19 BC Virgil spent the last decade of his life working on the Aeneid and in about 19 BC, he traveled to Greece to revise his epic poem. The Roman poet caught a fever while visiting a town near Megara before returning to Italy by ship, weakened with disease, Virgil died in Brundisium harbor on September 21, 19 BC, having failed to complete The Aeneid. The Emperor Augustus had others apply the finishing polish and ordered the work to be published.
1170 On September 21, 1170, a force of Normans, led by Miles de Cogan and Raymond FitzGerald, launched an attack on Dublin and successfully captured the city. The capture of Dublin by the Normans contributed to the decline of Viking and Norse-Gaelic influence in the region, paving the way for further Norman expansion and the eventual establishment of English control over much of Ireland in the centuries that followed.
1327 After being imprisoned in Berkeley Castle by one of his disaffected barons, Roger Mortimer, King Edward II of England was murdered by his Berkeley Castle jailers on the night of September 21, 1327. It was announced that the king had died a natural death, and he was buried in St Peter's Abbey at Gloucester, now the cathedral, where his son afterwards erected a magnificent tomb.
1452 Italian Dominican friar and preacher Girolamo Savonarola was born on September 21, 1452 in Ferrarain today's northern Italy. Savonarola preached in Florence against the moral corruption of the clergy and the Church of Rome. In 1497, Savonarola and his followers organised a "bonfire of the vanities" at the carnival celebration before Lent, in which Florentine luxury goods, works of art, pornographic books, mirrors, cosmetics and gambling equipment were publicly burnt by his followers.
1576 Astrologer Girolamo Cardono predicted his death on September 21, 1576. He made his prediction known to his friends and family, and on the appointed day, he went to bed and refused to get up. He died later that day, apparently of natural causes.
1784 Philadelphia was home to the United States' first daily newspaper, the Philadelphia Packet and Daily Advertiser. Its first edition was published September 21, 1784. The newspaper was founded by John Dunlap, who had previously published the Pennsylvania Packet, a weekly newspaper.
1792 The French Revolution began in 1789 when a group of middle class rebel took over the administration with the help of the Paris mob and tried to set up a constitutional monarchy. On September 21, 1792, 6 weeks after King Louis XVI was arrested and taken into custody, the National Assembly declared France to be a republic and abolished the monarchy.
1832 In 1826, as a result of a depression hitting Scotland, the writer Sir Walter Scott's publishing and printing business went bankrupt. Scott wrote frantically for the rest of his life to pay back his debts of £116,000. After five years of intense work, Scott's health was broken by overwork. In 1832 he caught typhus during an epidemic in his homeland and Scott ied on September 21, 1832 at his Abbotsford home. His last words were to his family "God bless you all, I feel myself again."
1327 After being imprisoned in Berkeley Castle by one of his disaffected barons, Roger Mortimer, King Edward II of England was murdered by his Berkeley Castle jailers on the night of September 21, 1327. It was announced that the king had died a natural death, and he was buried in St Peter's Abbey at Gloucester, now the cathedral, where his son afterwards erected a magnificent tomb.
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| Edward II - detail of tomb. By Philip Halling, |
1452 Italian Dominican friar and preacher Girolamo Savonarola was born on September 21, 1452 in Ferrarain today's northern Italy. Savonarola preached in Florence against the moral corruption of the clergy and the Church of Rome. In 1497, Savonarola and his followers organised a "bonfire of the vanities" at the carnival celebration before Lent, in which Florentine luxury goods, works of art, pornographic books, mirrors, cosmetics and gambling equipment were publicly burnt by his followers.
1576 Astrologer Girolamo Cardono predicted his death on September 21, 1576. He made his prediction known to his friends and family, and on the appointed day, he went to bed and refused to get up. He died later that day, apparently of natural causes.
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| Gerolamo Cardano |
1784 Philadelphia was home to the United States' first daily newspaper, the Philadelphia Packet and Daily Advertiser. Its first edition was published September 21, 1784. The newspaper was founded by John Dunlap, who had previously published the Pennsylvania Packet, a weekly newspaper.
1792 The French Revolution began in 1789 when a group of middle class rebel took over the administration with the help of the Paris mob and tried to set up a constitutional monarchy. On September 21, 1792, 6 weeks after King Louis XVI was arrested and taken into custody, the National Assembly declared France to be a republic and abolished the monarchy.
