1565 - Spanish explorers led by Pedro Menendez de Aviles founded St. Augustine in Florida, the first permanent European settlement in North America. St. Augustine was founded 42 years before the English settlement of Jamestown in Virginia.
    1636 - Harvard College (later University) was founded by the Massachusetts Puritans at New Towne. It was the first institution of higher learning established in North America, and was originally founded to train future ministers. Harvard College was established in 1636 by vote of the Great and General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and was named for its first benefactor, John Harvard of Charlestown, a young minister who, upon his death in 1638, left his library and half his estate to the new institution. Harvard's first scholarship fund was created in 1643 with a gift from Lady Anne Moulson (born Anne Radcliffe.) She is remembered today
in the name of Radcliffe College.
    1644 - The settlement of New Amsterdam was seized from Dutch governor Peter Stuyvesant by the English under Colonel Richard Nicholls without a shot being fired. It was later renamed New York after James, Duke of York, the future King James II.
    1755 - In the Seven Years War in North America, Col. William Johnson with his English militia defeated a combined French and Indian force in the Battle of Lake George.
    1760 - British troops under Jeffrey Amherst defeated the French in the Battle of Montreal; after the loss, the French surrendered their arms throughout Canada.
    1771 - Mission San Gabriel Archangel forms in California.
http://www.californiamissions.com/cahistory/sangabriel.html
    1781 - The American Revolutionary War was going badly for the freedom fighters as New London, Connecticut was looted and partially burned by British Troops under Gen. Benedict Arnold, who had joined the British. He also captured Fort Griswold at Groton across the Thames River. Benedict Arnold reportedly treated American soldiers with unnecessary brutality. The loyalists thought they could win the war. Another factor for Arnold was not only the money for his young wife, but the fact he hated the French, and their coming to the aid of the new colonies was more than he could take, he said. But it was really the money he was after.
    1810 - The ‘Tonquin’ sets sail from New York with 33 employees of John Jacob Astor’s newly created Pacific Fur Company on board. After a six-month journey around the tip of South America, the ship arrives at the mouth of the Columbia River at the Pacific Ocean and they establish the fur-trading town of Astoria, OR.
    1847 – Americans under Gen. Winfield Scott defeated the Mexicans at the Battle of Molino del Rey in the Mexican War.
    1852 – At the personal invitation of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony attended her first woman’s rights convention, the three-day Syracuse Convention. It was the third national woman’s rights convention. Anthony then spent her entire life traveling and speaking on behalf of women’s rights.
    1863 - On the Texas-Louisiana border at the mouth of the Sabine River, a small Confederate force thwarts a Union invasion of Texas, the Second Battle of Sabine Pass
      1866 – In Chicago, Illinois, James and Jennie Bushnell became the parents of sextuplets when their three boys and three girls were born. Two of the babies died, but the surviving four lived long lives. This was the first birth of sextuplets recorded.
    1883 – Sitting Bull, main chief of the Sioux tribes, delivers a speech insulting and making fools of US authorities to great applause. Sitting Bull (Tatanka Iyotake), whose position was being bypassed by US authorities because he firmly stood against the robbery of the native peoples, spoke at the celebration of the driving of the last spike in the Northern Pacific railroad joining with the transcontinental system. He delivered the speech in his Sioux language, departing from a speech originally prepared with an army translator. Denouncing the US government, settlers and army, the listeners thought he was delivering a speech of welcome and praise. While giving the speech Sitting Bull paused for applause periodically, bowed, smiled and continued insulting and making asses of the audience and US authorities as the translator delivered the original address.
    1883 – The Northern Pacific Railroad across the U.S. was completed in a ceremony at Gold Creek, Montana. Former president Ulysses S. Grant drove in the final "golden spike" in an event attended by rail and political luminaries.
    1892 – Written by Francis Bellamy, the original “Pledge of Allegiance” was first published in an issue of “The Youth’s Companion” in Boston.
