1781 – Hopelessly trapped at Yorktown, Virginia, British General Lord General Cornwallis surrendered 7,087 officers and men, 900 seamen, 144 cannons, 15 galleys, a frigate, and 30 transport ships. Pleading illness, he did not attend the surrender ceremony, but his second-in-command, General Charles O’Hara, carried Cornwallis’ sword to the American and French commanders.
Although the war persisted on the high seas and in other theaters, the Patriot victory at Yorktown effectively ended fighting in the American colonies. Peace negotiations began in 1782, and on September 3, 1783, the Treaty of Paris was signed, formally recognizing the United States as a free and independent nation after eight years of war.
1796 – An essay appeared in the Gazette of The United States in which a writer, mysteriously named “Phocion,” attacked presidential candidate Thomas Jefferson, accusing Jefferson of carrying on an affair with one of his slaves.
“Phocion” turned out to be former Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton. The essay typified the nasty, personal nature of political attacks in late 18th-century America. When the article appeared, Jefferson was running against presidential incumbent John Adams, in an acrimonious campaign. The highly influential Hamilton, also a Federalist, supported Adams over Jefferson, one of Hamilton’s political rivals since the two men served together in George Washington’s first cabinet.
1812 – One month after Napoleon Bonaparte’s massive invading force entered a burning and deserted Moscow, the starving French army was forced to begin a hasty retreat out of Russia. The enormous army, featuring more than 500,000 soldiers and staff, was the largest European military force ever assembled to that date.
On September 14, Napoleon had arrived in Moscow intending to find supplies but instead found almost the entire population evacuated, and the Russian army retreated again. Early the next morning, fires broke across the city set by Russian patriots, and Napoleon’s winter quarters were destroyed. After waiting a month for a surrender that never came, Napoleon, faced with the onset of the Russian winter, was forced to order his starving army out of Moscow.
1864 – Union General Philip Sheridan averted a near disaster in the Shenandoah Valley when he rallied his troops after a surprise attack by Confederate General Jubal Early, scoring a major victory that almost destroyed Early’s army at the Battle of Cedar Creek in Virginia.
Sheridan had departed for a military conference in Washington, D.C., and before he returned, Early launched a devastating attack on the surprised Yankees at Cedar Creek. Throughout the morning, the Rebels drove the Union troops back more than three miles. By late morning, Early slowed the attack despite the urgings of General John B. Gordon, who insisted that Early press his assault to achieve total destruction of the Federal force. Returning from Washington, Sheridan heard the battle from Winchester and began a furious, 12-mile ride to the front. Along the way, he met his retreating soldiers and turned them back toward the battle for a counterattack. This effort, which was later called Sheridan’s Ride, became legendary.
After Early cut off his assault, an eerie silence settled on the battlefield. Sheridan orchestrated his counterattack by late afternoon, and it was devastating. The Yankees tore through the Confederate lines and sent Early’s army in retreat. Sheridan lost 5,500 out of 31,000 troops. Early lost almost 3,000 of the 22,000 men in his command, but nearly all of the Confederate artillery was captured in the Union counterattack. It was the last major battle in the Shenandoah campaign, and Early was never able to mount a serious offensive again.
1864 – Twenty-one cavalrymen, organized by Confederate agent George Sanders and led by Lieutenant Bennett Young, arrived from Canada and took over St. Albans, Vermont – just 15 miles from the Canadian border – in what was to go down in history as the northernmost engagement of the Civil War; The St. Albans Raid.
The raiders – aiming to rebuild the Confederate treasury and force the Union Army to divert troops from the South to stop them – robbed three local banks and made off with over $200,000.
One townsman was killed and another wounded. One bandit was wounded and died shortly after. The cavalrymen escaped to Canada, but in response to U.S. demands, the Canadian authorities arrested the raiders, recovering $88,000. However, a Canadian court ruled that because they were soldiers under military orders, officially neutral Canada could not extradite them. Canada freed the bandits, but returned to St. Albans the money they had found.
