On This Day in History - September 20 First European War on American Soil & Magellan Sets Sail

Once again, it should be reiterated, that this does not pretend to be a very extensive history of what happened on this day (nor is it the most original - the links can be found down below). If you know something that I am missing, by all means, shoot me an email or leave a comment, and let me know!

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history


Sep 20, 1565: First European battle on American soil

Spanish forces under Pedro Menéndez de Avilés capture the French Huguenot settlement of Fort Caroline, near present-day Jacksonville, Florida. The French, commanded by Rene Goulaine de Laudonniere, lost 135 men in the first instance of colonial warfare between European powers in America. Most of those killed were massacred on the order of Aviles, who allegedly had the slain hanged on trees beside the inscription "Not as Frenchmen, but as heretics." Laudonniere and some 40 other Huguenots escaped.

In 1564, the French Huguenots (Protestants) had settled on the Banks of May, a strategic point on the Florida coast. King Philip II of Spain was disturbed by this challenge to Spanish authority in the New World and sent Pedro Menéndez de Avilés to Florida to expel the French heretics and establish a Spanish colony there. In early September 1565, Aviles founded San Augustin on the Florida coast, which would later grow into Saint Augustine--the oldest city in North America. Two weeks later, on September 20, he attacked and destroyed the French settlement of Fort Caroline.

The decisive French defeat encouraged France to refocus its colonial efforts in America far to the north, in what is now Quebec and Nova Scotia in Canada.








Sep 20, 1519: Magellan sets out

Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan sets sail from Spain in an effort to find a western sea route to the rich Spice Islands of Indonesia. In command of five ships and 270 men, Magellan sailed to West Africa and then to Brazil, where he searched the South American coast for a strait that would take him to the Pacific. He searched the Río de la Plata, a large estuary south of Brazil, for a way through; failing, he continued south along the coast of Patagonia. At the end of March 1520, the expedition set up winter quarters at Port St. Julian. On Easter day at midnight, the Spanish captains mutinied against their Portuguese captain, but Magellan crushed the revolt, executing one of the captains and leaving another ashore when his ship left St. Julian in August.

On October 21, he finally discovered the strait he had been seeking. The Strait of Magellan, as it became known, is located near the tip of South America, separating Tierra del Fuego and the continental mainland. Only three ships entered the passage; one had been wrecked and another deserted. It took 38 days to navigate the treacherous strait, and when ocean was sighted at the other end Magellan wept with joy. He was the first European explorer to reach the Pacific Ocean from the Atlantic. His fleet accomplished the westward crossing of the ocean in 99 days, crossing waters so strangely calm that the ocean was named "Pacific," from the Latin word pacificus, meaning "tranquil." By the end, the men were out of food and chewed the leather parts of their gear to keep themselves alive. On March 6, 1521, the expedition landed at the island of Guam.

Ten days later, they dropped anchor at the Philippine island of Cebú--they were only about 400 miles from the Spice Islands. Magellan met with the chief of Cebú, who after converting to Christianity persuaded the Europeans to assist him in conquering a rival tribe on the neighboring island of Mactan. In fighting on April 27, Magellan was hit by a poisoned arrow and left to die by his retreating comrades.

After Magellan's death, the survivors, in two ships, sailed on to the Moluccas and loaded the hulls with spice. One ship attempted, unsuccessfully, to return across the Pacific. The other ship, the Vittoria, continued west under the command of Basque navigator Juan SebastiÁn de Elcano. The vessel sailed across the Indian Ocean, rounded the Cape of Good Hope, and arrived at the Spanish port of SanlÚcar de Barrameda on September 6, 1522, becoming the first ship to circumnavigate the globe.








Sep 20, 1878: Upton Sinclair is born

On this day, Upton Sinclair, Pulitzer Prize-winning writer and reformer, is born in Baltimore, Maryland.

Sinclair came from a once well-to-do Southern family that had suffered reverses. When he was 10, the family moved to New York. Starting at age 15, he earned money writing dime novels, which paid his way through New York's City College and Columbia University.

Sinclair, who married in 1900, also earned money writing journalistic pieces. An assignment on meat-packing plants led to his bestselling novel The Jungle, in which an idealistic immigrant goes to work in the Chicago stockyards. Unable to find a publisher for his book, he ultimately published it himself. The novel's gritty portrayal of labor abuses and unsanitary conditions led to the passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906.

