On this day: September 19
George Washington says goodbye, America takes nuclear testing underground, Simon & Garfunkel reunite in Central Park, and emoticons are born, all on this day.
1676: Jamestown, Virginia, the first permanent English settlement in the Americas, is burned to the ground by the forces of Nathaniel Bacon during Bacon's Rebellion. Bacon and other Virginians rose up when Gov. William Berkeley refused to retaliate for a series of Indian attacks on frontier settlements.
1676: Jamestown, Virginia, the first permanent English settlement in the Americas, is burned to the ground by the forces of Nathaniel Bacon during Bacon's Rebellion. Bacon and other Virginians rose up when Gov. William Berkeley refused to retaliate for a series of Indian attacks on frontier settlements.
1778: The Continental Congress passes the first budget of the United States.
1796: George Washington's farewell address is printed across America as an open letter to the public. Washington wrote the letter near the end of his second term as president, before his retirement to his home Mount Vernon.
1881: U.S. President James A. Garfield dies of wounds suffered in a July 2 shooting. Garfield's presidency lasted just 200 days. Only William Henry Harrison's presidency, of 32 days, was shorter.
1928: Actor Adam West, best known for portraying Batman in the campy 1960s TV show and the 1966 "Batman" movie based on the series, is born under the birth name William West Anderson in Seattle, Wash.
1934: Bruno Hauptmann is arrested for the kidnap and murder of the 20-month-old son of Charles Lindbergh. Hauptmann would eventually be convicted of the crime and executed by electric chair on April 3, 1936.
1934: Brian Epstein, who would go to become the manager of The Beatles, is born in Liverpool, England.
1940: Polish soldier Witold Pilecki is voluntarily captured and sent to the Auschwitz concentration camp in order to smuggle out information and start a resistance. His report enabled the Polish government-in-exile to convince the Allies that the Holocaust was taking place.
1941: Singer "Mama" Cass Elliot, one of the members of The Mamas & the Papas, is born under the birth name Ellen Naomi Cohen in Baltimore.
1946: The first Cannes Film Festival is held in Cannes, France. The festival was to debut in 1939, but was delayed seven years due to World War II.
1948: Actor Jeremy Irons ("Dead Ringers," "Reversal of Fortune") is born in Cowes, Isle of Wight, England.
1949: Twiggy, one of the first international supermodels and a fashion icon of the 1960s, is born under the birth name Lesley Lawson in London.
1952: The United States, under the direction of FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, revokes Charlie Chaplin's re-entry rights, preventing him from returning to America following a trip home to England for the London premiere of his film "Limelight." Chaplin had been accused of "un-American activities" as a suspected communist during the era of McCarthyism. Chaplin would decide to settle down in Switzerland and surrenders his re-entry permit in April 1953.
1957: The United States conducts its first underground nuclear test, in the Nevada desert, at Area 12 of the Nevada Test Site. The Atomic Energy Commission's first fully contained underground nuclear detonation, named the "Rainier shot" because it took place inside Rainier Mesa, detonated in a horizontal tunnel about 1,600 feet into the mesa and 900 feet beneath the top of the mesa.
1958: Singer Lita Ford, who would go on to become the lead guitarist for The Runaways in the late 1970s before embarking on a successful solo career in the 1980s, is born under the birth name Carmelita Rossana Ford in London.
1959: Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev is barred from visiting Disneyland due to security concerns, much to his disgruntlement.
1960: Chef, restauranteur and TV personality Mario Batali is born in Seattle, Wash.
1964: Country singer Trisha Yearwood, whose biggest hits include "She's in Love with the Boy" and "How Do I Live," is born in Monticello, Ga.
1968: The musical "Funny Girl," starring Barbra Streisand and Omar Sharif and directed by William Wyler, debuts in theaters. Streisand, making her movie debut and reprising her Broadway role, would win an Oscar for Best Actress for her performance and the film would also earn seven more Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture.
1970: The first Glastonbury Festival, then called the Pilton Pop, Blues & Folk Festival, is held at Michael Eavis' farm near Glastonbury, England. The original headline acts were The Kinks and Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders but these acts were replaced at short notice by Tyrannosaurus Rex, later known as T.Rex. Other acts included Quintessence, Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull fame and Al Stewart.
1970: The sitcom "The Mary Tyler Moore Show," starring Mary Tyler Moore, Ed Asner, Gavin MacLeod and Ted Knight, premieres. The show would run for seven seasons, earning acclaim and 29 Emmys over its run.
