This Week in History
by Dianne Hermann
“In the summer of 1776 our Founding Fathers sought to secure our independence and our liberties
that remain the foundation of our nation today.” Rep. Doc Hastings (R-WA)
September 7-13, 2026
September 7
1813 – “Uncle Sam” was first used to refer to the United States. The nickname is attributed to meatpacker Samuel Wilson of Troy, New York, who supplied barrels of meat to American troops during the War of 1812. The barrels are stamped with “U.S.” and the meat is soon referred to as Uncle Sam’s.
1876 – An attempted robbery by the James/ Younger gang of the First National Bank of Northfield, Minnesota, failed and a resident is killed as the gang escaped. Frank and Jesse James get away, but Cole, Bob, and Jim Younger were arrested weeks later, tried, convicted of murder, and sentenced to 25 years in prison. Bob died in prison in 1889. Jim is pardoned in 1901 but committed suicide the next year. Cole is also pardoned in 1901 and died in 1916. Jesse James was murdered in 1882 and Frank James died in 1915 at the age of 72.
1956 – Air Force Capt. Iven Kincheloe, Jr., set an unofficial manned aircraft altitude record when he flew his Bell X-2 more than 126,000 feet above the earth. The U.S. Air Force and Department of Defense refused to confirm the record and have never changed their decision.
1981 – Judge Wapner and the People’s Court premiered on TV and aired until 1993. The judges for the second version were former NYC Mayor Ed Koch (1997-1999), then Jerry Sheindlin, husband of Judge Judy (1999-2001), and finally Marilyn Milian (2001-2023). Judge Joseph Wapner died in 2017 at age 97. Watch the Judge Wapner discuss his most memorable case.
2008 – The U.S. Government took control of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two largest mortgage / financing companies in the U.S.
September 8
1565 – St. Augustine, Florida, the oldest city in the U.S., was established.
1892 – The “Pledge of Allegiance” first appeared in print in The Youth’s Companion. Baptist minister Francis Bellamy is the author.
1900 – Over 8,000 people were killed when a hurricane and tidal wave destroy Galveston, Texas. It is the deadliest hurricane in U.S. history.
1916 – President Woodrow Wilson signed the Emergency Revenue Act, doubling the rate of income tax and adding inheritance and munitions profits tax.
1921 – The first Miss America, 16-year-old Margaret Gorman of Washington, D.C, was crowned in Atlantic City, New Jersey. The Fall Frolic, held a year earlier as a way to keep tourists in Atlantic City, was the precursor to the pageant. The longest serving Miss America Pageant host was Bert Parks (1955-1979).
1951 – Japan signed a treaty of peace with 48 countries in San Francisco following the end of World War I.
1974 – President Gerald Ford pardoned former President Richard Nixon of all federal crimes related to the Watergate scandal.
1994 – The MTV awards featured newlyweds Michael Jackson and Lisa Marie Presley. They were secretly married four months earlier and filed for divorce in 1996. Michael died in 2009 at age 50 and Lisa Marie died in 2023 at age 54. Watch the pair open the awards ceremonies.
2005 – Two EMERCOM Il-76 aircraft landed at a disaster aid staging area at Little Rock Air Force Base, making it the first time Russia had flown such a mission to North America.
September 9
1675 – The New England colonies declared war on the Wampanoag Indians, who lived in what is now Massachusetts and Rhode Island. It is believed that Thanksgiving is based on the interaction between the Pilgrims and the Wampanoag Indians years earlier.
1776 – The Continental Congress renamed the “United Colonies” the “United States.”
1861 – Sally Tompkins became the only female Confederate Army commissioned officer during the Civil War. Captain Tompkins, called “The Angel of the Confederacy,” founded and directed Robertson Hospital in Richmond, Virginia.
1945 – Grace Hopper discovered the first “bug” in a computer while working with her associates at Harvard. A moth was removed from a relay with tweezers.
1955 – Elvis Presley made his first of three appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show. Actor Charles Laughton hosts for Ed, who is recovering from a serious car accident. Watch Elvis in a 1956 performance.
1963 – Gov. George Wallace (D-AL) was served with a federal injunction to stop his orders that state police bar black students from enrolling in white schools in Alabama.
2008 – The iTunes Music Store reached 100 million applications downloaded.
2009 – The iTunes Music Store reached 1.8 billion applications downloaded.
2014 – Apple unveiled the iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus, Apple Watch, Apple Watch Sport, and Apple Watch Edition.
September 10
1608 – John Smith was elected president of the Colony Council in Jamestown, Virginia, the first permanent British colony in North American.
1858 – John Holden hit the first recorded home run during a baseball game between the Brooklyn Eckfords and the New York Mutuals.
1913 – The Lincoln Highway opened as the first paved coast-to-coast highway. It measured 3,389 miles from Times Square in New York City to Lincoln Park in San Francisco, California. Over the years the Lincoln Highway was replaced with numbered highways.
