September 21

September 21 is the 264th day of the year (265th in leap years). There are 101 days remaining.

Events

• 1745 – Battle of Prestonpans – Hanoverian army under the command of John Cope is defeated, in ten minutes, by the Jacobite forces of Prince Charles Edward Stuart
• 1780 – Benedict Arnold gives the British the plans to West Point
• 1792 – French National Convention votes to abolish the monarchy
• 1827 – Joseph Smith, Jr. claims that the angel Moroni gave him a record of gold plates, one-third of which is translated into The Book of Mormon
• 1860 – In the Second Opium War, an Anglo-French force defeats Chinese troops at the Battle of Baliqiao
• 1896 – British force under Horatio Kitchener takes Dongola in the Sudan
• 1897 – The Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus letter is published in the New York Sun.
• 1898 – Empress Dowager Cixi seizes power and ends the Hundred Days' Reform in China.
• 1921 – Ammonium nitrate explosion at chemical storage facility in Oppau, Germany, 561 killed.
• 1937 – J. R. R. Tolkien publishes The Hobbit.
• 1939 – Romanian Prime Minister Armand Calinescu is assassinated by pro-Nazi members of the Iron Guard.
• 1942 – B-29 Superfortress makes its debut.
• 1950 – George Marshall sworn in as the 3rd Secretary of Defense of United States
• 1964 – Malta becomes independent from the United Kingdom
• 1970 – Monday Night Football premieres.
• 1972 – Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos issues Proclamation No. 1081 placing the entire country under martial law.
• 1981 – Belize granted full independence from the United Kingdom
• 1984 – Brunei gains its independence from the United Kingdom
• 1993 – Russian President Boris Yeltsin suspends parliament and scraps the then-functioning constitution, thus triggering the Russian constitutional crisis of 1993.
• 2001 – Deep Space 1 flies within 2,200 km of Comet Borrelly
• 2003 – Galileo mission terminated by sending the probe into Jupiter's atmosphere, where it is crushed by the pressure at the lower altitudes

Births

• 1415 – Frederick III, Holy Roman Emperor
• 1452 – Girolamo Savonarola, Dominican priest, briefly ruler of Florence (d. 1498)
• 1756 – John MacAdam, road builder (d. 1836)
• 1840 – Murad V, Ottoman sultan (d. 1904)
• 1842 – Abd-ul-Hamid II, Ottoman sultan (d. 1918)
• 1863 – John Bunny, American silent film comedian (d. 1915)
• 1866 – H. G. Wells, science fiction author (d. 1946)
• 1873 – Papa Jack Laine, jazz musician (d. 1966)
• 1874 – Gustav Holst, composer (d. 1934)
• 1902 – Luis Cernuda, Spanish poet (d. 1963)
• 1912 – Chuck Jones, animator (d. 2002)
• 1919 – Fazlur Rahman, scholar (d. 1988)
• 1920 – Jay Ward, animator (d. 1988)
• 1931 – Larry Hagman, actor
• 1934 – Leonard Cohen, singer-songwriter
• 1935 – Henry Gibson, actor
• 1944 – Fannie Flagg, actress, novelist
• 1945 – Jerry Bruckheimer, film and television producer
• 1946 – Moritz Leuenberger, member of the Swiss Federal Council
• 1947 – Donald Felder, musician
• 1947  – Stephen King, author
• 1947  – Marsha Norman, playwright
• 1949 – Artis Gilmore, basketball star
• 1950 – Charles Clarke, British politician
• 1950  – Bill Murray, actor
• 1951 – Aslan Maskhadov, Chechen rebel leader
• 1953 – Arie Luyendyk, Indianapolis 500 winner
• 1957 – Ethan Coen, film director
• 1959 – Dave Coulier, actor
• 1960 – David James Elliott, actor
• 1961 – Nancy Travis, actress
• 1962 – Rob Morrow, actor
• 1963 – Cecil Fielder, baseball player
• 1965 – Cheryl Hines, actress (Curb Your Enthusiasm, Father of the Pride)
• 1966 – Kiefer Sutherland, actor
• 1967 – Tyler Stewart, drummer for Barenaked Ladies
• 1967  – Faith Hill, country singer
• 1968 – Ricki Lake, actress, talk show hostess
• 1971 – Luke Wilson, actor
• 1972 – Jon Kitna, American football quarterback
• 1972  – Liam Gallagher, lead singer of Oasis
• 1975 – Doug Davis, baseball player
• 1980 – Kareena Kapoor, Bollywood actress

Deaths

• 1558 – Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor
• 1796 – François Séverin Marceau-Desgraviers, French General (b. 1769)
• 1832 – Sir Walter Scott, historical novelist and poet
• 1897 – Wilhelm Wattenbach, German historian
• 1904 – Chief Joseph, Nez Perce leader
• 1926 – Leon Charles Thevenin, French telegraph engineer (b. 1857)
• 1938 – Ivana Brlic-Mazuranic Croat writer (b. 1874)
• 1954 – Kokichi Mikimoto, inventor of the cultured pearl
• 1957 – King Haakon VII of Norway
• 1974 – Jacqueline Susann, novelist
• 1974 – Walter Brennan, Academy Award winning actor
• 1987 – Jaco Pastorius, bassist (b. 1951)
• 1995 – Rudy Perpich, US – Croat politician (b. 1928)
• 1998 – Florence Griffith Joyner, Olympic Games track-and-field star
• 2002 – Robert L. Forward, physicist, writer
• 2003 – Robert Lochner, creator of Kennedy's "Ikh been oin Bear-lee-ner" ("Ich bin ein Berliner")
• 2004 – Barry Noble Wakeman, American naturalist and educator (born 1939)

Holidays and observances

• In ancient Greece, the eighth day of the Eleusinian Mysteries, when the secret rites in the Telesterion finish and the feast, Pannychis, begins.
• Independence Day in Malta (1964), Belize (1981) & Armenia (1991)
• Mabon – Neopagan festival of Mabon
• peace one day

External links

• BBC: On This Day

September 20 · September 22 · August 21 · October 21 · more historical anniversaries