JAPANESE-AMERICAN INTERNMENT - WWII
In early 1942, President Franklin Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066. That directive allowed government officials to exclude ethnic Japanese, living in certain states, from their towns, their homes, their businesses. The Secretary of War and his advisors had to determine where the excluded people would live. Camps (variously referred to as internment, detention and concentration) were hastily built as Japanese-American citizens, and Japanese resident-aliens, were told to start packing their bags and closing their businesses. On the first of September, 1942, a California federal judge ruled that the process was legal.
WRECK OF THE TITANIC - FOUND
On the 2nd of September, 1985, a French-US expedition made a surprising announcement. Seventy-three years after Titanic sank in the North Atlantic, its wreckage had been found about 560 miles off the coast of Newfoundland. She had sailed through an area where icebergs lurk that time of year. In fact, her radio operators had received a total of 21 messages about ice while the ship was en route to New York City. Would finding the wreck resolve any of the outstanding questions about why Titanic sank?
MURDER AT THE FAIR - DEATH OF PRESIDENT McKINLEY On the 6th of September, 1901, William McKinley - then president of the United States - was visiting the Pan American Exhibition in Buffalo, New York. An assassin, armed with a .32 caliber short-barreled Johnson revolver, fired two shots directly at McKinley. One of the bullets entered the president's stomach.
Nearby, a new invention - the X-ray machine - was on display. If attending doctors had known how to use it, they could have found the bullet and McKinley would likely have survived. But no one did, and after suffering for a week, the president died. Twelve hours later, Theodore Roosevelt was sworn-in as the country's chief executive.
The History Channel has called September 6th one of "10 Days that Unexpectedly Changed America" since it was the new president, with his new vision, which guided the country into the Twentieth Century.
THE GREAT HURRICANE OF 1900
It was the peak of hurricane season - September 8, 1900. The waters of the Gulf of Mexico were hot - just the kind of hot a tropical storm needs to grow into a hurricane. A storm that began in late August near the Cape Verde Islands, off Africa's west coast, had reached Cuba by September 5th. In the days of primitive weather instruments, meteorologists on the island had developed an amazing ability to forecast major storms. They predicted this tropical storm would intensify when it left Cuba. And they believed it would do something else: continue on its westward path toward Texas.
Those Cuban forecasters were right, but forecasters in America disagreed. People in the direct path of the "Great Storm of 1900" received no warnings that their lives and property were in grave danger. When the storm reached Galveston, an island off the Texas shore, it temporarily buried the town and its inhabitants with sea water. At least 8,000 people died within a few hours. In this story...Learn how hurricanes form and how one of them caused the worst natural disaster in America's history.
REMEMBERING SEPTEMBER 11
Shining brilliantly in the clear blue sky above America's east coast, the sun promised a good travel day. People boarding planes in Boston, Newark and Washington, D.C. would encounter few, if any, air-traffic delays on this Tuesday morning. The summer of 2001 was nearing its end as thousands of lower Manhattan office workers followed their usual morning routine. Many worked in the skyline-defining twin towers of the World Trade Center. In Washington, meanwhile, employees of the Department of Defense were at their desks in a newly reinforced section of the Pentagon.
On this September 11 morning, four planes were originally scheduled to leave American airports within twelve minutes of each other. Aboard each of those planes were terrorists who were part of a coordinated plan to kill innocent people. Had the weather been bad, or the flights delayed for some other reason, the terrorists' meticulously well-planned actions may not have occurred as they did. But their plans proceeded apace, and thousands of people died.
In addition to primary sources, including videos and exhibits from the 9-11 Commission Report, see the reaction of children who expressed their emotions through drawings.
REMEMBERING THE RESCUERS
As thousands of shocked people made their way down twin-tower stairways, they passed New York City firefighters and Port Authority police officers on their way up. Backs loaded-down with gear, hundreds of selfless men - including fathers and sons from the same family - endangered themselves to save others. Rescuer casualties were high: 343 firefighters were reported missing, or were identified among the dead, while 37 Port Authority police officers also died.
Survivor stories are filled with descriptions of those who came into the doomed towers while office workers made their way out. Rick Rescorla, a Brit from Cornwall who had trained thousands of Morgan Stanley's employees for just this type of catastrophe, helped about 2,700 of his colleagues reach safety. Trying to make sure that all of his people were out, he went back in to save six more. He, and they, didn't make it.
When he was forty years old, a man named Ubu'l Kassim went into the Cave of Hira (located in Saudi Arabia) during the Arabic month of Ramadan in the year 610 C.E. A world-changing event began when, alone in the cave, he heard someone say the Arabic word "Iqraa!" Ubu'l Kassim (later known as the Prophet Muhammad) thought he must be dreaming. Muslims believe the voice was that of Gabriel, an angel who began dictating - to Muhammad - the words one now sees in the Koran. Ramadan is significant in the Islamic world because it is the month when the Koran was first dictated. This year, it begins at sunset on September 12.
TERRA COTTA SOLDIERS
In the 3rd century B.C., a man named Ying Zheng was consolidating his power in China. Before Ying Zheng became ruler of the state of "Qin" (also called "Ch'in"), China's seven "states" had never been unified. Big changes were in store for the country and for its people.
Ying Zheng ultimately took a new name and became the First Emperor of China. To protect their ruler after his death, about 700,000 workers, over 36 years, constructed a mausoleum and created thousands of life-size terra cotta soldiers. Those soldiers - created to stand guard over their Emperor - are often called the 8th Wonder of the World. Twenty of them, plus five of their horses, are now at the British Museum where a new exhibition opens on September 13th.
THE STORY OF THE STAR-SPANGLED BANNER
Old Doc Beanes was missing. Well, not exactly missing. Everyone in Georgetown knew where the much-loved doctor was. It's just that his neighbors and patients couldn't get to him. He had been captured by the British during the War of 1812. And...because he was captured...someone needed to negotiate his release. The job fell to a lawyer named Francis Scott Key. Learn how Key was in the right place (near Fort McHenry), at the right time (September 14, 1814), when it came to writing "The Star-Spangled Banner."
PILGRIMS CROSS THE SEA
On the 16th of September, 1620, a ship named Mayflower left the British port of Southampton. According to its ship's log, the captain "Laid course W.S.W. for northern coasts of Virginia." Aboard the ship were people seeking a new life in America. Their late-season departure insured they would encounter bad weather en route. What had caused their delay? Who were the people aboard the ship? And...why were they leaving in the first place?
WHO WAS BENEDICT ARNOLD?
In American-English, the word "Benedict Arnold" means "traitor." Why? Who was this person whose name has become synonymous with "turn-coat?"
At the beginning of September, 1780, Benedict Arnold was a Major General in the Continental Army. His assignment? The command of West Point, a strategically important American fort on the Hudson River. By the end of the month, he was a traitor who had tried to sell out his country, his fort and his men. His price? Twenty thousand pounds sterling (worth about $1 million today).
BLACK HAWK DOWN
When military personnel are sent on a mission, they have to believe they can carry out their objective. But sometimes reality is different from expectations. And sometimes the nature of the mission changes.
Troops go in thinking they are invincible - especially when they have high-tech equipment and the other side has antiquated guns. But the battle isn't always won by the side with the best weapons. Sometimes the battle is won by those who believe they have the most to lose. That is exactly what happened in Somalia, during late September, 1993.