The book became a bestseller. Sinclair used the proceeds to fund a socialist utopia called Helicone Home Colony in Englewood, New York. However, the cooperative-living building burned down after a year, and Sinclair gave up the project. He wrote several more well-known novels, though none were as successful as his first. The Metropolis (1908) examined high society in New York, Oil! (1927) looked at the Teapot Dome scandal, and Boston (1928) dealt with the controversial Sacco and Vanzetti trial.

Sinclair moved to Pasadena in 1915. He fought for leftist reforms in the 1930s and 1940s. Meanwhile, he wrote a series of 11 novels looking at contemporary history. His hero, Larry Budd, travels the world and meets such figures as Franklin Roosevelt and Adolf Hitler. In 1942, his book Dragon's Teeth, portraying Germany's descent into Nazism in the 1930s, won the Pulitzer Prize. The Autobiography of Upton Sinclair came out in 1962, and the author died six years later in Bound Brook, New Jersey.







Sep 20, 1973: King triumphs in Battle of Sexes

On this day in 1973, in a highly publicized "Battle of the Sexes" tennis match, top women's player Billie Jean King, 29, beats Bobby Riggs, 55, a former No. 1 ranked men's player. Riggs (1918-1995), a self-proclaimed male chauvinist, had boasted that women were inferior, that they couldn't handle the pressure of the game and that even at his age he could beat any female player. The match was a huge media event, witnessed in person by over 30,000 spectators at the Houston Astrodome and by another 50 million TV viewers worldwide. King made a Cleopatra-style entrance on a gold litter carried by men dressed as ancient slaves, while Riggs arrived in a rickshaw pulled by female models. Legendary sportscaster Howard Cosell called the match, in which King beat Riggs 6-4, 6-3, 6-3. King's achievement not only helped legitimize women's professional tennis and female athletes, but it was seen as a victory for women's rights in general.

King was born Billie Jean Moffitt on November 22, 1943, in Long Beach, California. Growing up, she was a star softball player before her parents encouraged her to try tennis, which was considered more ladylike. She excelled at the sport and in 1961, at age 17, during her first outing to Wimbledon, she won the women's doubles title. King would rack up a total of 20 Wimbledon victories, in singles, doubles and mixed doubles, over the course of her trailblazing career. In 1971, she became the first female athlete to earn more than $100,000 in prize money in a single season. However, significant pay disparities still existed between men and women athletes and King lobbied hard for change. In 1973, the U.S. Open became the first major tennis tournament to hand out the same amount of prize money to winners of both sexes.

In 1972, King became the first woman to be chosen Sports Illustrated's "Sportsperson of the Year" and in 1973, she became the first president of the Women's Tennis Association. King also established a sports foundation and magazine for women and a team tennis league. In 1974, as a coach of the Philadelphia Freedoms, one of the teams in the league, she became the first woman to head up a professional co-ed team.

The "mother of modern sports" retired from tennis with 39 Grand Slam career titles. She remained active as a coach, commentator and advocate for women's sports and other causes. In 2006, the USTA National Tennis Center, home of the U.S. Open, was renamed in King's honor. During the dedication ceremony, tennis great John McEnroe called King "the single most important person in the history of women's sports."



Here's a more detailed look at events that transpired on this date throughout history:

368 - Emperor Valentinianus visits Nijmegen

451 - General Aetius defeats Attila the Hun at Chalons-sur-Marne

622 - Prophet Mohammed/Abu Bakr arrives in Jathrib (Medina)

1066 - Battle of Fulford, Yorkshire: Harald III Hardrada of Norway defeats Northern Saxon Earls Edwin and Morcar

1187 - Saladin begins the Siege of Jerusalem.

1258 - Salisbury Cathedral inaugurated

1378 - Robert de Geneve, "butcher of Cesena" crowned anti-pope Clemens VII

1519 - Ferdinand Magellan starts 1st successful circumnavigation of world

1530 - Luther advises protestant monarch compromise

1565 - Spaniards capture Fort Caroline Fla & massacre the French

1596 - Diego de Montemayor founded the city of Monterrey in New Spain.

1604 - Spanish army under Spinola recaptures Oostende

1620 - Battle at Jassy: Turks beat king Sigismund III of Poland

1643 - 1st battle at Newbury: King Charles I vs Robert Devereux' armies

1664 - Maryland passes 1st anti-amalgamation law to stop intermarriage of English women & black men

1674 - 2nd West Indies Company forms

1688 - French troops occupies Palts

1697 - Peace of Saki (ends 9 years war)

1737 - Runner Edward Marshall completes his journey in the Walking Purchase forcing the cession of 1.2 million acres (4,860 km²) of Lenape-Delaware tribal land to the Pennsylvania Colony.

