This Day in History – September 6, 2011

3114 BC According to the proleptic Julian calendar the current era in the Maya Long Count Calendar started. (Non-standard interpretation) 1492 Christopher Columbus sails from La Gomera in the Canary Islands, his final port of call before crossing the Atlantic for the first time. 1522 The Victoria, the only surviving ship of Ferdinand Magellan’s expedition, returns to Sanlúcar de Barrameda in Spain, becoming the first ship to circumnavigate the world. 1620 The Pilgrims sail from Plymouth, England, on the Mayflower to settle in North America. (Old Style date; September 16 per New Style date.) 1628 Puritans settle Salem, which will later become part of Massachusetts Bay Colony. 1861 American Civil War: Forces under Union General Ulysses S. Grant bloodlessly capture Paducah, Kentucky, which gives the Union control of the mouth of the Tennessee River. 1862 Stonewall Jackson occupies Fredrick, Maryland 1869 1st westbound train arrives in SF 1870 Louisa Ann Swain of Laramie, Wyoming becomes the first woman in the United States to cast a vote legally after 1807. 1899 Carnation processes its 1st can of evaporated milk 1901 Anarchist Leon Czolgosz shoots and fatally wounds US President William McKinley at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York. 1909 Word received, Admerial Peary discovered North Pole 5 months earlier 1946 All-American Football Conference plays 1st game (Clev 44, Miami 0) 1949 A former sharpshooter in World War II, Howard Unruh kills 13 neighbors in Camden, New Jersey, with a souvenir Luger to become the first U.S. single-episode mass murderer. 1963 Major league baseballs 100,000th game 1966 “Star Trek” premiers on NBC TV 1970 Two passenger jets bound from Europe to New York are simultaneously hijacked by Palestinian terrorist members of PFLP and taken to Dawson’s Field in Jordan. 1972 Munich Massacre: 9 Israel athletes taken hostage at the Munich Olympic Games by the Palestinian “Black September” terrorist group died (as did a German policeman) at the hands of the kidnappers during a failed rescue attempt. 2 other Israeli athletes are slain in the initial attack the previous day. 1988 Crippled soviet Soyuz TM-5 lands safely with 2 cosmonauts aboard 1991 The name Saint Petersburg is restored to Russia’s second largest city, which had been renamed Leningrad in 1924. 1995 Cal Ripken Jr of the Baltimore Orioles plays in his 2,131st consecutive game, breaking a record that stood for 56 years. 1997 Funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales takes place in London. Over a million people lined the streets and 2.5 billion watched around the world on television.]]]]> ]]>