declares himself emperor, establishing the Southern Han state in southern China, at his capital of Panyu.
In 1590, Alexander Farnese‘s army forces Henry IV of France to lift the siege of Paris.
In 1638, Queen Anne (of Austria) gives birth after 23 years of marriage to the King of France, to an heir to the throne: Louis XIV, “the Sun King”
In 1661, Fall of Nicolas Fouquet: Louis XIV Superintendent of Finances is arrested in Nantes by D’Artagnan, captain of the king’s musketeers.
In 1664, After days of negotiation, the Dutch settlement of New Amsterdam surrenders to the British, who will rename it New York.
In 1666, Great Fire of London ends: Ten thousand buildings including St Paul’s Cathedral are destroyed, but only six people are known to have died.
In 1697, War of the Grand Alliance : A French warship commanded by Captain Pierre Le Moyne d’Iberville defeated an English squadron at the Battle of Hudson’s Bay.
In 1698, In an effort to Westernize his nobility, Tsar Peter I of Russia imposes a tax on beards for all men except the clergy and peasantry.
In 1725, Wedding of Louis XV and Maria Leszczyńska.
In 1774, First Continental Congress assembles in Philadelphia.
In 1776, The Marine Committee of America standardizes naval uniforms.
In 1781, Battle of the Chesapeake in the American Revolutionary War: The British Navy is repelled by the French Navy, contributing to the British surrender at Yorktown.
In 1793, French Revolution: The French National Convention initiates the Reign of Terror.
In 1798, Conscription is made mandatory in France by the Jourdan law.
In 1812, War of 1812: The Siege of Fort Wayne begins when Chief Winamac‘s forces attack two soldiers returning from the fort’s outhouses.
In 1816, Louis XVIII has to dissolve the Chambre introuvable (“Unobtainable Chamber”).
In 1836, Sam Houston is elected as the first president of the Republic of Texas.
In 1839, The United Kingdom declares war on the Qing dynasty of China.
In 1840, Premiere of Giuseppe Verdi‘s Un giorno di regno at La Scala of Milan.
In 1844, Iron ore is discovered in the Mesabi Mountains in Minnesota.
In 1862, American Civil War: The Potomac River is crossed at White’s Ford in the Maryland Campaign.
In 1862, James Glaisher, pioneering meteorologist and Henry Tracey Coxwell break world record for altitude whilst collecting data in their balloon.
In 1864, François Achille Bazaine becomes Marshal of France.
In 1867, The first shipment of cattle leaves Abilene, Kansas, on a Union Pacific train headed to Chicago.
In 1877, American Indian Wars: Oglala Sioux chief Crazy Horse is bayoneted by a United States soldier after resisting confinement in a guardhouse at Fort Robinson in Nebraska. He was a Native American war leader of the Oglala Lakota in the 19th century. He took up arms against the United States federal government to fight against encroachment by white American settlers on Indian territory and to preserve the traditional way of life of the Lakota people. His participation in several famous battles of the American Indian Wars on the northern Great Plains, among them the Fetterman massacre in 1866, in which he acted as a decoy, and the Battle of the Little Bighorn in 1876, in which he led a war party to victory, earned him great respect from both his enemies and his own people. In September 1877, four months after surrendering to U.S. troops under General George Crook, Crazy Horse was fatally wounded by a bayonet-wielding military guard, while allegedly resisting imprisonment at Camp Robinson in present-day Nebraska. He ranks among the most notable and iconic of Native American warriors and was honored by the U.S. Postal Service in 1982 with a 13¢ Great Americans series postage stamp.
In 1882, The first United States Labor Day parade is held in New York City in accordance with the plans of the Central Labor Union, 10,000 workers marched in the nation’s first Labor Day parade in N.Y. City, sponsored by the Knights of Labor and organized by Peter McGuire. The Central Labor Union held its second Labor Day holiday just a year later, on September 5, l883.
In 1885, the first gasoline pump, invented by Jake D. Gumper, was delivered to a gasoline dealer in Ft. Wayne, Ind.
In 1887, A fire at Theatre Royal in Exeter, England kills 186.
In 1905, Russo-Japanese War: In New Hampshire, United States, the Treaty of Portsmouth, mediated by U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt, ends the war.