King of England King Charles IKing of England King Charles I 1746 - Bonnie Prince Charlie flees to France from Scotland

1777 - Paoli massacre

1787 - Prince Willem V returns to Hague

1792 - French defeat Prussians at Valmy

1793 - British troops under Major-general Williamson lands on (French) Haiti

1797 - US frigate Constitution (Old Ironsides) launched in Boston

1830 - 1st Negro Convention of Free Men agree to boycott slave-produced goods

1833 - Charles Darwin rides horse to Buenos Aires

1835 - Farroupilha's Revolution begins in Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil.

1839 - 1st railroad in Netherland opens (Amsterdam-Haarlem)

1848 - The American Association for the Advancement of Science is created.

1850 - Slave trade abolished in DC, but slavery allowed to continue

1854 - Battle of the Alma: first major battle of Crimean War. British and French alliance defeat the Russians

1859 - George Simpson patents electric range

1860 - First British royalty to visit US, Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII)

Naturalist Charles DarwinNaturalist Charles Darwin 1861 - Battle of Lexington, MI-captured by Union

1863 - Battle of Shepardstown VA

1863 - Civil War Battle of Chickamauga, near Chattanooga Tenn, ends

1870 - Italian army under Victor Emmanuel II seizes Rome from the French

1870 - Mayor William Tweed accused of robbing NY treasury

1870 - Pope Pius IX surrenders to King Victor Emmanuel

1871 - Bishop John Coleridge Patteson martyred on the island of Nukapu, a Polynesian outlier island now in the Temotu province of the Solomon Islands. He was the first bishop of Melanesia.

1873 - Panic sweeps NY Stock Exchange (railroad bond default/bank failure) NY shut banks for 10 days due to a bank scandal

1876 - Ottawa Football Club forms

1877 - Chase National Bank opens in NYC (later merges into Chase Manhattan)

1879 - US Grants come to SF for elaborate extended visit

1881 - Chester A Arthur sworn in as 21st president

1884 - 6.2 mile Arlberg railroad tunnel completed in Austria

1884 - Equal Rights Party nominates female candidates for Pres & VP

1891 - The first gasoline-powered car debuts in Springfield, Massachusetts, United States.

King of Sardinia and Italy Victor Emmanuel IIKing of Sardinia and Italy Victor Emmanuel II 1902 - Chicago White Sox Jim Callahan no-hits Detroit Tigers, 3-0

1904 - George Ade's "College Widow," premieres in NYC

1904 - Orville & Wilbur Wright fly a circle in their Flyer II

1905 - Cleveland makes AL record 7 errors in an inning

1906 - Cunard Line's RMS Mauretania is launched at the Swan Hunter & Wigham Richardson shipyard in Newcastle, England.

1907 - Pitts Nick Maddox no-hits Bkln Dodgers, 2-1

1908 - Chicago White Sox Frank Smith 2nd no-hitter, beats Phila 1-0

1911 - Yanks set team record 12 errors in a double header

1913 - 19th US Golf Open: Francis Ouimet shoots a 304 at The Country Club MA

1917 - British assault on Polygon Forest, France

1917 - Paraguay becomes a signatory to the Buenos Aires copyright treaty.

1918 - Royal Dutch Blast furnace & Steel factory opens in Hague

1919 - 2nd PGA Championship: Jim Barnes at Engineers CC Roslyn NY

1919 - Babe Ruth ties Ned Williamson's major league mark of 27 HRs

1919 - Booth Tarkington's "Clarence," premieres in NYC

Baseball Great Babe RuthBaseball Great Babe Ruth 1920 - Foundation of the Spanish Legion.

1922 - Goodman & Atteridge's musical "Passing Show," premieres in NYC

1922 - Rogers Hornsby ends hitting streak of 33 games

1922 - Franco Ventriglia, Fairfield, Connecticut,opera singer, (d. 2012)

1924 - Carl Mays is 1st pitcher to win 20 games seasons for 3 different teams

1924 - Cub's Grover Cleveland Alexander beats NY Giants to win 300th game

1927 - NY Yankee Babe Ruth hits record 60th HR of season off Tom Zachry

1930 - Syro-Malankara Catholic Church is formed by Archbishop Mar Ivanios.

