September 14, 2020
Day 258 of 366

 

September 14th is the 258th day of the year. It is Hindi Day (हिन्दी दिवस; Hindī Diwas), commemorating the adoption of Hindi as one of the two official languages of India.

 

In the United States, today is “celebrated” as National Cream Filled Donut Day, National Eat a Hoagie Day, National Live Creative Day, National Sober Day, National Virginia Day, and National Boss/Employee Exchange Day (which is typically observed on the Monday after Labor Day).

 

Historical items of note:

• In 786, the “Night of the three Caliphs” occurred. Harun al-Rashid (هَارُون الرَشِيد) became the fifth Abbasid Caliph upon the death of his brother al-Hadi (أبو محمد موسى بن المهدي الهادي). On the same day, Harun’s son al-Ma’mun (أبو العباس عبد الله بن هارون الرشيد‎), the seventh Caliph, was born.
• In 1741, George Frideric Handel completed his oratorio Messiah.
• In 1752, the British Empire adopted the Gregorian calendar. In doing so, they skipped eleven days, starting after September 2nd.
• In 1901, United States President William McKinley died after being mortally wounded on September 6th by anarchist Leon Czolgosz. He was succeeded by Vice President Theodore Roosevelt.
• In 1914, HMAS AE1, the Royal Australian Navy’s first submarine, was lost at sea with all hands near East New Britain, Papua New Guinea.
• In 1936, actor Walter Koenig was born.
• In 1947, Northern Irish-New Zealand actor and director Sam Neill was born.
• In 1959, the Soviet probe Luna 2 crashed onto the Moon, becoming the first man-made object to reach it.
• In 1960, English-Canadian actor and producer Callum Keith Rennie was born.
• In 1964, Walt Disney was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
• In 1973, English actor Andrew Lincoln was born.
• In 1975, the first American saint, Elizabeth Ann Seton, was canonized by Pope Paul VI.
• In 1984, Joe Kittinger became the first person to fly a gas balloon alone across the Atlantic Ocean.
• In 1985, The Golden Girls premiered.
• In 1989, English actress Jessica Brown Findlay was born.
• In 1998, telecommunications companies MCI Communications and WorldCom completed their $37 billion merger to form MCI WorldCom.
• In 1999, Kiribati, Nauru, and Tonga joined the United Nations.
• In 2000, Microsoft released Windows Me (also known as Windows Millennium Edition). It was heavily panned by many users and critics, resulting in users staying with Windows 98, moving the enterprise-marketed Windows 2000, or waiting for one year until Windows XP was released.
• In 2015, the first observation of gravitational waves was made, announced by the LIGO and Virgo collaborations on February 11, 2016.

 

In 1856, the Battle of San Jacinto took place in Hacienda San Jacinto, Managua, Nicaragua. The combatants were 160 soldiers of the Legitimist Septemtrion Army led by Colonel José Dolores Estrada and 300 Nicaraguan filibusters of William Walker led by Lieutenant Colonel Byron Cole. The filibusters were defeated by Estrada after four hours of combat in the morning.

The filibuster forces lost twenty-seven soldiers and the Nicaraguan forces lost twenty-eight.

The date of the battle is a national holiday in Nicaragua, observed on September 14th each year.

 

The Thing About Today is an effort to look at each day of 2020 with respect to its historical context.

For more creativity with a critical eye, visit Creative Criticality.