September 20
1973
In a highly publicized "Battle of the Sexes" tennis match, top women's player Billie Jean King, 29, beat Bobby Riggs, 55, a former #1 ranked men's player. Riggs, a self-proclaimed male chauvinist, had boasted that women were inferior, that the couldn't handle the pressure of the game and that even at his age he could beat any female player. The match was a huge media event, witnessed in person by over 30,000 spectators at the Houston Astrodome and by another 50 million TV viewers worldwide. King's achievement not only helped legitimize women's professional tennis and female athletes, but it was seen as a victory for women's rights in general.
1987
Chicago Bears running back Walter Payton scored his 107th rushing touchdown. The touchdown was scored at home against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and effectively brokw the career rushing touchdown record previously held by Jim Brown. Payton scored three more touchdown in his 12th season, bringing his career total to 110. Walter Payton retired from football at the end of the 1987-1988 season as one of the greatest running backs in NFL history. Payton held the all-time touchdown record, the all-time rushing record, the all-time yards from scrimmage record and the career 100 yard rushing games record. Although many of Payton’s records have been broken in the years after his retirement, it takes nothing away from his great legacy.
2001
Following the attacks of September 11th, 2001, President George W. Bsh made and address to a joint session of Congress and the American people that was nationally broadcasted. The inspirational speech to America rallied support for the "War on Terror," which would eventually lead to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and became one of the defining speeches of his presidency.
September 21
1780
During the American Revolution, American General Benedict Arnold met with British Major John Andre to discuss handing over West Point to the British, in return for the promise of a large sum of money and a high position in the British army. However, the conspiracy was uncovered and Andre was captured and executed. Arnold, the former American patriot, fled to the enemy side and went on to lead British troops in Virginia and Connecticut. He later moved to England, though he never received all of what he’d been promised by the British. He died in London on June 14, 1801. Benedict Arnold's name soon became synonymous with the world "traitor."
1942
The U.S. B-29 Superfortress made its debut flight in Seattle, Washington. It was the largest bomber used in the war by any nation. In combat, although Superfortress bombers were not as heavily armored as other Allied bombers, they possessed one defense that no others could compete with. They were capable of flying at the altitude of 10,200m, just above the service ceiling of most Japanese fighters and just beyond the range of most anti-aircraft weapons. Their fast airspeed also made the difficult to intercept by fighters that could fly that hight.
2003
The last game at historic Yankee Stadium, "The House That Babe Ruth Built," was played. The stadium opened in 1923 and was the scene of scores of Major League Baseball's most famous moments, including Ruth's first home run in the stadium on April 18, 1923, Reggie Jackson's three home run game to close out the 1977 World Series and Aaron Boone's Game 7 walk-off home run in the 2003 American League Championship Series against the Boston Red Sox. In closing the stadium, the Yankees hosted a pre-game ceremony, allowing fans and former Yankee legends to walk the hallowed grounds a final time. Julia Ruth Stevens, Ruth's daughter, threw out the ceremonial first pitch as the scoreboard flashed “To Be Continued…” and a photo of "The Bambino" winking.
September 22
1862
President Abraham Lincoln issued a preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, which set a date for the freedom of more than 3 million enslaved in the United States and recast the Civil War as a fight against slavery. In the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, Lincoln declared that all slaves would be "forever" free on January 1, 1863, unless the Confederate states returned to the Union. Lincoln followed through with his promise, and on New Year's Day 1863 he signed the final Emancipation Proclamation, which declared “that all persons held as slaves” within the rebel states “are, and henceforward shall be free.” The proclamation also called for the recruitment and establishment of Black military units among the Union forces.
1953
The first four-level (or "stack) interchange in the world opened in Los Angeles, California, at the intersection of the Harbor, Hollywood, Pasadena and Santa Ana freeways. It was, as The Saturday Evening Post wrote, "a mad motorist's dream": 32 lanes of traffic weaving in eight directions at once. Today, although the four-level is justly celebrated as a civil engineering landmark, the interchange is complicated, frequently congested, and sometimes downright terrifying.
1985
Inspired by comments by Bob Dylan at Live Aid, fellow musicians Willie Nelson, John Mellancamp and Neil Young organized the Farm Aid benefit concert to raise money for family farmers in the United States. The first concert was held at the Memorial Stadium in Champaign, Illinois before a crowd of 80,000 people. Performers included Bob Dylan, Billy Joes, B.B. King, Loretta Lynn, Roy Orbison and Tom Petty, among others, and raised over $9 million for U.S. family farmers. The benefit concert continues to this day.
September 23
1938
An 800-pound tube made of copper and chromium called Cupaloy was lowered 50 feet into the ground during the 1939-40 New York World's Fair. The tube's contents comprised 35 items one might find in any run-of-the-mill American family household, including copies of Life magazine, a Sears Roebuck catalog, cigarettes and seeds of wheat, corn, alfalfa and soy, each examined and preserved in inert argon and nitrogen gas to remain intact for the next five thousand years - until the year 6939 to be exact.