1931 - Lou Gehrig's 4 RBIs break his old RBI mark of 175 en route to 184

1932 - Chicago Cubs clinch the NL pennant

1932 - Dutch South Seas rebaptized in IJsselmeer

1932 - Gandhi begins hunger strike against treatment of untouchables

1933 - Pittsburgh Steelers (as Pirates) play 1st NFL game, lose 23-2

1935 - Pitts Crawfords beat NY Cubans to win Negro NL Championship, 3-0

1938 - Dmitri Shostakovitch's Suite for jazz orchestra, premieres

Pacifist and Spiritual Leader Mahatma GandhiPacifist and Spiritual Leader Mahatma Gandhi 1938 - Emlyn Williams' "Corn is Green," premieres in London

1939 - British navy captures German U-27 boat

1939 - Joe Louis KOs Bob Pastor in 11 for heavyweight boxing title

1942 - Gunther Hagg becomes world champ of all records from 1500m to 5000m

1943 - Liberator bomber sinks U-338

1944 - Nijmegen is liberated from German occupation

1944 - Polish forces free Terneuzen Neth

1945 - German rocket engineers begin work in US

1946 - Churchill argues for a 'United States of Europe'

1946 - The first Cannes Film Festival is held.

1948 - "Magdalena" opens at Ziegfeld Theater NYC for 48 performances

1948 - Mexican Baseball league disbanded

1949 - Dutch Guilder devalued 30.3%

1949 - Tennis player Pancho Gonzales turns professional

1951 - 1st North Pole jet crossing

1951 - NL President Ford Frick elected 3rd commissioner of baseball

1951 - Swiss males votes against female suffrage

1952 - KPTV TV channel 12 in Portland, OR (IND) begins broadcasting

Hall of Fame MLB shortstop Ernie BanksHall of Fame MLB shortstop Ernie Banks 1953 - Cubs Ernie Banks hits his 1st major league HR

1954 - 1st FORTRAN computer program run

1954 - 1st National People's Congress adopts Chinese constitution

1954 - KETC TV channel 9 in Saint Louis, MO (PBS) begins broadcasting

1954 - Los Stravinsky's "In Memoriam Dylan Thomas," premieres in Angeles

1954 - Roger Bannister awarded Britain's Silver Pears Trophy

1954 - New Zealand's Special Committee on Moral Delinquency in Children and Adolescents reports just ten days after concluding hearings.

1955 - Willie Mays (Giants) homers off Vern Law (Pirates) in both ends of DH

1955 - Willie Mays is 7th player to reach 50 HRS in a season

1958 - Baltimore Oriole knuckler Hoyt Wilhelm no-hits NY Yankees 1-0

1958 - Ferhat Abbas forms Algerian government in exile (Cairo)

1958 - USSR performs nuclear test at Novaya Zemlya USSR

1959 - Beverly Hanson wins LPGA Links Golf Invitation Open

1960 - UN General Assembly admit 13 African countries & Cyprus (96 nations)

1960 - WFSU TV channel 11 in Tallahassee, FL (PBS) begins broadcasting

1961 - After 84 1/3 innings Bill Fischer gives up a base on balls

1961 - James Meredith refused access as a student in Mississippi

1961 - USSR performs nuclear test at Novaya Zemlya USSR

American Baseball Player Roger MarisAmerican Baseball Player Roger Maris 1961 - Roger Maris hits home run # 59 & barely misses # 60 in game 154 of the season. Yanks clinch pennant #26

1962 - Ben Bella wins 1st elections in independent Algeria

1962 - Gov R Barnett refuses to admit a black to Miss Univ (James Meredith)

1963 - JFK proposes a joint US-Soviet voyage to the moon

1964 - Gunter Grass' "Die Plebejern proben den Aufstand," premieres in Berlin

1964 - Paramount Theater (NYC) presented the Beatles with Steve & Eydie

1965 - WXXW (now WYCC) TV channel 20 in Chicago, IL (PBS) begins broadcasting

1966 - US Surveyor B launched toward Moon; crashed Sept 23

1967 - Benin separates from Nigeria

1967 - British liner Queen Elizabeth II launched at Clydebank Scotland

1967 - Hurricane Beulah hits Texas-Mexican border, kills 38

1967 - WCAE TV channel 50 in St John, IN (PBS) begins broadcasting

1967 - WCIX TV channel 6 in Miami, FL (CBS) begins broadcasting

1968 - Mickey Mantle hits final career homer # 536

1969 - 18th Ryder Cup: Draw, 16-16 at Royal Birkdale, England

US President John F. KennedyUS President John F. Kennedy 1969 - Archies' "Sugar Sugar" hits #1