In 1906, The first legal forward pass in American football is thrown by Bradbury Robinson of St. Louis University to teammate Jack Schneider in a 22–0 victory over Carroll College (Wisconsin).
In 1910, Marie Curie demonstrates the transformation of radium ore to metal at the Academy of Sciences in France.
In 1914, World War I: First Battle of the Marne begins. Northeast of Paris, the French attack and defeat German forces who are advancing on the capital.
In 1915, The pacifist Zimmerwald Conference begins.
In 1918, The original publication of the Cheka decree, “On Red Terror“.
In 1920, Robert Harron, American actor (b. 1893) dies of an wound received in an accidental shooting. He was an American motion picture actor of the early silent film era. Although he acted in over 200 films, he is known for his roles in the D.W. Griffith directed films The Birth of a Nation (1915) and Intolerance (1916). Harron was the older brother of film actors John Harron and Mary Harron.
Harron was noticed by newly hired director D.W. Griffith. Harron quickly became a favorite of Griffith and Griffith began to give the 14-year-old increasingly larger film roles. His first film for Griffith was the 1909 short crime drama The Lonely Villa. The teenaged Harron was often cast by Griffith in the role of the “sensitive” and “naïve” boy, who was overwhelmingly sympathetic and appealing to American film-goers in the very early years of American motion pictures and not far removed from Harron’s real-life persona; Harron was often described as a quiet and soft-spoken youth. It was these traits that helped garner much public interest in the young actor, especially amongst young female fans. In 1912 alone, Robert Harron appeared in nearly forty films at Biograph.
Harron is probably best recalled for his roles in the three epic Griffith films: 1914’s Judith of Bethulia, opposite Blanche Sweet, Mae Marsh, Henry B. Walthall and Dorothy and Lillian Gish, 1915’s controversial all-star cast The Birth of a Nation, and 1916’s colossal multi-scenario Intolerance opposite such popular stars of the era Lillian Gish, Mae Marsh, Miriam Cooper, Wallace Reid, Harold Lockwood, Carol Dempster and Mildred Harris. One of Harron’s most popular roles of the era came in 1919 when he starred opposite Lillian Gish in the Griffith directed romantic film True Heart Susie.
Robert Harron’s film career continued to flourish throughout the 1910s and he was occasionally paired with leading actresses Mae Marsh and Lillian Gish with romantic plots, often in roles that cemented his “sensitive boy” image. Harron had, in fact, a burgeoning off-screen romantic relationship with Dorothy Gish. By 1920, Harron had grown too old to continue playing the juvenile roles that had launched his career. He began losing leading man roles to Richard Barthelmess. Later that year, D.W. Griffith agreed to loan Harron to Metro Pictures for a four-picture deal. His first film for Metro, also the last film of his career, was the comedy Coincidence. The film was released in 1921, after Harron’s death.
In 1921, Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle party in San Francisco ends with the death of the young actress Virginia Rappe: One of the first scandals of the Hollywood community.
In 1927, The first Oswald the Lucky Rabbit cartoon, Trolley Troubles, produced by Walt Disney, is released by Universal Pictures.
In 1932, The French Upper Volta is broken apart between Ivory Coast, French Sudan, and Niger.
In 1937, Spanish Civil War: Llanes falls to the Nationalists following a one-day siege.
In 1938, Chile: A group of youths affiliated with the fascist National Socialist Movement of Chile are assassinated in the Seguro Obrero massacre.
In 1939, The United States proclaimed its neutrality in World War II.
In 1941, Whole territory of Estonia is occupied by Nazi Germany.
In 1942, World War II: Japanese high command orders withdrawal at Milne Bay, the first major Japanese defeat in land warfare during the Pacific War.
In 1943, World War II: The 503rd Parachute Infantry Regiment lands and occupies Lae Nadzab Airport, near Lae in the Salamaua–Lae campaign.
In 1944, Belgium, Netherlands and Luxembourg constitute Benelux.
In 1944, “Mad Tuesday” 65,000 Dutch Nazi collaborators flee to Germany.
In 1944, Germany launches its first V-2 missile at Paris, France.
