On this day: September 13
Michelangelo starts working on David, the automobile claims its first fatality in America, the National Guard storms Attica, and the U.S. zeroes in on Osama bin Laden as the prime 9/11 suspect, all on this day.
1501: Michelangelo begins work on his statue of David. He would work on the massive 17-foot-tall biblical hero for more than two years.
1501: Michelangelo begins work on his statue of David. He would work on the massive 17-foot-tall biblical hero for more than two years.
1541: After three years of exile, John Calvin returns to Geneva to reform the church under a body of doctrine known as Calvinism.
1848: Vermont railroad worker Phineas Gage survives a 3-foot-plus iron rod being driven through his head. The reported effects on his behavior and personality stimulate thinking about the nature of the brain and its functions.
1857: Milton S. Hershey, who founded The Hershey Chocolate Company and the "company town" of Hershey, Pa., is born in Derry Township, Pa.
1860: Gen. John J. Pershing, who led the American Expeditionary Forces in World War I, is born in Laclede, Mo.
1898: Hannibal Goodwin patents celluloid photographic film. His film would be used in Thomas Edison's Kinetoscope, an early machine for viewing animation.
1899: Henry Bliss steps off a streetcar near Central Park in New York City and is hit by an electric-powered taxicab, which crushes his head and chest. Bliss would die from his injuries the next morning, making him the first person in the United States to be killed in an automobile accident.
1903: Actress Claudette Colbert, a Best Actress Oscar-winner for 1934's "It Happened One Night," is born in Saint-Mandé, France.
1916: Author Roald Dahl, best known for such children's books as "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory," "James and the Giant Peach" and "Fantastic Mr. Fox," is born in Llandaff, Cardiff, Wales.
1922: The world's highest shade temperature, 136.4 degrees Fahrenheit, is recorded at the African village of Al Aziziyah, about 25 miles south of Tripoli, Libya.
1948: Margaret Chase Smith is elected a U.S. senator for Maine, becoming the first woman to serve in both the U.S. House of Representatives and the United States Senate.
1956: IBM introduces the RAMAC 305, the first "super computer" with a hard disk drive. The computer weighed more than a ton, required a forklift to move it and stored 5MB of data.
1959: The Soviet probe Luna 2 crashes onto the Moon, becoming the first man-made object to reach it.
1961: Rock musician and singer Dave Mustaine, the first lead guitarist for Metallica and a founding member and lead singer of Megadeath, is born in La Mesa, Calif.
1965: The Beatles' song "Yesterday" is released as a single in the United States, backed with a B-side of "Act Naturally." The song, which the band refused to allow release as a single in the U.K. because it was essentially a solo Paul McCartney song, would top the Billboard Hot 100 chart for four weeks, beginning on Oct. 9, 1965.
1970: The first New York City Marathon takes place, with 127 competitors running several loops around the Park Drive of Central Park. Only about 100 spectators watch as fireman Gary Muhrcke wins the race in 2:31:38. In fact, a total of only 55 runners cross the finish line.
1971: New York State Police and National Guardsmen storm the Attica Correctional Facility and put an end to a four-day inmate revolt. At least 39 people are killed in the final assault, including 10 correctional officers and civilian employees. Another officer and four inmates were killed earlier during the riot.
1971: The World Hockey Association is formed, giving the NHL its first major competition since the collapse of the Western Hockey League in 1926. The WHA, which would begin play in October 1972, would last for seven seasons before ceasing operations in 1979, with four teams, the Edmonton Oilers, New England Whalers, Quebec Nordiques and Winnipeg Jets, merging with the NHL for the 1979–80 season.
1974: The TV show "Rockford Files," starring James Garner (right), debuts. The show would last for six seasons and spawn eight TV movies.
1977: Singer Fiona Apple, who made her recording debut at age 19 with 1996's "Tidal," is born under the birth name Fiona Apple McAfee Maggart in Manhattan.
1990: The television drama "Law & Order" premieres. The show would last 20 seasons and spawn four spin-offs before ending in May 2010, making it the longest-running crime drama on American primetime television. After "The Simpsons," both "Law & Order" and "Gunsmoke" are tied for the second longest-running scripted primetime series with ongoing characters.
1993: Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat historically shake hands at the White House following the signing the Oslo Accords granting limited Palestinian autonomy.
1993: "Late Night with Conan O'Brien" premieres on NBC, taking over the time slot once owned by David Letterman before he left for CBS after being passed over in favor of Jay Leno for "The Tonight Show" following Johnny Carson's retirement. O'Brien would host the show for 16 years before leaving to succeed Leno as "Tonight Show" host, a job he would hold for only seven months.
1994: The Ulysses probe, a joint venture of NASA and the European Space Agency that was designed to study the Sun, passes the Sun's south pole.
1994: The Notorious B.I.G.'s debut album "Ready to Die" is released, making the Brooklyn rapper (whose real name was Christopher George Latore Wallace) a central figure in the East Coast hip-hop scene. The partly autobiographical album would end up being the rapper's only studio album released during his lifetime, as he was murdered days prior to the release of his second album, 1997's "Life After Death."
1996: Rapper Tupac Shakur dies at the University Medical Center of Southern Nevada six days after being shot four times on the Las Vegas Strip after leaving the Mike Tyson-Bruce Seldon boxing match at the MGM Grand.
1998: Politician and former Alabama Gov. George Wallace, who unsuccessfully ran for president four times and was known for his segregationist attitudes, dies of septic shock from a bacterial infection in Jackson Hospital in Montgomery, Ala., at the age of 79.
1998: "Frasier," starring Kelsey Grammer and David Hyde Pierce, wins a record fifth consecutive Emmy as TV's best comedy series.
2001: Secretary of State Colin Powell names Osama bin Laden as the prime suspect in the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks on the United States. Limited commercial flights are also resumed in the United States for the first time in two days.
2008: Hurricane Ike makes landfall on the Texas Gulf Coast, causing heavy damage to Galveston Island, Houston and surrounding areas. Ike would be the second-costliest hurricane ever to make landfall in the United States, with its $29.5 billion in property damage trailing only Hurricane Katrina, and the costliest hurricane in Texas history. The storm also would end up claiming the lives of 82 people in the United States.
2010: Rafael Nadal of Spain wins his first U.S. Open title to complete a career Grand Slam, beating Novak Djokovic 6-4, 5-7, 6-4, 6-2.