1969 - Pitts Pirate Bob Moose no-hits NY Mets, 4-0

1970 - Jim Morrison found not guilty of "lewd" behavior

1970 - Luna 16 lands on Moon's Mare Fecunditatis, drills core sample

1972 - Police find cannabis growing on Paul & Linda McCartney's farm

1973 - Billy Jean King beats Bobby Riggs in battle-of-sexes tennis match

1973 - Willie Mays announces retirement at end of 1973 season

1975 - 21st Ryder Cup: US, 21-11 at Laurel Valley Golf Club (Ligonier, Pennsylvania, US)

1975 - David Bowie's "Fame," single goes #1 for 2 weeks

1975 - Gary Sentman draws a record 176 lb longbow to a maximum 28½" draw

1976 - Metroliner official opens in Brussels

1976 - Playboy releases Jimmy Carter's interview that he lusts for women

1976 - Sid Berstein offers $230 million charity concert for Beatle reunion

1977 - "Estrada" opens at Majestic Theater NYC for 7 performances

1977 - Vietnam & Djibouti ask for membership in UN

1978 - "Eubie!" opens at Ambassador Theater NYC for 439 performances

1978 - USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakh/Semipalitinsk USSR

1978 - Yamada Mumon Roshi visits Benedictine Abbey of Maria Laach Germany

1979 - Coup in Central African Rep: David Dacko overthrows emperor Bokassa I

1979 - Jose E dod Santos becomes president of Angola

1979 - NASA launches HEAO

1979 - Lee Iacocca is elected president of the Chrysler Corporation.

1979 - The Punjab wing of the Unity Centre of Communist Revolutionaries of India (Marxist-Leninist) formally splits and constitutes a parallel UCCRI(ML).

1979 - Assassination of French left-wing militant Pierre Goldman.

1980 - Bronze plaque dedicated to memory of Thurman Munson at Yankee Stadium

1980 - George Brett goes 0-for-4 dropping his avg below .400 for good

1980 - Plaque dedicated in Thurman Munson's memory at Yankee Stadium

1980 - Spectacular Bid runs in Belmont alone as 3 horses drop out

1981 - 24th Ryder Cup: US, 18½-9½ at Walton Heath Golf Club (Walton-on-the-Hill, Surrey, England)

1981 - Joe Danelo kicks then NY Giant record 55 yard field goal

1981 - Sandra Haynie wins LPGA Henredon Golf Classic

1982 - Jalaluddin takes a one-day hat-trick Pakistan v Australia

1982 - NFL players begin a 57 day strike

1983 - 3,112 turn out to see Pirates play NY Mets at Shea Stadium

1983 - Cryptographic Communications System & Method (RSA) patented

1984 - "Cosby Show" premieres on NBC-TV

1984 - Cubs break 2 million in home attendance for 1st time

1984 - Suicide car bomb attacks US Embassy annex in Beirut, kills 23

1985 - Curtis Strong is convicted for selling cocaine to pro baseball players

1985 - Walt Disney World's 200-millionth guest

1986 - Wichita State Shockers blow a 35-3 lead; lose 36-35 to Morehead State

1987 - "Big River" closes at Eugene O'Neill Theater NYC after 1005 perfs

Actor Bruce WillisActor Bruce Willis 1987 - 39th Emmy Awards: LA Law, Bruce Willis & Sharon Gless wins

1987 - Alain Prost wins record 28th Formula one auto race

1987 - Dwight Clark ends NFL streak of 105 consecutive game receptions

1987 - Jan Stephenson wins LPGA SAFECO Golf Classic

1987 - Walter Payton scores NFL record 107th rushing touchdown

1988 - Darrell Evans hits his 400th career home run

1988 - Greg Louganis wins Olympic gold medal in springboard diving

1988 - Wade Boggs is 1st player to get 200 hits for 6 consecutive seasons

1989 - FW De Klerk sworn in as president of South Africa

1989 - Musical "Miss Saigon," premieres in London

1989 - USAir overshoots runway at LaGuardia Airport in NYC, 2 people die

1990 - Both Germanys ratify reunification

1990 - US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site

1990 - South Ossetia declares its independence from Georgia.