    1897 – Birthday of American folksinger Jimmie Rodgers, Meridian, Mississippi. Died New York, New York, May 26, 1933. He is often called the “father of country music.”
http://www.southernmusic.net/jimmierodgers.htm
    1900 - Galveston, Texas was hit by the worst hurricane in United States history. Twenty-three foot waves and winds up to 135 miles per hour killed 6,000 people. The storm lasted for 18 hours. The city, on an island connected to the mainland by a 2-mile long causeway, had to be rebuilt. When the renovations were completed, Galveston was raised 15 feet above its old level and a new sea wall was built six feet higher than the former high-water mark.
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/today/sep08.html
    1903 - The American Federation of Labor granted a charter to the granite quarry workers of Barre, Vermont. To document the lives of workers whose union standards outpaced the nations, writers from the Federal Writers' Project interviewed Barre quarrymen in the early 1940s. Many of these interviews are in the American Memory collection “American Life Histories, 1936-1940”.
(lower half of http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/today/sep08.html )
    1911 - Naturalist Euell Gibbons born in Clarksville, Texas, died December 29, 1975. Perhaps his appearances on the Johnny Carson shows started a healthy food eating craze. The Post Grape Nuts cereal advertising quote, "Ever eat a pine tree? Many parts are edible." is attributed to him (and inspired Carson to joke about sending him a "lumber-gram"). Ironically he died from a heart attack, most likely brought on as a result of smoking cigarettes, the saturated fats he added to his wild food diet and a lack of exercise in his later, declining years.
http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/articles/GG/fgi38.html
    1915 – Actor Frank Cady was born in Susanville, CA.  Cady was a supporting actor best known for his recurring and popular role as storekeeper Sam Drucker in three American TV series during the 1960s – “Petticoat Junction”, “Green Acres”, and “The Beverly Hillbillies” — and his earlier role as "Doc Williams" on “The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet”. Cady died in 2012 in Wilsonville, OR.
    1921 - Margaret Gorman of Washington, DC, was crowned the first Miss America at the end of a two-day pageant at Atlantic City, NJ. The sixteen-year-old schoolgirl was a dead ringer for reigning matinee superstar, Mary Pickford. Gorman continued to compete in later years, and though unsuccessful, was always a favorite of the crowds. A few years later, she married Victor Cahill, and was happily married until he died in 1957. She lived all her life in D.C., but enjoyed traveling. She died in October, 1995.
http://www.missamerica.org/our-miss-americas/1920/1921.asp
http://www.missamerica.org/our-miss-americas/1920/review.asp
    1922 - Comedian Sid Caesar birthday in Yonkers, NY. While Milton Berle was considered “Mr. Television” in the 1950's, it was Caesar’s “Your Show of Shows” that really cracked this teenager up. My father was a personal friend of the director, and also good friends of two of the characters in the series, and we would visit the set. Caesar was always very serious in person, but there was electricity in the live performance that made all ages laugh.
His show was the "must see" every Saturday night for four years (112 episodes, 1950-1954), Caesar's Hour 1954-1957. 1958, Sid Caesar invites]. Known for deviating from the script, more a "comedy character" than one liners, he was very unsure of himself behind the scenes. He has appeared in many movies and TV shows, as well as Las Vegas. My father knew him and many of the writers, as Carl Reiner and Howie Morris were close friends of his. My father could imitate Caesar 100%. My father was an early television writer/producer in New York before networks. He produced the first network show for NBC, but is perhaps best known as the creator/writer of "Captain Video," "Harlem Detective” (black and white cop in 1951) and "Hands of Mystery."  Caesar died February 12, 2014.
http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/C/htmlC/caesarsid/caesarsid.htm\
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0128377/
http://www.sidcaesar.com/
    1923 - Birthday of bass player Wilbur Ware, Chicago, Il, perhaps best known among hard bop bass players, heroin took him down.
http://www.harlem.org/people/ware.html
http://www.vh1.com/artists/az/ware_wilbur/bio.jhtmlc
    1924 – Birthday of “Peyton Place” author Grace Metalious, born Marie Grace DeRepentigny, at Manchester, NH.  “Peyton Place” was reviled by the clergy and dismissed by most critics as steamy trash, but it remained on The New York Times bestseller list for more than a year and became an international phenomenon that gave rise to a movie and a television series.
