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“Slight not what's near through aiming at what's far.”
~ Euripides
Wikiquote (Euripides (480 BC – 406 BC) was one of the three great tragedians of classical Athens, the other two being Aeschylus and Sophocles.)
September 23rd, 1122
Investiture Controversy: Pope Calixtus II and Holy Roman Emperor Henry V agree to the Concordat of Worms to put an end to the Investiture Controversy.
Wikipedia Painting: Investiture Controversy
September 23rd, 1338
Hundred Years' War:
1338 - Battle of Arnemuiden; first naval battle in history involving artillery, as the English ship Christofer had three cannon.
Wikipedia Painting: "Morning of the Battle of Agincourt, 25th October 1415", painted by Sir John Gilbert; Joan of Arc's Death at the Stake, by Hermann Stilke (1843); King Henry V at the Battle of Agincourt, 1415, by Sir John Gilbert; Joan of Arc enters Orléans (painting by J.J. Sherer, 1887); Joan interrogated in her prison cell by Cardinal Winchester. By Hippolyte Delaroche, 1824, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Rouen, France.
Battle of Arnemuiden; Arnemuiden (Walcheren island), French victory.
Battle of Sluys June, 24 1340, from (Jean Froissart's Chronicles, 14th century.
September 23rd, 1409
China:
1409 - Battle of Kherlen; the second significant victory over Ming China by the Mongols since 1368.
Wikipedia Photo: China from NASA Wordwind Satellite; © Great Wall of China, credit National Geographic; LongJi Terrace, credit National Geographic; Great Bear Rainforest, credit Paul Nicklen, National Geographic; Platoons of clay soldiers were buried with China's first emperor, Qin Shi Huang Di, (required a labor force of 700,000 to build), credit O. Louis Mazzatenta, National Geographic.
September 23rd, 1459
Wars of the Roses:
1459 - Battle of Blore Heath; first major battle of the English Wars of the Roses, is fought at Blore Heath; in Staffordshire.
Wikipedia Image: Wars of the Roses; a series of dynastic wars fought between supporters of two rival branches of the royal House of Plantagenet: the houses of Lancaster and York (whose heraldic symbols were the "red" and the "white" rose, respectively) for the throne of England
September 23rd, 1568
Battle of San Juan de Ulúa: near Veracruz, Spanish naval forces rout an English fleet.
Wikipedia Painting: Battle of San Juan de Ulúa: The English carrack Jesus of Lübeck as depicted in the Anthony Roll
September 23rd, 1641
The Merchant Royal, carrying a treasure worth over a billion US dollars, is lost at sea off Land's End.
Wikipedia Painting: The Merchant Royal / Treasure Shipwrecks Around The World
September 23rd, 1642
Harvard College: first commencement exercises occur.
Wikipedia Photo: John Harvard (November 26, 1607 – September 14, 1638) an English minister in America which Massachusetts Bay Colony's fledgling New College was renamed Harvard College in his honor. (John Harvard statue in Harvard Yard ● Tablet, Emmanuel College (Cambridge) chapel ● Emmanuel College window (1884) depicting John Harvard on left)
Annenberg Hall: "the great bristling brick Valhalla....that house of honor and hospitality which...dispenses...laurels to the dead and dinners to the living." Henry James, from The American Scene (1907), credit: Steve Rosenthal.
September 23rd, 1779
American Revolutionary War:
1779 - John Paul Jones on board the USS Bonhomme Richard wins the Battle of Flamborough Head.
1780 - British Major John André is arrested as a spy by American soldiers exposing Benedict Arnold's change of sides.
Wikipedia Paintings: Washington Crossing the Delaware, by Emanuel Leutz; Battle of the Chesapeake, French (left) and British (right) lines; Battle of Bunker Hill, The Death of General Warren at the Battle of Bunker Hill by John Trumbull; The Defeat of the Floating Batteries at Gibraltar, September 13, 1782, by John Singleton Copley; Washington and the Comte de Rochambeau at Yorktown, 1781; "The surrender at Saratoga" shows General Daniel Morgan in front of a French de Vallière 4-pounder; Surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown by (John Trumbull, 1797).
Battle of Flamborough Head, September 1779.
September 23rd, 1806
Lewis and Clark return to Saint Louis after exploring the Pacific Northwest United States.
Wikipedia Painting: Lewis and Clark Expedition / Shoshone guide Sacagawea with Meriwether Lewis and William Clark.
September 23rd, 1821
Greek War of Independence: Tripolitsa, Greece; falls and 30,000 Turks are massacred.
Wikipedia Painting: Bishop Germanos of old Patras blessing the Greek banner at Agia Lavra on the outset of the national revolt against the Turks on 25 March 1821, by Theodoros Vryzakis (oil painting, 1852, Benaki Museum, Athens).
September 23rd, 1845
Knickerbockers Baseball Club, the first baseball team to play under the modern rules, is founded in New York.
Wikipedia Baseball history photo: Knickerbocker Base Ball Club and the Excelsior Base Ball Club in one of the earliest known team photos and perhaps the first image on a baseball field. Taken on September 3, 1859, at Elysian Fields, Hoboken, New Jersey, Brooklyn photographer Charles H. Williamson.
September 23rd, 1846
Astronomers Urbain Jean Joseph Le Verrier, John Couch Adams and Johann Gottfried Galle collaborate on the discovery of Neptune.