1950
Ralph Bunche became the first African American to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. He received it for having arranged a cease-fire between Israelis and Arabs during the war which followed the creation of the state of Israel in 1948. Bunche was involved in the formation and administration of the United Nations and played a major role in both the decolonization process and numerous peacekeeping operations sponsored by the UN. In 1963, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President John F. Kennedy. At the UN, Bunche gained such fame that Ebony magazine proclaimed him perhaps the most influential African American of the first half of the 20th century and "for nearly a decade, he was the most celebrated African American of his time both the US and abroad."
1957
"That'll Be the Day" by Buddy Holly and the Crickets reached #1. It was eventually inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1998 and, in 2005, placed in the National Recording Registry, a list of sound recordings that "are culturally, historically, or aesthetically important, and/or inform or reflect life in the United States."
September 24
1789
The Judiciary Act of 1789 was passed by Congress and signed by President George Washington, establishing the Supreme Court of the United States as a tribunal made up of six justices who were to serve on the court until death or retirement. That day, President Washington nominated John Blair Jr., William Cushing, Robert Harrison, John Jay, John Rutledge and James Wilson to the Supreme Court, with John Jay to preside as chief justice and the others as associate justices. On September 26, all six appointments were confirmed by the U.S. Senate.
1952
The first Kentucky Fried Chicken franchise was opened by Pete Harmon near Salt Lake City, Utah. Independent restaurant owners would pay four cents on each chicken sold as a franchise fee in exchange for Colonel Sanders' "secret blend of herbs and spices", his recipe and the right to advertise using his name and likeness. Harman was eventually credited with the brand's slogan “It's finger-lickin' good."
1968
CBS aired the first episode of 60 Minutes, a show that would become a staple of the American media landscape. A pioneer of the "newsmagazine" format, 60 Minutes is the longest-running primetime show in American television history. Over its run, 60 Minutes has been known primarily for investigative journalism—termed “gotcha” journalism by some critics—including exposés on the Vietnam War, the Watergate Scandal, and the Abu Ghraib torture revelations and other corporate and political scandals. A number of famous journalists and pundits, including Mike Wallace, Dan Rather, Diane Sawyer, Leslie Stahl, Walter Cronkite and Christiane Amanpour have contributed to the show, which has won over a hundred Emmy Awards and 20 Peabodys.
September 25
1775
After aborting a poorly planned and ill-timed attack on the British-controlled city of Montreal, Continental Army Colonel Ethan Allen was captured by the British. After being identified as an officer of the Continental Amy, Allen was taken prisoner and sent to England to be executed. Although Allen ultimately escaped execution because the British government feared reprisals from the American colonies, he was imprisoned in England for more than two years until being returned to the United States as part of a prisoner exchange.
1965
The Kansas City Athletics started ageless wonder Satchel Paige in a game against the Boston Red Sox. At 59 years, 2 months and 18 days, Paige, a Negro League legend, became the oldest pitcher ever to play a game in the major leagues and proved his greatness once again by giving up only one hit in his three innings of play. Arguably the greatest pitcher of his era, Paige was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1971.
1981
Nominated by President Ronald Reagan, Sandra Day O'Connor was sworn in as the first female US Supreme Court Justice and served until 2006. Her appointment to the Supreme Court ended 191 years of the court being an exclusively male institution. In recognition of her lifetime accomplishments, President Barack Obama awarded Justice O’Connor with the nation’s highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, on August 12, 2009.
September 26
1957
West Side Story, composed by Leonard Bernstein, opened at the Winter Garden Theatre on Broadway. West Side Story transposed Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet to the gang-ridden streets of 1950s Manhattan, dominated by the Sharks and the Jets. Tony, a Polish American, and Maria, a Puerto Rican, meet and fall in love at a fateful gym dance. For the groundbreaking musical, Bernstein provided a propulsive and rhapsodic score that many celebrate at his greatest achievement as a composer. In 1961, a film version starring Natalie Wood, Rita Moreno and Richard Beymer was an enormous hit and took home 10 Academy Awards, including Best Picture. The stage version of West Side Story was soon revived and the musical is still performed today.
1969
American television audiences hear the soon-to-be-famous opening lyrics “Here’s the story of a lovely lady. Who was bringing up three very lovely girls…” as The Brady Bunch, a sitcom that will become an icon of American pop culture, airs for the first time. While panned by critics for its entire run, the program stands as one of the most important sitcoms of American 1970s television programming, spawning numerous other series on all three major networks, as well as records, lunch boxes, a cookbook, and even a stage show and feature film.
1996
U.S. astronaut Shannon Lucid returned to Earth in the U.S. space shuttle Atlantis following six months in orbit aboard the Russian space station Mir. Lucid transferred to Mir from the same space shuttle for planned five-month stay. A biochemist, Lurid shared Mir with Russian cosmonauts Yuri Onufriyenko and Yuri Usachev and conducted scientific experiments during her stay. She was the first American woman to live in a space station.