In 1945, Cold War: Igor Gouzenko, a Soviet Union embassy clerk, defects to Canada, exposing Soviet espionage in North America, signalling the beginning of the Cold War.
In 1945, Iva Toguri D’Aquino, a Japanese American suspected of being wartime radio propagandist Tokyo Rose, is arrested in Yokohama. Convicted of treason because she was still a U.S. citizen, D’Aquino served six years in prison; she was pardoned in 1977 by President Ford.
In 1948, In France, Robert Schuman becomes President of the Council while being Foreign minister, As such, he is the negotiator of the major treaties of the end of World War II.
In 1950, North Korean troops make their farthest advance south during the Korean War.
In 1950, Beetle Bailey, a Comic Strip by Mort Walker, debuts in newspapers.
In 1953, the first privately operated atomic reactor goes on line in Raleigh, N.C.
In 1957, Cuban Revolution: Fulgencio Batista bombs the revolt in Cienfuegos.
In 1957, On the Road, a novel by American writer Jack Kerouac, is published.
In 1958, Martin Luther King is arrested in an Alabama protest for loitering and fined $14 for refusing to obey police.
In 1958, The novel “Doctor Zhivago” by Russian author Boris Pasternak was published in the United States for the first time. The novel was first published in 1957 in Italy (in Russian), thanks to the publisher Giangiacomo Feltrinelli, who had smuggled the manuscript out of the USSR.
In 1960, The poet Léopold Sédar Senghor is elected as the first President of Senegal.
In 1960, Muhammad Ali (then Cassius Clay) wins the gold medal in the light heavyweight boxing competition at the Olympic Games in Rome.
In 1961, President Kennedy signed a law against hijacking making it a federal offense (death penalty).
In 1966, Jerry Lewis’ 1st Muscular Dystrophy telethon raises $15,000.
In 1969, My Lai Massacre: U.S. Army Lieutenant William Calley is charged with six specifications of premeditated murder for the death of 109 Vietnamese civilians in My Lai.
In 1970, Vietnam War: Operation Jefferson Glenn begins: The United States 101st Airborne Division and the South Vietnamese 1st Infantry Division initiate a new operation in Thừa Thiên–Huế Province.
In 1970, Jochen Rindt becomes the only driver to posthumously win the Formula One World Drivers’ Championship (in 1970), after being killed in practice for the Italian Grand Prix.
In 1970, Columbia changes homosexual behavior from a felony to a misdemeanor, with a maximum penalty of “only three years.”
In 1972, Munich massacre: A Palestinian terrorist group called “Black September” attacks and takes hostage 11 Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympic Games. Two die in the attack and nine die the following day.
In 1972, Jerry Lewis’ 7th Muscular Dystrophy telethon, John & Yoko appear.
In 1973, White House aide John Ehrlichman, and G. Gordon Liddy are indicted along with two others for stealing Daniel Ellsberg’s psychiatric records.
In 1975, President Gerald Ford escaped an attempt on his life by Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme, a disciple of Charles Manson, in Sacramento, California.
In 1975, Sacramento, California: Lynette Fromme attempts to assassinate U.S. President Gerald Ford.
In 1977, Hanns Martin Schleyer is kidnapped in Cologne, West Germany by the Red Army Faction and is later murdered.
n 1977, Voyager program: Voyager 1 is launched after a brief delay.
In 1978, Camp David Accords: Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat begin peace discussions at Camp David, Maryland.
In 1979, Canada puts its 1st gold bullion coin on sale.
In 1980, The Gotthard Road Tunnel opens in Switzerland as the world’s longest highway tunnel at 10.14 miles (16.32 km) stretching from Göschenen to Airolo.
In 1980, The Prime Interest Rate went to 12.0 percent
In 1983, in a broadcast address, President Reagan denounced the Soviet Union for shooting down a Korean Air Lines Boeing 747 with 269 people aboard, and demanded the Soviets pay reparations.
In 1984, STS-41-D: The Space Shuttle Discovery lands after its maiden voyage.
In 1984, Western Australia becomes the last Australian state to abolish capital punishment.
In 1984, The space shuttle Discovery completed its maiden flight as it landed at Edwards Air Force Base in California.
