September 1

1159 Pope Adrian IV,  the only Englishman ever to have occupied the papal chair, passed away on September 1, 1159. He was rumored to have died choking on a fly in his wine, but the truth is he was probably suffering from quinsy - an abscess next to his tonsils.

1422 Henry VI succeeded to the throne as King of England the day after his father's death, Henry V, on September 1, 1422 aged nine months. He was the youngest person ever to succeed to the English throne. Six weeks later, Henry became the King of France as well, as upon his grandfather Charles VI's death in accordance with the Treaty of Troyes of 1420. He was King of England to 1461 and again from 1470 to 1471, and disputed King of France from to 1453. His realm was governed by regents until 1437.

Henry VI of England

1529 Originally inhabited by American Indian peoples, the population of Argentina numbered about 300,000 at the time of the first visit by Europeans in the early 16th century. In 1526 Sebastian Cabot, the pilot-major of Charles V, Holy Roman emperor and king of Spain landed at Rio De La Plata. On hearing of mineral wealth in the interior, he explored up the rivers Paraná and Paraguay. He constructed there a small fort called Sancti Spiritu, which was destroyed by local natives on September 1, 1529. 

1715 King Louis XIV of France, the world's longest reigning monarch, died of gangrene at Versailles on September 1, 1715, four days before his 77th birthday. During his long reign of 72 years Louis had carried out a series of wars, his goal being the dictatorship of Europe. On his deathbed he felt he was suffering from God's punishment for his earlier military policies. However despite his fathering of at least 12 illegitimate children and his autocratic ways Louis retained his faith in God throughout his life. 

The Persian embassy to Louis XIV sent by Sultan Husayn in 1715.

 

1779 Horatio Nelson's naval career began in 1771, when he reported to the third-rate Raisonnable as an ordinary seaman and coxswain. The vessel was commanded by Nelson's maternal uncle and, shortly after reporting aboard, Nelson was appointed a midshipman and began officer training. On September 1, 1779, the 20-year-old, Horatio Nelson took command of the 28-gun frigate HMS Hinchinbrook, newly captured from the French.

1870 Napoleon III of France was captured by the Prussians at the Battle of Sedan on Sept 1, 1870. The picture shows Bismarck with Napoleon III after his capitulation. He was deposed by the forces of the Third Republic in Paris two days later. When peace was arranged between France and Germany, Bismarck released Napoleon. He decided to go into exile in England and arrived in March 1871.

1875 Edgar Rice Burroughs was born on September 1, 1875, in Chicago, Illinois to businessman and Civil War veteran Major George Tyler Burroughs and his wife Mary. An enlisted soldier with the 7th U.S. Cavalry Burroughs was discharged with a heart problem and worked a number of different jobs. He published his first magazine story in 1912 about an abandoned English boy raised by African apes. Tarzan, "King of the Jungle," who became one of the 20th century's best-known fictional characters.

1878 Emma M. Nutt became the first female telephone operator in the U.S., for the Telephone Despatch Company of Boston on September 1, 1878. Emma was hired by Alexander Graham Bell, and was paid a salary of $10 per month for a 54-hour week. Her career lasted between 33 and 37 years, ending with her retirement sometime between 1911 and 1915. The picture depicts the first women operators, Emma and her sister Stella Nutt, working alongside boy operators in 1878.

1892 Liverpool F.C. they played their first football game on September 1, 1892, 170 days after their founding. A pre-season friendly match against Rotherham Town, they won 7–1. The team Liverpool fielded against Rotherham was composed entirely of Scottish players – manager John McKenna had recruited the players after a scouting trip to Scotland – so they became known as the "team of Macs".

1897 The Tremont Street Subway opened in Boston on September 1, 1897, the first underground rapid transit system in North America. It was originally built to get streetcar lines off the traffic-clogged streets, and the tunnel served five closely spaced stations: Boylston, Park Street, Scollay Square, Adams Square, and Haymarket, with branches to the Public Garden Portal and Pleasant Street Incline south of Boylston.

Pleasant Street incline (1898 photo)

1914 The passenger pigeon was the most abundant bird of historical times in the US. John James Audubon reported seeing more than 1 billion passenger pigeons in Kentucky in 1813. In the 19th century they were hunted voraciously while widespread deforestation destroyed their habitat. The Passenger Pigeon was hunted to extinction in the wild by 1894 and the last specimen, Martha, died in Cincinnati Zoo on September 1 1914, at 1 PM.

1919 Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, and D.W. Griffith launched the United Artists film studio in February 1919.  Each held a 20% stake, with the remaining 20% held by lawyer William Gibbs McAdoo. United Artists's first film, His Majesty, the American, starring Douglas Fairbanks, was released on September 1, 1919. 

1920 The Fountain of Time, a sculpture by Lorado Taft opened in in southeast Washington Park, Chicago on September 1, 1920. It was created as a monument to the 100 years of peace between the United States and Great Britain following the Treaty of Ghent.