    1925 – Birthday of Inspector Clouseau, “Pink Panther”, Peter Sellers in England. 
    1930 – The Minnesota Mining & Manufacturing Company, now known as 3M, begins marketing Scotch transparent tape.
      1932 - Birthday of Patsy Cline, country and western singer, born Virginia Patterson Hensley in Winchester, Va. Patsy Cline got her big break in 1957 when she won an Arthur Godfrey Talent Scout show, singing “Walking After Midnight.” Her career took off and she became a featured singer at the Grand Ole Opry, attaining the rank of top female country singer. Her hits also included “I Fall To Pieces”, "She’s Got You”, "Crazy" and ended in 1963 with "Sweet Dreams".  She died in a plane crash March 6, 1963, at Camden, TN, along with singers Hawkshaw Hawkins and Cowboy Copas.  Ten years after her death, in 1973, she became the first female solo artist inducted to the Country Music Hall of Fame.
    1934 – En route to New York from Havana, the SS Morro Castle runs aground and burns for several days off the coast of Asbury Park, NJ.  133 people die.  This disaster was a catalyst for improved shipboard fire safety:   the use of fire-retardant materials, automatic fire doors, ship-wide fire alarms, and greater attention to fire drills and procedures.
    1935 - The Hoboken Four, featuring lead signer Frank Sinatra, appeared on WOR radio's "Major Bowes Amateur Hour". The group won the contest held at the Capitol Theatre in New York City.
    1935 - Louisiana Senator Huey P. Long was shot while attending a session of the state House of Representatives in Baton Rouge. In retaliation for slandering his father, Dr. Carl Austin Weiss, Jr. fatally shot Long in the state capital building. Fatally wounded, he died two days later.
    1941 - In World War II, the blockade of Leningrad began as the German army encircled the city, cutting it off from the rest of the country. The siege lasted until January 1944 with nearly 1 million civilians being killed.
    1941 - For Columbia Records, Harry James and his orchestra recorded "Miserlou".
    1943 - United States General Dwight D. Eisenhower announced the unconditional surrender of Italy in World War II after deposing Dictator Benito Mussolini.
    1944 - *PRUSSMAN, ERNEST W., Medal of Honor.
Rank and organization: Private First Class, U.S. Army, 13th Infantry, 8th Infantry Division. Place and date: Near Les Coates, Brittany, France, 8 September 1944. Entered service at: Brighton, Mass. Birth: Baltimore, Md. G.O. No.: 31, 17 April 1945. Citation: For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at risk of life above and beyond the call of duty on 8 September 1944, near Les Coates, Brittany, France. When the advance of the flank companies of 2 battalions was halted by intense enemy mortar, machinegun, and sniper fire from a fortified position on his left, Pfc. Prussman maneuvered his squad to assault the enemy fortifications. Hurdling a hedgerow, he came upon 2 enemy riflemen whom he disarmed. After leading his squad across an open field to the next hedgerow, he advanced to a machinegun position, destroyed the gun, captured its crew and 2 riflemen. Again advancing ahead of his squad in the assault, he was mortally wounded by an enemy rifleman, but as he fell to the ground he threw a hand grenade, killing his opponent. His superb leadership and heroic action at the cost of his life so demoralized the enemy that resistance at this point collapsed, permitting the 2 battalions to continue their advance.
    1945 - Bess Myerson of New York was crowned Miss America. She was the first Jewish contestant to win the title.
    1945 - United States troops arrive to partition the southern part of Korea in response to Soviet troops occupying the northern part of the peninsula a month earlier.
