September 29

1011 On September 29, 1011 an army of Viking pirates, part of the larger Danish invasion force led by the notorious Thorkell the Tall, attacked Canterbury, one of England’s key cities. Archbishop Ælfheah, the highest-ranking religious figure in the city, was captured during this raid. The Vikings looted Canterbury, and Ælfheah was held for ransom by Thorkell's forces. They demanded a huge sum for his release, but Ælfheah refused to allow the people to pay the ransom and after several months in captivity, he was brutally murdered.

1220 Following a conversion experience in 1209, Saint Francis of Assisi started to attract followers, and with a blessing from the pope, he founded the Franciscan Order the following year. On September 29, 1220 Francis of Assisi handed over the governance of the Franciscan Order to Brother Peter Catani at the Porziuncola. By the beginning of the fourteenth century there were around 25,000 Franciscan friars preaching from 1,400 friaries in Western Europe.

Francis considered his stigmata part of the Imitation of Christ Cigoli, 1699

1227 Having expressed a wish to participate in a Crusade, Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor, kept putting it off. He finally set off for the Sixth Crusade in August 1227 but returned to the port within a few days as was taken ill. Pope Gregory IX, unsympathetic at this delay, excommunicated the unfortunate stricken emperor on September 29, 1227. Frederick eventually set sail for the Sixth Crusade in June 1228.

1547 Don Quixote author Miguel de Cervantes was born in Alcalá de Henares, a Castilian city about 22 miles northeast from Madrid, on September 29, 1547.  He was the son of Rodrigo de Cervantes, an unsuccessful penniless surgeon, who ended up in a debtor's prison. His mother, Leonor de Cortinas, may have been a descendant of Jewish converts to Christianity.

1662 Samuel Pepys wrote in his diary entry for September 29, 1662 "...and then on to the King’s Theatre, where we saw Midsummer Night's Dream, which I had never seen before nor shall ever see again, for it is the most insipid, ridiculous play that I ever saw in my life."

1725 Robert Clive, 1st Baron Clive of Plassey, KB, "Clive of India," was born at Styche, the family estate, in the parish in Moreton Say, near Market Drayton, Shropshire on September 29, 1725.
As a boy Clive ran a protection racket extorting money from shopkeepers in his hometown and leading gangs in window breaking. His bad behavior resulted in him being expelled from three schools.

Robert Clive, 1st Baron Clive, by Nathaniel Dance,

1758 Horatio Nelson was born on September 29, 1758 in a rectory in Burnham Thorpe, Norfolk, England, the sixth of eleven children of the Reverend Edmund Nelson and his wife Catherine Suckling. A weak, sickly child, when he was sent to sea at the age of 12 as a midshipman on the Raisonnable Horatio was so lonely and homesick, he was nicknamed "Poor Horace Captain."

1774 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe made his literary name on September 29, 1774 with the publication of The Sorrows of Young Werther, an autobiographical novel, influenced by his love for a friend's fiancée, Charlotte Buff. Her betrothed, Johann Christian Kestner had showed great understanding until he found the hopeless affair exposed to public gaze in Goethe's book.

1789 On September 29, 1789, the last day of its first session, the US Congress passed the bill that established the armed forces of the United States of America. It established a regular army with a strength of several hundred men.

1885 One of the first proper electric tramways of many around the world opened in Blackpool, Lancashire, England, on September 29, 1885. Unlike most of the others, it's still going. It is the UK's only surviving first-generation tramway.

1907 Gene Autry was born on September 29, 1907, near Tioga in Grayson County in north Texas. Autry was discovered singing in a telegraph office in Oklahoma by humorist Will Rogers. Rogers told him that he had a pretty good voice, and suggested that he should sing professionally. Autry followed Rogers' advice and became "The Singing Cowboy." Autry went to Hollywood in 1934, and within the next few year's he'd become the screen's most popular cowboy star.

1913 German engineer and inventor of the diesel engine, Rudolf Diesel, was lost overboard from the steamer Dresden while on his way to London on September 29, 1913. Many believe he committed suicide as, shortly after Diesel's disappearance, his wife Martha opened a bag that her husband had given to her just before his ill-fated voyage, with directions that it should not be opened until the following week. She discovered 200,000 German marks in cash. Diesel's body was later found floating in the North Sea near the coast of Belgium. 

1916 On September 29, 1916, John D Rockefeller became the first ever billionaire when he reached a nominal personal fortune of US$1 billion. Rockefeller amassed his fortune from the Standard Oil company, of which he was a founder, chairman and major shareholder. By the time of his death in 1937, estimates place Rockefeller's personal fortune as being equal to 1.53% of the American economy of that time, or about US $200 billion.

1923 Following the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire after World War I the British were formally awarded the mandate to govern the Holy Land region. The British Mandate for Palestine came into effect on September 29, 1923, officially creating the protectorates of Palestine under British administration and Transjordan as a separate emirate under Abdullah I.

The formal transfer of Jerusalem to British rule

1941 German Nazis aided by their collaborators began the Babi Yar massacre in Kiev, Ukraine on September 29, 1941 as part of the Holocaust. They killed over 30,000 Jewish civilians in two days and thousands more in the months that followed.

1941 Jon Brower Minnoch was born Bainbridge Island, Washington, USA, on September 29, 1941. At his peak weight, he was the heaviest human being ever recorded, weighing approximately 1,400 lb (635 kilograms; 100 stone). Minnoch also holds the record for the largest weight loss when he embarked on a strict diet of 1,200 kcal (5,000 kJ) per day after being admitted to hospital. After 16 months, Minnoch weighed 476 lb (216 kg; 34.0 st), having lost approximately 924 lb (419 kg; 66.0 st).

1960 Fidel Castro gave one of the longest speeches ever delivered at the United Nations, speaking for 4 hours and 29 minutes, on September 29, 1960. During his speech, Castro criticized imperialism and called for global disarmament while expressing his support for various socialist and anti-imperialist causes.

1966 The Chevrolet Camaro was introduced by the Chevrolet division of General Motors on September 29, 1966. It was designed to compete with the Ford Mustang, which had already established itself as a popular and successful model in the "pony car" segment.as a competitor to the Ford Mustang. The Camaro was discontinued in 2002, but returned as a 2010 model car.

1st Generation Camaro

1996 First released in 1985, Super Mario Bros established gameplay concepts and elements prevalent in nearly every Super Mario game since. Super Mario Bros was so popular that at the end of 1985, Japan's highest-selling book was a strategy guide on how to beat the game. Super Mario 64, released on  September 29, 1996, featured Mario's first 3D rendering.

2008 On September 29, 2008, the Phoenix lander took pictures of snow falling from clouds 4.5 km above its landing site near Heimdall crater on Mars. The precipitation vaporized before reaching the ground, a phenomenon called virga.