1991 - Lion's Terry Taylor reinstated after 1 year drug related suspension

NFL Running Back Walter PaytonNFL Running Back Walter Payton 1992 - Colleen Walker wins LPGA SAFECO Golf Classic

1992 - France votes in favor of Maastricht treaty

1992 - Leanza Cornett (Florida), 21, crowned 66th Miss America 1993

1992 - Phils' Mickey Moradini makes an unassisted triple play

1992 - Space shuttle STS-47 (Endeavour 2) lands

1994 - Space shuttle STS-64 (Discovery 20), lands

1995 - Cincinnati Reds becomes 1st team to clinch NL Central

1997 - Yanks clinch 37th appearance in post season, 3rd consecutive

1998 - Solheim Cup

2000 - Patent on RSA cryptograph algorithm ends

2000 - The British MI6 Secret Intelligence Service building is attacked by a Russian-built Mark 22 anti-tank missile.

2001 - In an address to a joint session of Congress and the American people, U.S. President George W. Bush declares a "war on terror".

2002 - The Kolka-Karmadon rock/ice slide started.

2003 - Maldives civil unrest: the death of prisoner Hassan Evan Naseem sparks a day of rioting in Malé.

2003 - A referendum is held in Latvia to decide the country's accession to the European Union.

2011 - The United States ends its "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy, allowing gay men and women to serve openly for the first time.

2012 - 50 people are killed and dozens injured after a gas station is bombed by the Syrian Army in Ain Issa

2012 - 14 people are killed in a cafe suicide bominbg in Somalia

2012 - AU Optronics fined $500 million for a LCD screen price-fixing





1519 - Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan left Spain to find a route to the Spice Islands of Indonesia. Magellan was killed during the trip, but one of his ships eventually made the journey.   1870 - The Papal States came under the control of Italian troops, leading to the unification of Italy.   1881 - Chester A. Arthur became the 21st president of the U.S. President James A. Garfield had died the day before.   1884 - The Equal Rights Party was formed in San Francisco, CA.   1921 - KDKA in Pittsburgh, PA, started a daily radio newscast. It was one of the first in the U.S.   1946 - The first Cannes Film Festival premiered. The original premier was delayed in 1939 due to World War II.   1946 - WNBT-TV in New York became the first station to promote a motion picture. Scenes from "The Jolson Story" were shown.   1953 - The TV show "Letter to Loretta" premiered. The name was changed to "The Loretta Young Show" on February 14, 1954.   1953 - Jimmy Stewart debuted on the radio western "The Six Shooter" on NBC.   1955 - "You'll Never Be Rich" premiered on CBS-TV. The name was changed less than two months later to "The Phil Silvers Show."   1962 - James Meredith, a black student, was blocked from enrolling at the University of Mississippi by Governor Ross R. Barnett. Meredith was later admitted.   1963 - U.S. President John F. Kennedy proposed a joint U.S.-Soviet expedition to the moon in a speech to the U.N. General Assembly.   1977 - The first of the "boat people" arrived in San Francisco from Southeast Asia under a new U.S. resettlement program.   1982 - U.S. President Ronald Reagan announced that the U.S., France, and Italy were going to send peacekeeping troops back to Beirut.   1984 - "The Cosby Show" premiered on NBC-TV.   1988 - The United Nations opened it 43rd General Assembly.   1989 - F.W. de Klerk was sworn in as president of South Africa.   1991 - U.N. weapons inspectors left for Iraq in a renewed search for Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.   1992 - French voters approved the Maastricht Treaty.   1995 - AT&T announced that it would be splitting into three companies. The three companies were AT&T, Lucent Technologies, and NCR Corp.   1995 - The U.S. House of Representatives voted to drop the national speed limit. This allowed the states to decide their own speed limits.

1870 Victor Emmanuel II, the first king of modern Italy, seized the Papal States from the French. 1881 Chester A. Arthur was sworn in as the 21st president of the United States, succeeding James A. Garfield, who had been assassinated. 1973 Billie Jean King beat Bobby Riggs in a battle of the sexes tennis match. 1998 Baltimore Oriole shortstop Cal Ripken, Jr., sat out a game, ending his consecutive game playing streak. Ripken played 2,632 consecutive games over 16 seasons. 2000 Independent Counsel Robert Ray announced the end of the Whitewater investigation, saying there was insufficient evidence to charge President Clinton and his wife, Hillary. 2001 President George W. Bush addressed the nation and a joint session of Congress about terrorism. He also named Tom Ridge as head of the new Office of Homeland Security.



The following links are to web sites that were used to complete this blog entry:

http://www.historyorb.com/today/events.php

http://on-this-day.com/onthisday/thedays/alldays/sep20.htm

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history

http://www.infoplease.com/dayinhistory