     1945 – In Washington, DC, a bus equipped with a two-way radio was put in service for the first time.
     1950 - Congress passed the Defense Production Act, which called for various economic measures, including wage and price controls.
    1950 - Top Hits
“Mona Lisa” - Nat King Cole
“Play a Simple Melody” - Bing Crosby
“Goodnight Irene” - The Weavers
“Goodnight Irene” - Red Foley-Ernest Tubb
    1951 – The Treaty of San Francisco is signed by 48 nations with Japan in formal recognition of the end of World War II in the Pacific.
    1951 - Tony Bennett's "Because of You" hits #1
      1952 - Ernest Hemingway's "Old Man & the Sea" published. It is his last work. It was for this work that he received the Nobel Prize in Literature.
http://www.ernest.hemingway.com/oldman.htm
http://www.hemingwayhome.com/HTML/main_menu.html
    1952 - No. 1 Billboard Pop Hit: "You Belong to Me," Jo Stafford.
    1954 - Radio personality Alan Freed begins broadcasting on New York's WINS at an annual salary of $75,000. Although the phrase "rock ‘n’ roll" had been around for a while, Freed is generally given credit for making it popular.
    1955 - The Brooklyn Dodgers won the National League pennant at the earliest point in a season in Major League history.  They went on to win their first…and only…World Series in Brooklyn when they defeated the Yankees in seven games.
    1955 - Birthday of composer Daniel Palkowski, Oak Ridge, Tenn.
    1956 - Harry Belafonte's album "Calypso," goes to #1 & stays #1 for 31 weeks
    1956 - Eddie Cochran signs with Liberty Records where he will have three US Top 40 hits, "Sittin' In The Balcony" (#18), "Summertime Blues" (#8) and "C'mon Everybody" (#35).  Cochran's rockabilly songs captured teenage frustration and desire in the late 1950s and early 1960s. He experimented with multitrack recording and overdubbing even on his earliest singles, and was also able to play piano, bass and drums.  Cochran died aged 21 after a road accident, in a taxi, during his British tour in April 1960, having just performed at Bristol's Hippodrome theatre. Though his best-known songs were released during his lifetime, more of his songs were released posthumously. In 1987, Cochran was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
    1958 - Roberto Clemente of the Pittsburgh Pirates tied a major-league baseball record by hitting three triples. Clemente led the Bucs to a 4-1 win over the Cincinnati Reds.
    1958 - The International Olympic Committee barred Communist China from the 1960 Olympic Games.
    1958 - Top Hits
“Nel Blu Dipinto Di Blu” (“Volare”) - Domenico Modugno
“Little Star” - The Elegants
“Patricia” - Perez Prado
“Bird Dog” - The Everly Brothers
    1960 - President Dwight D. Eisenhower formally dedicates the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, AL that had already been activated on July 1.
      1962 - The novelty song "Monster Mash" by Bobby "Boris" Pickett enters the Hot 100 at #85. It's a tongue in cheek take-off on the late night monster movies that were popular at this time…”Chiller Theater”, “Zacherle”. He recorded it with sound effects: the creaky door opening is a nail being pulled from a piece of wood, the boiling cauldron is Pickett blowing bubbles into a cup of water with a straw and the chains are him moving chains up and down. He also did all the voices. The song will make it to Number One for two weeks.  It also appeared on the charts in 1970 and 1973 and it has been covered frequently over the years.
    1965 - Hurricane Betsy kills 75 in Louisiana & Florida.
http://www.answers.com/topic/hurricane-betsy
    1965 - Bert Campaneris of the Kansas City Athletics played all nine positions as his team lost to the California Angels, 5-3 in 13 innings. He gave up one run while pitching.
    1965 - An ad in a Hollywood newspaper on this date requested four "insane boys, ages 17-21" to act in a television series about a rock and roll band. More than 400 hopefuls auditioned and those selected to be “The Monkees” were Mickey Dolenz, Davy Jones, Mike Nesmith, and Peter Tork. The show, “The Monkees”, was the brainchild of producers Bert Schneider and Robert Rafelson. Within the year following the show's premiere, the four young men became international prime time pop stars.