1924 – Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb were found guilty of murdering Bobby Franks, a 14-year-old acquaintance. Their lawyer was Clarence Darrow. (The following year Darrow represented a teacher in the Scopes Monkey Trial.) Leopold and Loeb, teenagers at the time of the murder, were sentenced to life in prison. Loeb was killed in prison in 1936. In 1958, after thirty-four years of confinement, Leopold was released from prison. He moved to Puerto Rico, where he died in 1971 at the age of 65.
1948 – Mildred “Axis Sally” Gillars was indicted for treason in Washington, DC. She was convicted and spent 12 years in prison. Gillars was a Nazi radio propagandist during World War II.
1953 – Swanson sold its first “TV dinner.” It was a turkey dinner. Watch a 1955 commercial. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVwjNPpkTZA
1984 – Alex Trebek hosted his first episode of daily syndicated version of the game show Jeopardy! Art Fleming was the first Jeopardy! host. Trebek died in 2020 at age 80. Just nine days after being named the new Jeopardy! host, Mike Richards quit. Guest hosts Ken Jennings ($2.5 million winner) was tagged as the new host.
1992 – Lucy Van Pelt in the Peanuts comics raised her Psychiatric Help from 5 cents to 47 cents.
2018 – John Legend, Andrew Lloyd Webber, and Tim Rice won Emmys for the live TV performance of “Jesus Christ Superstar,” making them all EGOT winners (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, Tony), with Legend becoming the first black male EGOT winner.
September 11 (National Day of Service and Remembrance)
1941 – Construction began on the Pentagon and it was completed on January 15, 1943. The Pentagon is actually located in Northern Virginia just across the Potomac River from Washington, DC.
2001 – Two passenger planes hijacked by terrorists crashed into New York City’s World Trade Center Towers, causing the collapse of both buildings and killing of 2,752 people. Terrorists hijacked another passenger plane and crashed it into the Pentagon, killing of 125 people. A fourth hijacked airplane crashed in a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, after passengers and crew attempted to regain control of the aircraft. All 64 people on board were killed. Let’s roll!
2002 – The Pentagon was rededicated after repairs are completed, exactly one year after the terrorist attack on the building.
2011 – The Memorial Plaza at the National September 11th Memorial in New York City opened for the first time during a ceremony at the World Trade Center site.
September 12
1776 – Nathan Hale, recruited by George Washington, slipped behind enemy lines on Long Island, New York, on his first spy mission. Hale was arrested by the British on September 21st and hanged the following day. He was 21 years old. Hale is credited with saying, “I regret that I have but one life to give for my country.”
1910 – Alice Stebbins Wells was appointed the world’s first female police officer by the Los Angeles Police Department.
1935 – Millionaire Howard Hughes set a speed record of 352.46 mph in the H-1 Racer, an airplane of his own design. He went on to design and build the largest aircraft ever flown, the Spruce Goose, in 1947. The aircraft is on display at the Evergreen Aviation Museum in McMinnville, Oregon.
1954 – “Lassie” made its television debut on TV. The last show aired in 1974. A total of nine collies played Lassie, all males, and all descendants of the original Lassie, named Pal, that died in 1958. Watch the preview of the first show.
1983 – Security guard Victor Gerena robbed a Wells Fargo armored car facility of $7 million. He was placed on the FBI’s 10 Most Wanted list in 1984 but was never captured. Gerena holds the distinction of being on the Most Wanted List for the longest period of time, although he was removed from the list in 2016. There is still a $1 million reward for information leading to his capture.
2001 – Article V of the NATO agreement was invoked for the first and only time in response to the September 11, 2001 attacks against the United States. Article V states that an attack against one NATO member country is an attack against them all and allows for the use of armed force.
2003 – The U.N. lifted sanctions against Libya after it accepted responsibility for the 1988 bombing of Pan Am flight 103 and agrees to compensate the families of the victims, including 35 students from Syracuse University.
September 13
1788 – New York City became the capital of the United States. Washington, DC, becomes our nation’s permanent capital in 1790.
1934 – Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis, baseball’s first commissioner, sold the rights to the World Series broadcast rights (for the first time ever) to the Ford Motor Company for $100,000.
1939 – Igor Sikorsky made the first (tethered) flight of the Vought-Sikorsky VS-300, one of the first viable U.S. helicopters. Watch a newsreel of the helicopter being flown to the Henry Ford Museum in 1943.
1948 – Margaret Chase Smith (R-ME) was elected as a senator, making her the first woman to serve in both houses of Congress.
1977 – The first TV “viewer discretion” warning was issued before the airing of “Soap,” a sitcom featuring Billy Crystal.
2001 – Civilian aircraft flights resumed after the 9-11 attacks.
2017 – The International Olympic Committee announced that Los Angeles will host the 2028 Summer Olympics. The last two Summer Olympics held in the U.S were in Atlanta in 1996 and Los Angeles in 1984. The last Winter Olympics held in the U.S. was in Salt Lake City in 2002.
Image from: www.fox5ny.com