Today in History September 9

Elvis and Ed

9 AD – Arminius’ alliance of six Germanic tribes ambushes and annihilates three Roman legions of Publius Quinctilius Varus in the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest.

337 – Constantine II, Constantius II, and Constans succeed their father Constantine I as co-emperors. The Roman Empire is divided between the three Augusti.

1087 – William Rufus becomes King of England, taking the title William II, (reigned until 1100).

1739 – Stono Rebellion, the largest slave uprising in Britain’s mainland North American colonies prior to the American Revolution, erupts near Charleston, South Carolina.

1850 – The Compromise of 1850 transfers a third of Texas’s claimed territory (now parts of Colorado, Kansas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Wyoming) to federal control in return for the U.S. federal government assuming $10 million of Texas’s pre-annexation debt.

1947 – Alleged first case of a computer bug being found: A moth lodges in a relay of a Harvard Mark II computer at Harvard University.

1948 – Kim Il-sung declares the establishment of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea).

1956 – Elvis Presley appears on The Ed Sullivan Show for the first time.

1971 – The four-day Attica Prison riot begins, eventually resulting in 39 dead, most killed by state troopers retaking the p1991 – Tajikistan declares independence from the Soviet Union.

2001 – Ahmad Shah Massoud, leader of the Northern Alliance, is assassinated in Afghanistan by two al-Qaeda assassins who claimed to be Arab journalists wanting an interview.

2012 – The Indian space agency puts into orbit its heaviest foreign satellite yet, in a streak of 21 consecutive successful PSLV launches.

2016 – The government of North Korea conducts its fifth and reportedly biggest nuclear test. World leaders condemn the act, with South Korea calling it “maniacal recklessness”.

Mao Zedong

1711 – Thomas Hutchinson, English historian and politician, Governor of the Province of Massachusetts Bay (d. 1780)

1828 – Leo Tolstoy, Russian author and playwright (d. 1910)

1887 – Alf Landon, American lieutenant, banker, and politician, 26th Governor of Kansas (d. 1987)

1890 – Colonel Sanders, American businessman, founded KFC (d. 1980)

1928 – Sol LeWitt, American painter and sculptor (d. 2007)

1000 – Olaf I, king of Norway

1087 – William the Conqueror, English king (b. 1028)

1487 – Chenghua, emperor of China (b. 1447)

1513 – James IV, king of Scotland (b. 1473)

1569 – Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Dutch painter (b. 1525)

1611 – Eleanor de’ Medici, Italian nobleman (b. 1567)

1806 – William Paterson, second Governor of New Jersey (b. 1745)

1901 – Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, French painter and illustrator (b. 1864)

1976 – Mao Zedong, Chinese philosopher, academic, and politician, 1st Chairman of the Communist Party of China (b. 1893)

1999 – Catfish Hunter, American baseball player (b. 1946)

2003 – Edward Teller, Hungarian-American physicist and academic (b. 1908)