    1966 - The first of 79 episodes of the TV series "Star Trek" was aired on the NBC network. “Beam me up, Scotty.” Perhaps the first cell phone was introduced and the first kiss between a black woman and a white man on television, along with many other innovative and comical episodes.
    1966 - “Tarzan” premiered on TV. This hour adventure series was based on Edgar Rice Burroughs' character, which appeared for the first time on TV. Tarzan, an English lord who preferred the jungle, was played by Ron Ely. Manuel Padilla, Jr. was Jai, a jungle orphan. Alan Caillou was Jason Flood, Jai's tutor, and Rockne Tarkington was Rao, a veterinarian. There was no Jane.
    1966 - “That Girl” premiered on TV, a half-hour sitcom starring Marlo Thomas. Ted Bessell also starred as her boyfriend Don Hollinger. They were finally engaged in 1970. Also featured were Lew Parker, Rosemary De Camp and Bonnie Scott. Well-known performers who appeared on the show included Dabney Coleman, George Carlin and Bernie Kopell.
    1966 - Top Hits
“Sunshine Superman” - Donovan
“See You in September” - The Happenings
“You Can't Hurry Love” - The Supremes
“Almost Persuaded” - David Houston
    1970 - The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts is inaugurated in Washington, DC, with the opening feature premiering Leonard Bernstein’s “Mass”.
    1971 – Birthday of former “Dancing with the Stars” season 7 champ and host, Brooke Burke-Charvet, Hartford, CT.
    1971 - Elvis Presley receives the extremely prestigious Bing Crosby Award, the GRAMNY's forerunner of its Lifetime Achievement Award, making him only the sixth recording artist to be honored for having "made creative contributions of outstanding artistic or scientific significance to the field of phonograph records."
     1973 - Marvin Gaye enjoyed his second #1 hit on the Billboard Pop chart with "Let's Get It On". He would place 7 more records on the list by 1982, giving him a total of 40.
    1973 - Hank Aaron’s home run #709 went into the record books. The Atlanta slugger set a major league baseball record for most home runs hit in one league. In 1974, Aaron passed Babe Ruth's record of 714 homers, hitting 755 for his entire career.
    1974 - In a controversial move, President Gerald R. Ford pardoned former President Richard M. Nixon, a " full, free, and absolute pardon, for all offenses against the United States which he, Richard Nixon, has committed or may have committed or taken part during the period from January 20, 1969 through August 9, 1974."  Ford defended his decision by explaining that he wanted to end the national divisions created by the Watergate Affair. The American Public thought it was a “pay off.” Ford was the only president not nominated for the office, taking over the vice-presidency after Spiro Agnew resigned.
        1974 - No. 1 Billboard Pop Hit: "I Shot the Sheriff," Eric Clapton. The song is a remake of Jamaican Bob Marley's reggae version.
    1974 - Top Hits
“(You're) Having My Baby” - Paul Anka
“I Shot the Sheriff” - Eric Clapton
“Tell Me Something Good” - Rufus
“Please Don't Tell Me How the Story Ends” - Ronnie Milsap
    1975 – US Air Force Tech Sergeant Leonard Matlovich, a decorated veteran of the Vietnam War, appears in his Air Force uniform on the cover of Time magazine with the headline "I Am A Homosexual". He is given a general discharge, which was later upgraded to honorable.
      1976 - Disco band Wild Cherry's self-titled album, which includes their Number One single, "Play that Funky Music," goes gold.
    1976 - The debut album by Vancouver band rock band Heart, "Dreamboat Annie" goes gold. The album contains "Magic Man" (a #9 hit) and "Crazy on You."
