On this day: September 7
The Miss America pageant is held for the first time, the Tasmanian tiger goes extinct, the Pro Football Hall of Fame opens its doors, and rapper Tupac Shakur is gunned down, all on this day.
1533: England's Queen Elizabeth I is born in Greenwich, England.
1533: England's Queen Elizabeth I is born in Greenwich, England.
1776: According to American colonial reports, Ezra Lee makes the world's first submarine attack in the Turtle, attempting to attach a time bomb to the hull of HMS Eagle in New York Harbor. However, no British records of this attack exist.
1813: The nickname "Uncle Sam" was first used as a symbolic reference to the United States, most likely because of the shared abbreviation of U.S. The reference appeared in an editorial in the New York's Troy Post.
1860: Painter Grandma Moses, known for her paintings depicting simple rural scenes, is born under the birth name Anna Mary Robertson in Greenwich, N.Y.
1864: In preparation for his march to the sea and not wanting his forces to be weighed down by the residents of the newly conquered city of Atlanta, Union Maj. Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman orders the evacuation of all civilians from the city.
1876: In Northfield, Minn., Jesse James and the James-Younger Gang attempt to rob the town's bank but are driven off by armed citizens. After the ensuing manhunt, James and his brother Frank James were the only members of the gang left alive and uncaptured.
1907: Cunard Line's RMS Lusitania sets sail on her maiden voyage from Liverpool, England, to New York City. During World War I, the ship would be torpedoed by the German U-boat U-20 on May 7, 1915, and sink in 18 minutes.
1909: Eugene Lefebvre crashes a new French-built Wright biplane during a test flight at Juvisy, south of Paris, becoming the first person to die while piloting a powered airplane.
1909: Film director Elia Kazan ("A Streetcar Named Desire," "On the Waterfront") is born in Istanbul in what is now Turkey.
1921: The Miss America pageant begins as the Atlantic City Pageant, a two-day beauty contest designed to keep tourists in Atlantic City, N.J., past Labor Day Weekend. The winner of the first event was Margaret Gorman of Washington, D.C. However, Gorman was not called "Miss America" until she re-entered the newly renamed competition in 1922.
1936: The last surviving member of the thylacine species, more commonly known as either the Tasmanian tiger or wolf, dies alone in her cage at the Hobart Zoo in Tasmania.
1936: Singer-songwriter Buddy Holly is born under the birth name Charles Hardin Holley in Lubbock, Texas. Holly would go on to become one of rock 'n' roll's pioneers despite a brief career cut short by his tragic death at age 22.
1940: The German air force begins The Blitz, a sustained strategic aerial bombing, on London during World War II.
1957: Sam Cooke's first single, "You Send Me," is released. Although the song "Summertime" was the intended A-side, radio disc jockeys favored "You Send Me," helping the song reach the charts by October and staying at No. 1 for two weeks in December.
1963: The Pro Football Hall of Fame opens in Canton, Ohio, with 17 charter members including Jim Thorpe, George Halas, Bronko Nagurski, Harold "Red" Grange and Earl "Curly" Lambeau.
1963: Eazy-E, a rap pioneer who would go on to help establish "gangsta rap" with the group N.W.A., is born under the birth name Eric Lynn Wright in Compton, Calif.
1969: Model and actress Angie Everhart is born in Akron, Ohio.
1977: The Torrijos-Carter Treaties between Panama and the United States on the status of the Panama Canal are signed. The United States agrees to transfer control of the canal to Panama at the end of the 20th century.
1978: The Who drummer Keith Moon dies from an accidental prescription drug overdose at the age of 32 in London.
1979: The Entertainment and Sports Programming Network, better known as ESPN, makes its debut.
1979: The Chrysler Corporation asks the United States government for $1.5 billion in loan guarantees to avoid bankruptcy. Congress would reluctantly pass the "Chrysler Corporation Loan Guarantee Act of 1979" in December 1979 and it would be signed into law by President Jimmy Carter on Jan. 7, 1980.
1986: Desmond Tutu, seen here in 2007, becomes the first black man to lead the Anglican Church in South Africa.
1986: Michael Nesmith (right) joins the other original Monkees on stage for an encore during a show at the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles, his first appearance with his bandmates since the band disbanded in 1970.
1986: Gen. Augusto Pinochet, dictator and president of Chile, escapes an assassination attempt by the resistance group Frente Patriotico Manuel Rodriguez when he was returning from his weekend house. Five of Pinochet's security guards are killed in the attack and 11 more injured, although Pinochet, seen here in 1999, suffers only minor injuries.
1987: Actress Evan Rachel Wood ("The Wrestler," "The Ides of March," "True Blood") is born in Raleigh, N.C.
1992: MLB Commissioner Fay Vincent resigns after team owners, upset over his intervention during a 1990 lockout, dwindling TV ratings and climbing player salaries, give him an 18–9 no-confidence vote. He's replaced by Milwaukee Brewers owner Bud Selig on an interim basis, with Selig becoming permanent commissioner in 1998.
1995: U.S. Sen. Bob Packwood (R-Ore.) resigns from the Senate, under threat of expulsion, after allegations of sexual harassment, abuse and assault of women emerged.
1996: Rapper Tupac Shakur is fatally shot four times on the Las Vegas Strip after leaving the Mike Tyson–Bruce Seldon boxing match at the MGM Grand. He is taken to the University Medical Center of Southern Nevada, where he dies six days later.
1999: A 5.9 magnitude earthquake rocks Athens, rupturing a previously unknown fault, killing 143, injuring more than 2,000 and leaving 50,000 people homeless.
2003: Musician Warren Zevon, best known for such songs as "Werewolves of London" and "Lawyers, Guns and Money," dies from cancer at the age of 56 in Los Angeles. His final album, "The Wind," which was released two weeks before his death, earned him two posthumous Grammys.
2004: Hurricane Ivan, a Category 3 hurricane, hits Grenada, killing 39 and damaging 90 percent of its buildings.
2008: The U.S. government takes control of the two largest mortgage financing companies in the United States, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
2011: A plane crash near Yaroslavl, Russia, kills 43 people, including nearly the entire roster of Lokomotiv Yaroslavl of the Kontinental Hockey League. The tragedy forces the team to cancel their participation in the 2011–12 KHL season.
