Today in History: September 16

Today in HistorySeptember 16

1620The Pilgrims sail from England on the Mayflower.

1668King John Casimer V of Poland abdicates the throne.

1747The French capture Bergen-op-Zoom, consolidating their occupation of Austrian Flanders in the Netherlands.

1789Jean-Paul Marat sets up a new newspaper in France, L'Ami du Peuple.

1810A revolution for independence breaks out in Mexico.

1864Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrestleads 4,500 men out of Verona, Miss. to harass Union outposts in northern Alabama and Tennessee.

1889Robert Younger, in Minnesota's Stillwater Penitentiary for life, dies of tuberculosis. Brothers Cole and Bob remain in the prison.       

1893Some 50,000 "Sooners" claim land in the Cherokee Strip during the first day of the Oklahoma land rush.

1908General Motors files papers of incorporation.

1920Thirty people are killed in a terrorist bombing in New York's Wall Street financial district.

1934Anti-Nazi Lutherans stage protest in Munich.

1940Congress passes the Selective Service Act, which calls for the first peacetime draft in U.S. history.

1942The Japanese base at Kiska in the Aleutian Islands is raided by American bombers.

1945Japan surrenders Hong Kong to Britain.

1950The U.S. 8th Army breaks out of the Pusan Perimeter in South Korea and begins heading north to meet MacArthur's troops heading south from Inchon.

1972South Vietnamese troops recapture Quang Tri province in South Vietnam from the North Vietnamese Army.

1974Limited amnesty is offered to Vietnam-era draft resisters who would now swear allegiance to the United States and perform two years of public service.

1975Administrators for Rhodes Scholarships announce the decision to begin offering fellowships to women.

.1978An earthquake estimated to be as strong as 7.9 on the Richter scale kills 25,000 people in Iran.

1991The trial of Manuel Noriega, deposed dictator of Panama, begins in the United States.

1994Britain's government lifts the 1988 broadcasting ban against member of Ireland's Sinn Fein and Irish paramilitary groups.

2007Military contractors in the employ of Blackwater Worldwide allegedly kill 17 Iraqis in Baghdad's Nisour Square, further straining relations between the US and the people of Iraq.