1923 The Great Kantō earthquake devastated Japan on September 1, 1923, killing about 105,000 people. It devastated Tokyo, the port city of Yokohama, and the surrounding prefectures of Chiba, Kanagawa, and Shizuoka, and caused widespread damage throughout the Kantō region. The damage from this natural disaster was the greatest sustained by prewar Japan.  In 1960, the Japanese government declared September 1, the anniversary of the earthquake, as an annual "Disaster Prevention Day".

1928 Ahmet Zogu declared Albania to be a monarchy and proclaimed himself king on September 1, 1928. The leader of Albania from 1922 to 1939, he served as Prime Minister (1922–1924), President (1925–1928) and then as King (1928–1939). In an effort to mimic Hitler’s conquest of Prague, Mussolini’s troops invaded and occupied Albania in April 1939.  King Zog was ejected from his throne by the Italians and escaped to England. He never saw his country again.

1936 The method of using radar to pinpoint small targets was developed independently in Britain, France, Germany, and the US in the 1930s. In 1935 Scottish engineer Robert Watson-Watt carried out a demonstration near Daventry which led directly to the development of RADAR in the United Kingdom. Having proved radar detection technology could work Watson-Watt received a patent for his system, on September 1, 1936. 

The first workable unit built by Robert Watson-Watt and his team

1939 Adolf Hitler signed an order on September 1, 1939 to begin the systematic euthanasia of mentally ill and disabled people. He ordered the cessation of Nazi Germany's T4 euthanasia program due to protests two years later, although killings continued for the remainder of the Second World War.

1939 World War II is generally said to have begun on September 1, 1939 with the invasion of Poland by 1.5 million German troops and subsequent declarations of war on Germany by France and the United Kingdom. British reporter Clare Hollingworth broke the news of Hitler invading Poland. The British embassy didn't believe her until she held a telephone out of the window of her room to capture the ongoing sounds of war. 

1939 The last Nuremberg Rally intended to be held by Germany in 1939 was given the name "Rally of Peace", to reiterate the German desire for peace. However, it was cancelled at short notice because one day before the planned date, on September 1, Germany began its military offensive against Poland.

1948 Fidel Castro married Mirta Diaz-Balart on October 11, 1948. They had one child, a son, Fidel Ángel "Fidelito" Castro Díaz-Balart, who was born on September 1, 1949. Castro co-founded a legal partnership that primarily catered for poor Cubans, but failed to pay his bills; his furniture was repossessed and electricity cut off, distressing his wife. Castro and Mirta Diaz-Balart divorced (while Castro was in exile) in 1955.

1952 The Old Man and the Sea, inspired by Ernest Hemingway's beloved fishing boat The Pilar, was first published in Life Magazine on September 1, 1952; five million copies of the magazine were sold in two days. The story centers upon Santiago, an ageing fisherman who struggles with a giant marlin far out in the Gulf Stream. The Old Man and the Sea was cited by the Nobel Committee as contributing to the awarding of the Nobel Prize in Literature to Hemingway in 1954.

Original book cover

1957 In 1957 the evangelist Billy Graham planned a week-long crusade in New York City, which ultimately extended from May 15 to September 1. A total of more than two million people went to New York's Madison Square Garden to hear him preach during the series of revival meetings.

1960 On September 1, 1960, the British government gave the go-ahead for gambling when betting shops were allowed to open and slot machines to be installed in UK pubs. The following year, bookmakers were opening at a rate of 100 a week and there were 1,000 casinos within the first five years.

1969 In the early morning of September 1, 1969, a group of military officers took over the Libya government in a coup d'état. Colonel Muammar al-Gaddafi was named as chief of staff of the military. He governed Libya as Revolutionary Chairman of the Libyan Arab Republic from 1969 to 1977. In 1977 Libya became "Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya". Gadaffi reigned as the "Brotherly Leader" of the Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya from 1977 to 2011.

1972 Bobby Fischer of the USA won the World Chess Championship in a historic match against Boris Spassky of the Soviet Union that took place in Reykjavik, Iceland. It began on July 11, 1972, and concluded on September 1, 1972. Fischer's victory in this match was a significant event during the Cold War era and had a profound impact on the world of chess.

2006 Bahrain changed its weekend from Thursday-Friday to Friday-Saturday on September 1, 2006. The move was made in order to align the country's business and trading hours with the rest of the world, and to make it more attractive to foreign investors.

2020 The second generation Rolls-Royce Ghost was fully revealed on September 1, 2020. When developing the new Ghost, soundproofing was so overengineered that occupants in the car found the near-total silence disorienting, and some felt sick. Acoustic engineers had to go back and work on "harmonizing" various sounds in the car to add a continuous soft whisper.

2021 On September 1, 2021, Cristiano Ronaldo scored both Portuguese goals in a 2–1 win against Ireland, overtaking Ali Daei of Iran's record of 109 international goals and becoming the all-time international top goal scorer.