What Happened on September 20?

What Happened on September 20?

The Panic of 1873 caused the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) to shut down. (1873) In the wake of the Fourth Coinage Act, which demonetized silver, as well as the bankruptcy of 89 railroads and many banks, the NYSE shut down for 10 days.
[*]The first Moon rocks were gathered up and returned to Earth. (1970) The unmanned Soviet probe Luna 16 brought back the first objects from space when it returned to Earth on September 24^th with soil and rocks from the Moon.



[*]The Paoli Massacre took place, leaving 200 American Patriot troops dead. (1777) While they were sleeping, American soldiers were attacked by five thousand British "Redcoats" who used bayonets in order to keep quiet. No prisoners were taken — anyone who tried to surrender was also killed.



[*]Galileo Galilei was tried for claims that the Earth orbited the Sun. (1633) The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith found him guilty of heresy. Galileo was forced to recant his claim and was sentenced to house arrest for the rest of his life.



[*]The first European battle in America took place. (1565) Spanish troops captured Fort Caroline, a French Huguenot colony near what is now known as Jacksonville, Florida. The battle resulted in France looking to settle farther north into the modern-day Canada areas of Nova Scotia and Quebec.



[*]The American Association for the Advancement of Science was born. (1848) The international scientific organization was created to bring scientists from around the world into collaboration in the interest of humanity. It is now the largest scientific organization in the world and publishes the weekly journal named Science.



[*]Nazis killed 3,000 Jews in Letychiv, Ukraine — nearly half of its population. (1942) The small town of Letychiv had been established as a Jewish "ghetto" after the Nazi occupation. The remaining 4,000 Jews in the "ghetto" were killed on November 2^nd, leaving the town's entire population dead.



[*]The Cannes Festival held its first international film festival. (1946) The festival, which is still held in Cannes on the French Riviera, was France's response to the world's first international film festival in Venice, Italy, in 1932. By 1938, the Venice festival had become a Nazi propaganda tool, and France decided to hold a rival event focused strictly on film. Its planned 1939 debut was delayed when World War II broke out.



[*]The Queen Elizabeth 2 luxury cruise ship set sail for the first time. (1967) The ship at one point was the only ocean liner to offer regular transatlantic transport. It also was the last passenger ship to cross the Atlantic Ocean powered by oil rather than diesel.



[*]Billy Jean King beat Bobby Riggs in a battle-of-the-sexes tennis showdown. (1973) Riggs had made many sexist remarks, claiming a woman could never beat him on the tennis court. King took him up, and in a match that gained worldwide attention, she solidly beat him in three sets — gaining an advancement for equal rights and winning a $100,000 US Dollar purse. The match was the most-watched in tennis history, with more than 30,000 people in attendance and millions more watching on TV.