In 1986, Pan Am Flight 73 with 358 people on board is hijacked at Karachi International Airport. Twenty-one people were killed and dozens wounded after four hijackers who had seized a Pan Am jumbo jet in Karachi, Pakistan, opened fire when the lights inside the plane failed.
In 1987, some four-dozen people were killed in an Israeli air raid on targets near the southern Lebanese port town of Sidon. In his weekly radio address, President Reagan urged American workers to shun protectionist legislation and “meet the competition head-on.”
In 1988, on the campaign trail, Republican George Bush continued to link his opponent with “the liberal left,” while Democrat Michael Dukakis charged that under a GOP administration, “the rich have become richer, the poor have gotten poorer.”
In 1989, In his first nationally broadcast address from the White House, President Bush outlined a plan to fight illicit drugs, which he called the “quicksand of our entire society.”
In 1990, Sri Lankan Civil War: Sri Lankan Army soldiers slaughter 158 civilians.
In 1990, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein urged Arabs to rise up in a Holy War against the West and former allies who had turned against him.
In 1991, The current international treaty defending indigenous peoples, Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention, 1989, comes into force.
In 1991, US trial of former Panamanian leader Manuel Noriega begins.
In 1991, six BCCI officials and a Medellin drug cartel leader were charged with laundering cocaine profits through the bank from 1983 to 1989.
In 1992, a strike that had idled nearly 43,000 General Motors Corp. workers ended as members of a United Auto Workers local in Lordstown, Ohio, approved a new agreement.
In 1993, Seven Nigerian soldiers were killed in a militia ambush in Somalia as they went to the aid of other UN peacekeepers surrounded by a stone-throwing mob.
In 1994, a U-N-sponsored population conference opened in Egypt, with Norwegian Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland lashing out at the Vatican and Muslim fundamentalists by defending abortion rights and sex education.
In 1995, France ends its three-year moratorium on nuclear tests and sets off an underground nuclear blast on Mururoa Atoll in the South Pacific.
In 1996, Russian President Boris Yeltsin acknowledged he had serious health problems and would undergo heart surgery.
In 1996, Hurricane Fran makes landfall near Cape Fear, North Carolina as a Category 3 storm with 115 mph sustained winds. Fran caused over $3 billion in damage and killed 27 people.
In 1997, Britain’s Queen Elizabeth the Second broke the royal reticence over Princess Diana’s death, calling her “a remarkable person” in a televised address.
In 1997, Mother Teresa died in Calcutta, India, at age 87.
In 1998, President Clinton appealed to the people of Ireland never to allow “the enemies of peace to break your will” as he wrapped up a three-day visit.
In 1998, The Million Youth March in New York City ended with a clash between police and the crowd.
In 1999, Hundreds of Islamic insurgents launched a new offensive in southern Russia, hours after a bomb smashed a building housing Russian military families; the blast was the first of four apartment building explosions blamed by Russian officials on Chechen rebels that killed a total of about 300 people.
In 2007, The guilty plea of Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho) adds to the lengthening list of Republican criminals. The allegations of Craig’s homosexual liaisons in public restrooms, still simply hearsay and inference, strike some Senate leaders as unsurprising. This recalls the same questions that arose following the Mark Foley scandal: Why did Republicans let him stick around and give him leadership roles if they knew? What other surprises were Republicans keeping in the closet? Craig’s potential un-resignation causes more headaches, but the GOP Senate leadership signals it will flex its muscle to force Craig out as soon as possible.
In 2012, A firecracker factory explodes near Sivakasi, Tamil Nadu, killing 40 and injuring 50 others.
In 2016, Phyllis Schlafly, American lawyer, writer, and political activist (b. 1924) dies of cancer on September 5, 2016, at her home in Ladue, Missouri, at the age of 92. She was an American constitutional lawyer and conservative political activist. She was known for staunchly conservative social and political views, antifeminism, opposition to legal abortion, and her successful campaign against ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Her book, A Choice Not an Echo (1964), a polemic against Republican leader Nelson Rockefeller, sold more than three million copies. Schlafly co-authored books on national defense and was greatly critical of arms control agreements with the Soviet Union (1917–91). In 1972, Schlafly founded the Eagle Forum, a conservative political interest group, and remained its chairwoman and CEO until her death in 2016.