1832 In 1826, as a result of a depression hitting Scotland, the writer Sir Walter Scott's publishing and printing business went bankrupt. Scott wrote frantically for the rest of his life to pay back his debts of £116,000. After five years of intense work, Scott's health was broken by overwork. In 1832 he caught typhus during an epidemic in his homeland and Scott ied on September 21, 1832 at his Abbotsford home. His last words were to his family "God bless you all, I feel myself again."
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| Raeburn's portrait of Sir Walter Scott in 1822 |
1866 The English writer H.G. Wells was born Herbert George Wells at Atlas House, 162 High Street in Bromley, Kent on September 21, 1866. The youngest of four children of a china shop owner and a housekeeper, he was called "Bertie" in the family. He wrote around 100 books and is now best remembered for his science fiction novels. Wells is often called the "father of science fiction."
1893 Charles Duryea grew up in Illinois with an interest in mechanics, He built bicycles in Peoria until his attention was caught by a gasoline-powered engine at the 1886 Ohio State Fair. By 1891 he had drawn plans for a carriage and engine and moved to Springfield, Massachusetts, where, with his younger brother J. Frank Duryea, he built America's first gas-powered highway automobile. The Duryea motor car had its trial run on September 21, 1893 on the Springfield streets.
1924 The first motorway ever built in the world was opened between Milan and Varese in Italy on September 21, 1924. The highway, while divided, contained only one lane in each direction and no interchanges. It now forms parts of the A8 and A9 motorways.
1937 J. R. R. Tolkien's children's fantasy novel The Hobbit was first published on September 21, 1937. The idea for his fantasy novel series first started when J.R.R. Tolkien was grading a bad exam paper and he wrote "hobbit" on one of the areas the student left empty. He came up with the whole first sentence of The Hobbit on this student's exam, writing, "In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit." Intrigued by the idea, Tolkien decided to dive deeper and created the 1937 fantasy novel The Hobbit.
1937 J. R. R. Tolkien's children's fantasy novel The Hobbit was first published on September 21, 1937. The idea for his fantasy novel series first started when J.R.R. Tolkien was grading a bad exam paper and he wrote "hobbit" on one of the areas the student left empty. He came up with the whole first sentence of The Hobbit on this student's exam, writing, "In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit." Intrigued by the idea, Tolkien decided to dive deeper and created the 1937 fantasy novel The Hobbit.
1939 On September 21, 1939, radio station WJSV in Washington, DC recorded their entire 19-hour broadcast day for historic purposes. It contains the only known recordings of a number of programs from the Golden Age of Radio. The radio broadcast is now in the National Recording Registry and is available free, streaming online.
1964 In 1814, as part of the Treaty of Paris following the Napoleonic Wars, the island of Malta officially became a part of the British Empire and was used as a shipping way-station and fleet headquarters. The island played an important role as a naval and military base during both world wars. Malta achieved its independence on September 21, 1964 (Independence Day) after intense negotiations with the United Kingdom, led by Maltese Prime Minister George Borġ Olivier.
1968 When the Soviet Zond 5 spacecraft landed in the Indian Ocean on September 21, 1968, it became the first to safely return to Earth after circling the Moon. The mission marked a significant achievement in space exploration, as it demonstrated the feasibility of sending living organisms (including tortoises, fruit fly eggs and other biological specimens) around the Moon and safely back to Earth.
1968 Two Soviet tortoises were sent on the Russian Zond 5 spacecraft in 1968. They were the first ever creatures to orbit the Moon (three months before the first humans did) and survived the journey despite losing 10 per cent of their weight.
1983 The Motorola DynaTAC 8000X was the first portable cellular phone to be commercially released. It received approval from the U.S. FCC on September 21, 1983. It was priced at $3,995 in 1984. The DynaTAC 8000X took roughly 10 hours to fully charge and it offered 30 minutes of talk time. It also offered an LED display for dialing or recall of one of 30 phone numbers.
1985 George Clooney's first TV acting role was as an extra in the mini-series Centennial in 1978, which was based on the novel of the same name by James A. Michener. One of Clooney's first major roles was playing handyman George Burnett on The Facts of Life. He made his debut on the NBC sitcom on September 21, 1985.
2011 In his last week before being executed in Atlanta, Georgia, on September 21, 2011, convicted killer Troy Davis was put on ‘death watch’, to stop him taking his own life. Davis maintained his innocence up to his execution. Twitter recorded 7671 tweets per second in the moments before word of Davis's execution, making his death the second most active Twitter event in 2011.
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