Wikipedia Photo: Neptune, NASA.
September 23rd, 1909
The Phantom of the Opera (original title: Le Fantôme de l'Opéra), a novel by French writer Gaston Leroux, is first published as a serialization in Le Gaulois.
Wikipedia Photo: Lon Chaney stars in The Phantom of the Opera a 1925 American silent horror film adaptation of the Gaston Leroux novel. (A mad, disfigured composer seeks love with a lovely young opera singer)
September 23rd, 1938
World War II:
1938 - Munich Crisis; Mobilization of the Czechoslovak army in response to Nazi Germany's annexation of Czechoslovakia's Sudetenland.
1942 - Matanikau action; on Guadalcanal, U.S. Marines attack Japanese unites along the Matanikau River.
1943 - The Nazi puppet state the Italian Social Republic is founded.
Wikipedia Photo: Bombing of Dresden in World War II; August Schreitmüller's sculpture 'Goodness' surveys Dresden after a firestorm started by Allied bombers in 1945.
USS Bunker Hill was hit by kamikazes piloted by Ensign Kiyoshi Ogawa and another airman on 11 May 1945. 389 personnel were killed or missing from a crew of 2,600; Ensign Kiyoshi Ogawa, who flew his aircraft into the USS Bunker Hill during a Kamikaze mission on 11 May 1945; Kamikaze Missions - Lt Yoshinori Yamaguchi's Yokosuka D4Y3 (Type 33 Suisei) "Judy" in a suicide dive against USS Essex. The dive brakes are extended and the non-self-sealing port wing tank is trailing fuel vapor and/or smoke 25 November 1944.
German V1 flying-bomb and V2 Rockets - Preparations for a Salvo Launch of V-2 Rockets in the Heidelager near Blizna (Poland) (1944), credit German History in Documents and Images GHDI.
Eastern Front (World War II); Germans race towards Stalingrad. August 1942; Soviet children during a German air raid in the first days of the war, June 1941, by RIA Novosti archive; Soviet sniper Roza Shanina in 1944. About 400,000 Soviet women served in front-line duty units Caucasus Mountains, winter 1942/43; Finnish ski patrol: the invisible enemy of the Soviet Army with an unlimited supply of skis; Men of the German Engineers Corps cross a river which is swollen after the first autumn rains, to strengthen bridges linking the German positions on the central front in Russia. by Keystone / Getty Images. October 1942; Russian snipers fighting on the Leningrad front during a blizzard. Photo by Hulton Archive / Getty Images, 1943; German soldiers surrendering to the Russians in Stalingrad, the soldier holding the white flag of surrender is dressed in white so that there could be no doubt of his intentions, a Russian soldier is on the right of the photograph. by Keystone / Getty Images, January 1943.
September 23rd, 1941
World War II: Holocaust;
1941 - Nazi Germany's first gas chamber experiments are conducted at Auschwitz.
Wikipedia Photo: World War II, The Holocaust. Sources: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum USHMM, History 1900s, Internet Masters of Education Technology IMET, Techno Friends, Veterans Today, Concern.
September 23rd, 1952
Richard Nixon makes his "Checkers speech".
Wikipedia Photo: Republican VP candidate Richard Nixon went on TV to give what’s known as the “Checkers Speech” - a speech named after a dog that lives on in our cultural subconscious all these years later.
September 23rd, 1969
Chicago Seven trial opens Chicago.
Wikipedia Photo: The Chicago Seven defendants hold a news conference in Chicago, Illinois, during their 1969 trial, Assosiated Press.
September 23rd, 1986
Major League Baseball:
1986 - Jim Deshaies of the Houston Astros sets the major-league record by striking out the first eight batters of the game against the Los Angeles Dodgers.
1988 - José Canseco of the Oakland Athletics becomes the first member of the 40-40 club.
Wikipedia Photo: Jose Canseco, Sports Illustrated / Jim Deshaies, Associated Press.
September 23rd, 2002
Mozilla Firefox: The first public version of the web browser Mozilla Firefox ("Phoenix 0.1") is released.
Wikipedia Image: Mozilla Firefox
September 23rd, 2004
2004 - Hurricane Jeanne, At least 1,070 in Haiti are reported to have been killed by floods.
Wikipedia Image: Hurricane Andrew sequence, NASA ● Hurricane Mitch at peak intensity (formed October 22, 1998 - Dissipated November 5, 1998) ● Hurricane Katrina taken on August 28, 2005, at 11:45 AM EDT by NOAA when the storm was a Category Five hurricane ● Hurricane Jeanne September 23, 2004, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) ● PDC Global Hazards Atlas displaying 3 hour precipitation accumulation, typhoon Evan (04P), with JTWC positions, segments, and winds...over the South Pacific Ocean ● Satellite imagery provided by NOAA and taken by the Japan Meteorological Agency's MTSAT weather satellite shows Typhoon Roke as it approaches Japan, September 20, 2011. Over 1.3 million ordered to evacuate in Japan ahead of Typhoon Roke.
September 23rd, 2008
Kauhajoki school shooting: Matti Saari kills 10 people before committing suicide.
Wikipedia Photo: Kauhajoki school shooting; Eetu Sillanpää: Sillanpää’s photo from the Kauhajoki school shooting in Finland was awarded Best News Photograph of the year in 2008.