1943 – The cargo vessel Sinfra, under German control, was attacked by Allied aircraft at Souda Bay, Crete. When the ship finally went under, 2,098 Italian prisoners of war drowned with it.
1950 – United Nations forces entered and captured the North Korean capital of Pyongyang. A month later, North Korean forces were driven back almost to the Yalu River which marks the border of China. But just as General Douglas MacArthur prepared for a final offensive, Chinese Communist Forces joined the North Korean army and launched a counterattack, forcing MacArthur’s forces to withdraw to the 38th Parallel.
1953 – After popular singer and heartthrob Julius La Rosa finished his version of ‘Manhattan’ on the CBS radio broadcast of Arthur Godfrey Time, host Arthur Godfrey said “Thanks ever so much, Julie. That was Julie’s swan song with us…” effectively firing the young singer on air without his prior knowledge. Godfrey later held a press conference after the incident became a national scandal, claiming that by hiring his own manager, LaRosa had lost his “humility,” but several historians claim that Godfrey was actually upset that the singer was beginning to receive more fan mail than the host.
1958 – 13-year old Brenda Lee recorded ‘Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree’ at the Bradley Film & Recording Studio in Nashville. Although Decca released the single in both 1958 and again in 1959, it did not sell well until Lee became a popular star in 1960. It has since turned into a perennial holiday favorite.
1960 – After a private American oil refinery in Cuba refused to refine a shipment of Soviet crude oil, the Cuban government responded by nationalizing all three Cuban refineries, which were all American-owned. This prompted the Eisenhower administration to launch the first trade embargo on this date – a prohibition against selling all products to Cuba except food and medicine. The Cuban regime responded with nationalization of all American businesses and most American privately owned properties on the island.
1960 – Jerry West made his debut with the Los Angeles Lakers and Oscar Robertson debuted with the Cincinnati Royals. Both men would become two of the greatest basketball players in NBA history.
1978 – Actor Gig Young (The Desperate Hours, Teacher’s Pet, Come Fill The Cup and won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?) died in a murder-suicide three weeks after his marriage to magazine editor Kim Schmidt. Police theorized that Young shot his wife and then turned the gun on himself. A motive was never found, although it was well established that Young had been battling alcoholism for over 25 years. He was 64.
1982 – Automaker John Z. DeLorean was arrested and charged with conspiracy to obtain and distribute 55 pounds of cocaine. DeLorean was acquitted of the drug charges in August 1984, but his legal woes were only beginning. He soon went on trial for fraud and over the next two decades was forced to pay millions of dollars to creditors and lawyers.
1987 – Black Monday: The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 508 points or 22.6% – the worst one-day percentage drop ever. The event marked the beginning of a global stock market decline, making Black Monday one of the most notorious days in financial history.
The cause of the massive drop cannot be attributed to any single news event because no major news event was released on the weekend preceding the crash. While there are many theories that attempt to explain why the crash happened, most agree that mass panic caused the crash to escalate.
Since Black Monday, a number of protective mechanisms have been built into the market to prevent panic selling, such as trading curbs and circuit breakers, sometimes called a collar.
1987 – George Steinbrenner did it again! He hired Billy Martin (for the fifth time!) as manager of the New York Yankees. Billy didn’t make it halfway through the next season before he was fired again.
1991 – One day after a small fire in Oakland, CA had been brought under control, highly flammable debris which had been smoldering unseen, was ignited by strong winds.
The winds were so intense and the area so dry that within an hour close to 800 buildings were on fire. In some places, the temperature reached 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit, making it virtually impossible to fight the fire effectively. Homeowners attempted to hose down their roofs, but were often thwarted when water pipes burst. It took only 10 minutes in some cases for a house to be brought down by the flames.
When the fire was finally contained the following day, 25 people had lost their lives, 150 people were injured and 3,000 homes and 1,500 acres had been consumed. The total tally of damages was $1.5 billion.
