September 19: This Day In History

1868 – White Democrats attacked demonstrators, who were marching from Albany to Camilla, Ga., and killed nine Blacks. Several whites were wounded.

1881: President James Garfield dies from an assassin’s bullet after being shot on July 2. Garfield was shot by a disgruntled office seeker named Charles Guiteau.  This brought the long simmering battle over political patronage jobs in the federal government to a boil.  Garfield’s death provided the impetus for the passage of the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act.  The Pendleton Act created a system of federal service positions that were filled based on merit not political patronage.

1881 – Booker T. Washington opens Tuskegee Institute in Alabama

1893 – Women’s suffrage: in New Zealand, the Electoral Act of 1893 is consented to by the governor giving all women in New Zealand the right to vote.

1934 – Bruno Hauptmann is arrested for the kidnapping and murder of Charles Lindbergh, Jr..

1944 – Armistice between Finland and Soviet Union is signed. (End of the Continuation War).

1946 – The Council of Europe is founded following a speech by Winston Churchill at the University of Zurich.

1952 – The United States bars Charlie Chaplin from re-entering the country after a trip to England.

1956 – First international conference of Black writers and artists met at the Sorbonne in Paris.

1957 – First American underground nuclear bomb test (part of Operation Plumbbob).

1959 – Nikita Khrushchev is barred from visiting Disneyland due to security concerns.

1970 – The first Glastonbury Festival is held at Michael Eavis’s farm in Glastonbury, United Kingdom.

1970 – Kostas Georgakis, a Greek student of geology, sets himself ablaze in Matteotti Square in Genoa, Italy, as a protest against the dictatorial regime of Georgios Papadopoulos.

1971 – Montagnard troops of South Vietnam revolt against the rule of Nguyen Khanh, killing 70 ethnic Vietnamese soldiers.

1972 – A parcel bomb sent to Israeli Embassy in London kills one diplomat.

1981 – The Solidarity Day march was a large political rally that took place in Washington, D.C. on September 19, 1981. Approximately 250,000 people took part in the march, which protested the social policies of the Reagan administration and was sparked by Reagan’s firing of 12,500 air traffic controllers. It was the first major demonstration to have been organised for decades by the AFL-CIO.

1982 – Scott Fahlman posts the first documented emoticons 🙂 and 🙁 on the Carnegie Mellon University Bulletin Board System.

1983 – Saint Kitts and Nevis gains its independence.

1985 – Tipper Gore and other political wives form the Parents Music Resource Center as Frank Zappa and other musicians testify at U.S. Congressional hearings on obscenity in rock music.

1995 – The Washington Post and The New York Times publish the Unabomber’s manifesto.

1997 – Guelb El-Kebir massacre in Algeria; 53 killed.

2006 – The Thai military stages a coup in Bangkok. The Constitution is revoked and martial law is declared.

2010 – The leaking oil well in the Deepwater Horizon oil spill is sealed.

1883 – Mabel Vernon, American suffragist (d. 1975)

1911 – William Golding, English author, poet, and playwright, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1993)

1913 – Frances Farmer, American actress (d. 1970)

1921 – Paulo Freire, Brazilian educator, philosopher, and theorist (d. 1997)

1926 – James Lipton, American actor, producer, and author

1927 – Helen Carter, American singer (Carter Family and The Carter Sisters) (d. 1998)

1928 – Adam West, American actor

1931 – Brook Benton, holder of 16 gold records including “A Rainy Night in Georgia” ,

1941 – Cass Elliot, American singer, born in Baltimore (The Mamas & the Papas, The Mugwumps, and The Big 3) (d. 1974)

1966 – Soledad O’Brien, American journalist