    1982 - Top Hits
“Abracadabra” - The Steve Miller Band
“Hard to Say I'm Sorry” - Chicago
“Hold Me” - Fleetwood Mac
“Love Will Turn You Around” - Kenny Rogers
    1985 – Cincinnati’s Pete Rose ties Ty Cobb’s Major League record for hits in a career with #4,191, off the Cubs’ Reggie Patterson.  Rose finished as baseball’s all-time hit leader with 4,256.  Quite controversially, Rose remains disqualified from the game since 1989, including consideration for the Hall of Fame, as a result of his gambling on the game while he managed the Reds.  After years of professing his innocence, Rose finally admitted his gambling to Commissioner Bud Selig in 2004.  His status remains an issue of high controversy among baseball years 25 years after he agreed to the ban.
    1986 - “The Oprah Winfrey Show” premiered on TV. This daytime talk show ranked as the top rated talk show for 25 seasons from 1986 to 2011. It remains the highest-rated talk show in American television history and also has the distinction of being the first talk show hosted by a black woman. Her show is taped in front of a studio audience who are solicited for their questions and feedback. In the mid-1990s, fed up with the plethora of trashy talk shows that had sprung up everywhere, Winfrey decided to upgrade the quality of topics that her show presented. Her book club feature has been a popular element of her show, and chosen books usually become best seller.
    1987 - Thunderstorms produce 4-8 inches of rain in 3 to 6 hours in Virginia, bringing the totals for the Labor Day weekend up to 14 inches. The Staunton River crested at 34.44 feet at Altavista, its highest level in 47 years with flood damage estimated at $47 million.
    1987 - At Miami, the mercury soars to 97, setting a record for the date and month.
    1988 - Eighteen cities in the south central and eastern U.S. reported record low temperatures for the date, including Roanoke VA with a reading of 42 degrees
    1988 – Raging and widespread fires close Yellowstone National Park for the first time.
    1988 – Singer Elton John sold some of his costumes and memorabilia for $6.2 million.
    1990 - Top Hits
“Blaze of Glory” - Jon Bon Jovi
“Release Me” - Wilson Phillips
“Do Me!” - Bell Biv DeVoe
“Jukebox in My Mind” - Alabama
    1994 – US Air flight 427, on approach to Pittsburgh International Airport, suddenly crashes in clear weather killing all 132 aboard.  This resulted in the most extensive aviation investigation in world history and altered manufacturing practices in the industry.
     1998 - Mark McGwire of the St. Louis Cardinals hit his 62nd home run, breaking Roger Maris's 1961 record for the most home runs in a single season. McGwire hit his homer at Busch Stadium at St. Louis against pitcher Steve Trachsel of Chicago Cubs as the Cardinals won 6-3. McGwire finished the season with 70 home runs.  Subsequent admissions of his use of performance enhancing drugs has cast clouds over this accomplishment and those of contemporaries like Barry Bonds, Sammy Sosa, Rafael Palmeiro and others.
    2000 – Sean “Puffy” Combs pled guilty to reduced assault charges in New York Criminal Court. Combs was sentenced to a one-day anger management class. The charges stemmed from Combs assaulting Interscope Records, executive Steve Stoute.
      2002 - Pop Zhao, a SF artist, organized volunteers to drape 3 miles of US flags along the SF coastline in an artistic display of patriotism, remembrance and strength.
    2003 - With four honors, Shania Twain is the big winner at the Canadian Country Music Awards, presented at the Pengrowth Saddledome in Calgary, Alberta. Twain wins for top female, top album and top-selling album for "Up!" (Mercury Nashville) and top video for "I'm Gonna Getcha Good!"
     2011 - The failure of the entire San Diego Gas & Electric system leads to the closure of San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station, causing blackouts in southern California, Arizona and Baja California in Mexico. The blackout occurred after a worker at an Arizona power substation turned off a piece of equipment that was being affected by extreme heat. The blackout left more than five million people without power.
    2013 - At the U.S. Open, tennis pro Serena Williams defeats Victoria Azarenka, winning Women's Singles for the fifth time.