GOOD MORNING – TODAY IS FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, the 262nd day of 2014 with 103 to follow. Sunrise in the Boston area is @ 6:27 and sunset is @ 6:48. The moon is waning. The morning stars are stars are Jupiter, Uranus & Venus. The evening stars are Mars, Mercury, Neptune & Saturn.
ON THIS DAY IN:
1356 – In an important battle of the Hundred Years’ War, English Prince Edward defeated the French at Poitiers and took King John II as a prisoner.
1544 – Francis, king of France, and Charles V of Austria signed a peace treaty ending a 20-year war.
1676 – Jamestown was burned by Bacon’s Rebellion.
1777 – Americans under General Horatio Gates won the Battle of Saratoga in the Revolutionary War.
1777 – The Continental Congress fled their capital in Philadelphia for the more secure site ofYork, Pennsylvania, upon learning of the approach of General William Howe and the British forces.
1783 – The Joseph-Michel Montgolfier and Jacques-Etienne Montgolfier sent up the first hot-air balloon with live creatures on board, in Versailles, France.
1796 – George Washington issued his farewell address as U.S. President.
1849 – First commercial laundry was established in Oakland, California.
1893 – New Zealand granted women the right to vote.
1934 – Bruno Hauptmann was arrested in New York and charged with the kidnap-murder of Charles Lindbergh’s baby.
1948 – Moscow announced it would withdraw from Korea by the end of the year.
1955 – Juan Domingo Perón, president of Argentina since 1946, was deposed and exiled in a military coup.
1957 – U.S. conducted its first underground nuclear test, in the Nevada desert.
1964 – “Flipper” premiered on television.
1970 – “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” debuted on TV.
1980 – Titan II exploded in Damascus, AR, by accident. One person died.
1983 – St. Kitts and Nevis declared independence from England.
1984 – Great Britain and China announced their agreement to transfer Hong Kong to Chinese rule in 1997.
1985 – Mexico City was struck by the first of two huge earthquakes that claimed more than 10,000 lives.
1995 – The Washington Post published the so-called “Unabomber’s Manifesto,” a sixty-five-page thesis on what the “Unabomber” thought were the problems with America’s society.
2002 – President George W. Bush asked Congress for authority to “use all means,” including military force if necessary, to disarm and overthrow Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein if he did not quickly meet United Nations demands to abandon all weapons of mass destruction.