On This Day September 17

The Battle of Antietam was fought on September 17, 1862 near the mouth of Antietam Creek in Maryland during the American Civil War. It was the bloodiest single-day battle in American history, with a combined tally of 22,717 dead, wounded, or missing. Although the battle was tactically inconclusive, General McClellan of the Union Army did succeed in blocking Confederate General Lee's advance on Washington.

The Battle of Antietam, by Kurz Allison (1878)

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On This Day September 16

Boris Yeltsin abandoned communism partly due to a visit on September 16, 1989, to a medium-sized grocery store (Randall's) in Clear Lake, Houston, Texas. Leon Aron, quoting a Yeltsin associate, wrote in his 2000 biography, Yeltsin, A Revolutionary Life. "On his return to Moscow, Yeltsin would confess the pain he had felt after the Houston excursion: the 'pain for all of us, for our country so rich, so talented and so exhausted by incessant experiments'."

Boris Yeltsin By Kremlin.ru, 

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On This Day September 15

On September 15, 1916, during the Battle of the Somme, the British sent into action eleven vehicles of an entirely new kind, the Mark I tank.  When the British army was developing the vehicles, known as 'landships', they didn't want to give the Germans any clue what they were up to – so the name 'tank,' which doesn't mean anything, was used to throw them off. It stuck.

British World War I Mark V* tank

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On This Day September 14

After several setbacks George Handel the Anglo-German composer was at his lowest ebb. He set to work to compose an oratorio with words taken from the Book of Isaiah and The Gospels in which he intended to depict Christ's life, death, resurrection and eternal glory. For 22 days and nights he worked solidly hardly eating, or sleeping, surviving totally on coffee. The result was a masterpiece, The Messiah, which he completed on September 14, 1741.

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On This Day September 13

King George VI of the United Kingdom won admiration during the Second World War as he stayed at Buckingham Palace during the most intense months of the blitz. On September 13, 1940, the King and Queen narrowly avoided death when two German bombs exploded in a courtyard at Buckingham Palace while they were present. George VI remained there during the remainder of the war, becoming a symbol of resistance and 'fighting spirit'.

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On This Day September 12

Arbroath F.C. holds the world record for the largest winning margin in a senior unfixed football match. They won 36-0, in their Scottish Cup match against a scratch team from Aberdeen Bon Accord.  On a wet day on September 12, 1885 at Gayfield, 13-goal John Petrie led the rampant home team, a feat which is still recognized as the highest by one man in a single game.

Meanwhile, 20 miles away, Dundee Harp ran them close by beating Aberdeen Rovers 35-0 on the same day.

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On This Day June 30

On June 30, 1859 French tightrope walker Charles Blondin successfully crossed Niagara Gorge on a tightrope, 160 ft (49 m) above the water, near the location of the current Rainbow Bridge.
He repeated the feat a number of times thereafter, always with different theatrical variations: blindfolded, in a sack, trundling a wheelbarrow, on stilts, sitting down midway while he cooked and ate an omelette and standing on a chair with only one chair leg on the rope.

Charles Blondin crossing the Niagara River in 1859

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