This is your morning Open Thread. Pour your favorite beverage and review the past and comment on the future.
September 6 is the 249th day of the year (250th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 116 days remaining until the end of the year.
On this day in 1995, Cal Ripken Jr of the Baltimore Orioles plays in his 2,131st consecutive game, breaking a record that stood for 56 years.
Calvin Edwin “Cal” Ripken, Jr. (born August 24, 1960) is a former Major League Baseball shortstop and third baseman who played his entire career (1981-2001) for the Baltimore Orioles.
During his baseball career, he earned the nickname “Iron Man” for doggedly remaining in the lineup despite numerous minor injuries and for his reliability to “show up” to work every day. He is perhaps best known for breaking New York Yankees first baseman Lou Gehrig’s record for consecutive games played, a record many deemed unbreakable. Ripken surpassed the 56-year-old record when he played in his 2,131st consecutive game on September 6, 1995 between the Orioles and the California Angels in front of a sold-out crowd at Oriole Park at Camden Yards. To make the feat even more memorable, Ripken hit a home run in the previous night’s game that tied Gehrig’s record and another home run in his 2,131st game, which fans later voted as Major League Baseball’s “Most Memorable Moment” in MLB history. Ripken played in an additional 502 straight games over the next three years, and his streak ended at 2,632 games when he voluntarily removed his name from the lineup for the final Orioles home game of the 1998 season. His record 2,632 straight games spanned over seventeen seasons, from May 30, 1982 to September 20, 1998.
3114 BC – According to the proleptic Julian calendar the current era in the Maya Long Count Calendar started. (Non-standard interpretation)
394 – Battle of the Frigidus: The Christian Roman Emperor Theodosius I defeats and kills the pagan usurper Eugenius and his Frankish magister militum Arbogast.
1492 – Christopher Columbus sails from La Gomera in the Canary Islands, his final port of call before crossing the Atlantic for the first time.
1522 – The Victoria, the only surviving ship of Ferdinand Magellan’s expedition, returns to Sanlucar de Barrameda in Spain, becoming the first ship to circumnavigate the world.
1620 – The Pilgrims sail from Plymouth, England, on the Mayflower to settle in North America. (Old Style date; September 16 per New Style date.)
1628 – Puritans settle Salem, which will later become part of Massachusetts Bay Colony.
1634 – Thirty Years’ War: In the Battle of Nordlingen the Catholic Imperial army defeats Protestant armies of Sweden and Germany.
1669 – The siege of Candia ends with the Venetian fortress surrendering to the Ottomans.
1781 – The Battle of Groton Heights takes place, resulting a British victory.
1847 – Henry David Thoreau leaves Walden Pond and moves in with Ralph Waldo Emerson and his family in Concord, Massachusetts.
1861 – American Civil War: Forces under Union General Ulysses S. Grant bloodlessly capture Paducah, Kentucky, which gives the Union control of the mouth of the Tennessee River.
1863 – American Civil War: Confederates evacuate Battery Wagner and Morris Island in South Carolina.
1870 – Louisa Ann Swain of Laramie, Wyoming becomes the first woman in the United States to cast a vote legally after 1807.
1885 – Eastern Rumelia declares its union with Bulgaria. The Unification of Bulgaria is accomplished.
1901 – Anarchist Leon Czolgosz shoots and fatally wounds US President William McKinley at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York.
1930 – Democratically elected Argentine president Hipolito Yrigoyen is deposed in a military coup.
1937 – Spanish Civil War: The start of the Battle of El Mazuco.
1939 – World War II: The Battle of Barking Creek.
1939 – World War II: South Africa declares war on Germany.
1940 – King Carol II of Romania abdicates and is succeeded by his son Michael.
1943 – The Monterrey Institute of Technology, one of the largest and most influential private universities in Latin America, is founded in Monterrey, Mexico.
1944 – World War II: The city of Ypres, Belgium is liberated by allied forces.
1948 – Juliana becomes Queen of the Netherlands.
1949 – Allied military authorities relinquish control of former Nazi Germany assets back to German control.
1952 – Canada’s first television station, CBFT-TV, opens in Montreal.
1955 – Istanbul Pogrom: Istanbul’s Greek and Armenian minority are the target of a government-sponsored pogrom.
1963 – The Centre for International Industrial Property Studies (CEIPI) is founded.
1965 – War of 1965: India retaliates
following Pakistan’s failed Operation Grand Slam which resulted in the Indo-Pakistani War of 1965 that is ended following the signing of the Tashkent Declaration.
* 1966 – In Cape Town, South Africa, the architect of Apartheid, Prime Minister Hendrik Verwoerd, is stabbed to death during a parliamentary meeting.
1968 – Swaziland becomes independent.
1970 – Two passenger jets bound from Europe to New York are simultaneously hijacked by Palestinian terrorist members of PFLP and taken to Dawson’s Field in Jordan.
1972 – Munich Massacre: 9 Israel athletes taken hostage at the Munich Olympic Games by the Palestinian “Black September” terrorist group died (as did a German policeman) at the hands of the kidnappers during a failed rescue attempt. 2 other Israeli athletes are slain in the initial attack the previous day.
1976 – Cold War: Soviet air force pilot Lt. Viktor Belenko lands a MiG-25 jet fighter at Hakodate on the island of Hokkaido in Japan and requests political asylum in the United States.
1983 – The Soviet Union admits to shooting down Korean Air Flight KAL-007, stating that the pilots did not know it was a civilian aircraft when it violated Soviet airspace.
1986 – In Istanbul, two terrorists from Abu Nidal’s organization kill 22 and wound six inside the Neve Shalom synagogue during Shabbat services.
1991 – The Soviet Union recognizes the independence of the Baltic states: Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
1991 – The name Saint Petersburg is restored to Russia’s second largest city, which had been renamed Leningrad in 1924.
1992 – Hunters discover the emaciated body of Christopher Johnson McCandless at his camp 20 miles (32 km) west of the town of Healy, Alaska.
1995 – Cal Ripken Jr of the Baltimore Orioles plays in his 2,131st consecutive game, breaking a record that stood for 56 years.
1997 – Diana, Princess of Wales is laid to rest in front of a television audience of more than 2.5 billion.
Recent Comments