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
   * 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 in China
   * 1937 - J. R. R. Tolkien publishes The Hobbit
   * 1942 - B-29 Superfortress makes its debut
   * 1949 - People's Republic of China officially declared
   * 1950 - George Marshall was sworn in as the 3rd Secretary of Defense of
     United States
   * 1964 - Malta becomes independent from the United Kingdom
   * 1970 - Monday Night Football premieres
   * 1981 - Belize granted full independence from the United Kingdom
   * 1984 - Brunei gains its independence from the United Kingdom
   * 2001 - Deep Space 1 flies within 2,200 km of Comet Borrelly's nucleus

Births

   * 1756 - John MacAdam, road builder
   * 1840 - Murat V, future Ottoman sultan
   * 1842 - Abd-ul-Hamid II, future Ottoman sultan
   * 1866 - H. G. Wells, science fiction author (+ 1946)
   * 1874 - Gustav Holst, composer
   * 1912 - Chuck Jones, animator (+ 2002)
   * 1920 - Jay Ward, animator (+ 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
   * 1947 - Stephen King, author
   * 1947 - Marsha Norman, playwright
   * 1947 - Donald Felder, musician
   * 1949 - Artis Gilmore, basketball star
   * 1950 - Bill Murray, actor
   * 1950 - Charles Clarke, British politician
   * 1953 - Arie Luyendyk, Indianapolis 500 winner
   * 1957 - Ethan Coen, film director
   * 1960 - David James Elliott, actor
   * 1961 - Nancy Travis, actress
   * 1962 - Rob Morrow, actor
   * 1963 - King Mohamed VI of Morocco
   * 1968 - Ricki Lake, actress, talk show hostess
   * 1971 - Luke Wilson, actor

Deaths

   * 1558 - Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor
   * 1832 - Sir Walter Scott, historical novelist and poet
   * 1904 - Chief Joseph, Nez Perce leader
   * 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
   * 1998 - Florence Griffith Joyner, Olympic Games track-and-field star
   * 2002 - Robert L. Forward, physicist, writer

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.
   * National Day in Belize