1994 – Actress/singer Martha Raye (The Big Broadcast of 1937, Rhythm On The Range, Hellzapoppin’) died of pneumonia after a long battle with Alzheimer’s disease. She was 78.
So why show a photo of her in uniform? In appreciation of her work with the USO during World War II and subsequent wars, she was buried with full military honors in the Special Forces Cemetery at Ft. Bragg, NC as an honorary colonel in the U.S. Marines and an honorary lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army. She is the only civilian buried at that location who receives military honors each Veterans’ Day.
1997 – Glen Buxton (guitarist/songwriter with Alice Cooper – ‘School’s Out’, ‘I’m Eighteen’, ‘Elected’) died of complications from pneumonia. He was 49.
2001 – Two Army Rangers, Spc. Jonn J. Edmunds, 20, and Pfc. Kristofor T. Stonesifer, 28, of Missoula, Mont., were killed when their Black Hawk helicopter crashed in Pakistan They were the first combat-related deaths in the U.S. war on terrorism.
2004 – The Boston Red Sox tied American League Championship Series at three games each with a 4-2 win over the New York Yankees.
The game will be remembered as Curt Schilling’s “bloody sock” game. Schilling pitched with a torn tendon sheath in his right ankle, which was sutured in place in an unprecedented procedure by Red Sox team doctors. To help stabilize the tendon in his ankle, Red Sox doctors had placed three sutures connecting the skin with ligament and deep connective tissue next to the bone, effectively creating a wall of tissue to keep the peroneal tendon from disrupting Schilling’s pitching mechanics.
2005 – Appearing before the Iraqi Special Tribunal in Baghdad, a defiant Saddam Hussein pleaded innocent to charges of premeditated murder and torture. He and seven other former Iraqi officials were charged with the killing of 148 Shiites from Dujail, in retaliation for a failed assassination attempt in July 1982.
Saddam rejected the tribunal’s legitimacy, loudly proclaiming, “I do not respond to this so-called court, with all due respect to its people, and I retain my constitutional right as the president of Iraq”
2006 – Actress Phyllis Kirk (House Of Wax, Back From Eternity and television’s The Thin Man) died of a cerebral aneurysm at the age of 79.
2008 – Retired Gen. Colin Powell, a Republican who was President George W. Bush’s first Secretary of State, broke with the party and endorsed Democrat Barack Obama for president.
2009 – Howard Unruh, who killed 13 people as he walked the streets of Camden, NJ in a psychotic 1949 shooting rampage that was the nation’s worst mass murder at the time, died of natural causes at the age of 88.
Although charges were filed for 13 counts of “willful and malicious slayings with malice aforethought” and three counts of “atrocious assault and battery,” Unruh was diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic and spent the remainder of his life in the Trenton Psychiatric Hospital.
Unruh’s last public words, made during an interview with a psychologist, were, “I’d have killed a thousand if I had enough bullets.”
2009 – Actor Joseph Wiseman (Viva Zapata!, Detective Story, but best known for his role of the title character in the first James Bond film, Dr. No) died of natural causes at the age of 91.
2010 – Actor Tom Bosley (Murder, She Wrote, Father Dowling Mysteries, and best remembered for portraying Howard “Mr. C” Cunningham on Happy Days) died of heart failure at the age of 83.
2014 – Noel Harrison, actor (The Girl From U.N.C.L.E.), singer (‘The Windmills Of Your Mind’, ‘A Young Girl’), British Olympic skier, and son of actor Rex Harrison, died of a heart attack at the age of 79.
2014 – Raphael Ravenscroft, forever famous for his sax solo on Gerry Rafferty’s ‘Baker Street’, the most recognizable sax riff in pop music history, died of a heart attack at the age of 60.
Compiled by Ray Lemire ©2015 RayLemire.com. All Rights Reserved.