September 11

100 The earliest known example of writing in Latin by a woman was at Vindolanda, Northumberland in North East England. She sent the invitation to Sulpicia Lepidina, wife of Flavius Cerialis, commander at Vindolanda for a birthday celebration on September 11, 100 AD.

1509 A decade before his voyage round the world, Ferdinand Magellan sailed under Diogo Lopes de Sequeira in a Portuguese expedition to Malacca, with the aim of analyzing its trade potential. After arriving at the Malaysian location on September 11, 1509, the mission fell victim to a conspiracy ending in retreat. Magellan had a crucial role, warning Sequeira an action that earned him honors and a promotion.

1565 The Great Siege of Malta took place in 1565 when the Ottoman Empire tried to invade the island. The Knights of Malta, led by Frenchman Jean Parisot de Valette, Grand Master of the Order, with approximately 2,000 foot soldiers and 400 Maltese men, women and children, withstood the siege.  On September 11, 1565 the Ottoman forces retreated ending the Great Siege of Malta. The victory was one of the most celebrated events in sixteenth-century Europe.

Lifting of the Siege of Malta by Charles-Philippe Larivière

1609 Henry Hudson, an Englishman in the service of the Dutch Republic, discovered Manhattan Island and the indigenous people living there on September 11, 1609. The name "Manhattan" derives from the word Manna-hata, as written in the 1609 logbook of Robert Juet, an officer on Henry Hudson's ship Halve Maen. Dutch government official and explorer Peter Minuit acquired Manhattan Island 15 years later from American Indian people, (believed to have been Canarsee Indians of the Lenape). 

1827 After attending a performance of Shakespeare's Hamlet on September 11, 1827, French composer Hector Berlioz fell in love with a pretty Irish actress, Harriet Smithson (see below), who played Ophelia. At the time he was a little known composer but he pursued Harriet with numerous love letters, all of which went unanswered.  By 1833 the actress' career was failing and she was in financial hardship; Harriet saw the besotted Hector as a way out of debt so they married on October 3, 1833.

Portrait of Harriet Smithson (1800-1854) by Dubufe, Claude-Marie 

1841 Portrait painter John Goffe Rand received a patent for his invention of the collapsible metal tube for oil paints in the United States on September 11, 1841. This invention revolutionized the world of painting by allowing artists to store and preserve their oil paints without them drying out. Before the collapsible tube, artists had to rely on pig bladders and other less efficient methods to store their paints, which often resulted in wasted materials and added inconvenience. It is still used by painters today.

1847 American songwriter Stephen Foster's first great musical success was "Oh! Susanna". It was first performed in the Eagle Ice Cream Saloon in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on September 11, 1847. It became an anthem of the California Gold Rush. Following its success, Foster signed a contract with the Christy Minstrels and it was during this period that Foster would write most of his best-known songs such as "Camptown Races" (1850), "Swanee River" ((1851) and "My Old Kentucky Home" (1853).

1893 The Indian Hindu monk Swami Vivekananda introduced Hinduism to the US at the Parliament of the World's Religions in Chicago on September 11, 1893. He began his address by greeting the youngest of the nations on behalf of "the most ancient order of monks in the world, the Vedic order of sannyasins, a religion which has taught the world both tolerance, of and universal acceptance".

1930 39-year-old Agatha Christie married her second husband, the 26-year-old archaeologist Max Mallowan on September 11, 1930. For the remaining 45 years of her life she was closely involved with her husband's archaeological activities.  Sir Max Mallowan was knighted in 1968, meaning Christie could be addressed as Lady Mallowan.

1941 In the years before the United States entered World War II, the famous pilot Charles Lindbergh's non-interventionist stance led some to suspect he was a Nazi sympathizer. Lindbergh's Des Moines Speech on September 11, 1941, accused the British, Jews and the Roosevelt administration of pressing for war with Germany. However, once America entered the war, Lindbergh flew as a civilian pilot in combat missions in the Pacific. By the end of the war he’d flown 50 combat missions.

1968 Japanese former professional boxer Iwao Hakamada was sentenced to death on September 11, 1968 for a mass murder two years prior. Because it was suspected that he was falsely charged, he was never executed. In 2011 Guinness World Records certified Hakamada as the world's longest-held death row inmate. The prisoner was finally granted a retrial and an immediate release in March 2014 when the Shizuoka district court found there was reason to believe evidence against Hakamada had been falsified.

1973 In 1970 Salvador Allende was the first Marxist to be democratically elected to President of Chile after a close three-way race. Three years later, on September 11, 1973, Salvador Allende was overthrown in a CIA-backed military coup; a 17 year-long US-backed military junta led by Augusto Pinochet followed, in which thousands of dissidents were persecuted.

1978 British medical photographer Janet Parker became the last recorded person to die from smallpox on September 11, 1978. She often worked above Professor Henry Bedson's laboratory at University of Birmingham Medical School where research on smallpox viruses was being conducted. A year after smallpox was eradicated worldwide, the virus escaped from the lab infecting Parker. Bedson, who had been working to rid the world of smallpox, killed himself the next day.

1998 The 1998 XVI Commonwealth Games were held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, from September 11 – 21 1998. They were the first Commonwealth Games to be held in an Asian country as well as the first time they took place in a country with a head of state other than the Head of the Commonwealth.

2001 On September 11, 2001, two hijacked aircraft crashed into the World Trade Center in New York City, while a third smashed into The Pentagon in Arlington County, Virginia, and a fourth into a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania. The September 11th series of coordinated suicide attacks were led by 19 members of al-Qaeda. In total 2,996 people are killed.

2001 On September 11, 2001, exactly 60 years after The Pentagon's construction began, American Airlines Flight 77 was hijacked by Islam terrorists and flown into the western side of the building, killing 189 people. It was the first significant foreign attack on Washington's governmental facilities since the city was burned by the British and Canadians during the War of 1812.

2001 During the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the United States, many news networks, including Fox News, implemented continuous news tickers or "crawls" at the bottom of their television screens. This was done to provide a constant stream of updates and information to viewers as the events unfolded. The use of news tickers became a common practice during major breaking news events to ensure that viewers had access to up-to-the-minute information.

2001 Comedian Pete Davidson’s father, Scott Davidson, was a New York firefighter who died on September 11th, 2001 when entering the World Trade Center towers. He was last seen entering the ground floor of the WTC Marriott to help victims who had been trapped by the first crash. 

2002 Eighty per cent per cent of all avocados in shops are descended from one tree grown by a postman and amateur horticulturist Rudolph Hass in 1926. The tree eventually died of root rot and was cut down on September 11, 2002 at the ripe old age of 76.

Hass avocado