1973: Country singer-songwriter Gram Parsons, who also recorded with The Byrds and The Flying Burrito Brothers, dies of a drug overdose in a hotel room in Joshua Tree, Calif., at the age of 26. Seeking to fulfill Parson's wish to be cremated and spread over Joshua Tree National Monument, close friend Phil Kaufman later steals Parson's body from the Los Angeles International Airport with the help of a friend and sets his remains on fire in the park. Since there was no law against stealing a dead body, the pair would only be fined $750 for stealing the coffin.
1974: Actor and comedian Jimmy Fallon ("Saturday Night Live," "Late Night With Jimmy Fallon") is born in Brooklyn, N.Y.
1979: The first of five No Nukes concerts takes place at Madison Square Garden in New York City. The concerts are organized by Musicians United for Safe Energy, an activist group against the use of nuclear energy founded by Jackson Browne, Graham Nash, Bonnie Raitt and John Hall. The concerts include performances by Bruce Springsteen, Browne, Raitt, James Taylor, Carly Simon and Crosby, Stills and Nash.
1980: The drama "Ordinary People," starring Donald Sutherland, Mary Tyler Moore, Judd Hirsch and Timothy Hutton and directed by Robert Redford in his directorial debut, debuts New York City. The movie would go on to earn Oscars for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Supporting Actor (Hutton) and Best Adapted Screenplay as well as nominations for Moore and Hirsch.
1981: Simon & Garfunkel reunite for a free concert in New York's Central Park, playing for an estimated crowd of 500,000.
1982: Scott Fahlman posts the first documented emoticons :-) and :-( on the Carnegie Mellon University Bulletin Board System.
1984: The drama "Amadeus," which tells the adversarial relationship between composers Antonio Salieri and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, debuts in theaters. The movie, starring F. Murray Abraham and Tom Hulce and directed by Milos Forman, would go on to win eight Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actor for F. Murray Abraham.
1985: A strong earthquake kills more than 10,000 people and destroys about 400 buildings in Mexico City.
1985: Representatives of the Parents Music Resource Center, including co-founder Tipper Gore (pictured), testify along with musicians Dee Snider, Frank Zappa and John Denver at U.S. Congressional hearings on obscenity in rock music. On Nov. 1, 1985, before the hearing ended, the RIAA would agree to put "Parental Advisory" labels on selected releases at their own discretion.
1986: The movie "Blue Velvet," starring Kyle MacLachlan, Isabella Rossellini, Dennis Hopper and Laura Dern and directed by David Lynch, opens in theaters. The film would go on to become a cult classic and earn Lynch his second Oscar nomination for Best Director.
1988: U.S. Olympic diver Greg Louganis suffers a concussion after hitting his head on the springboard during the preliminary rounds at the Summer Olympics in Seoul, South Korea. Louganis would complete the preliminaries despite the injury, earning the highest single score of the qualifying for his next dive, and eventually repeat his gold-medal-winning performance from 1984. He would also repeat as gold medal winner in the 10-meter platform diving event in Seoul.
1988: Israel launches its first satellite, "Ofeq 1" (Horizon 1), onboard a Shavit rocket from the Negev Desert over the Mediterranean, becoming the ninth country in space. The satellite would accomplish mainly solar cell and radio transmission tests.
1990: The mob drama "Goodfellas," starring Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci and Ray Liotta and directed by Martin Scorsese, opens in theaters. The movie would be nominated for six Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director, and win one for Pesci in the Best Supporting Actor category.
1991: "Ötzi the Iceman," a well-preserved natural mummy of a Chalcolithic (Copper Age) man from about 3300 B.C., is discovered by two German tourists in the Ötztal Alps on the Austrian–Italian border.
1994: U.S. troops enter Haiti peacefully to enforce the return of exiled President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
1995: The Washington Post and The New York Times publish the Unabomber's manifesto, a 35,000 word, 50-plus page, densely written essay calling for a worldwide revolution against the effects of modern society's "industrial-technological system." The Unabomber, later discovered to be former Berkeley mathematics professor Ted Kaczynski, stated that if the document was published, he would cease his bombing campaign that had killed three people and wounded 23 others.
1995: Botanist and entrepreneur Orville Redenbacher, most often associated with the brand of popcorn that bears his name, is found dead in the Jacuzzi of his condominium in Coronado, Calif. He had suffered a heart attack and drowned at the age of 88.
1997: The drama "L.A. Confidential," starring Kevin Spacey, Russell Crowe, Guy Pearce and Kim Basinger, debuts in theaters. The movie would go on to earn nine Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture, winning for Best Supporting Actress for Basinger and Best Adapted Screenplay.
2000: Madonna's album "Music" is released. The album would debut at No. 1 in more than 23 countries around the world, and was Madonna's first album to reach the top of the Billboard 200 in 11 years since 1989's "Like a Prayer."
2008: The first season of AMC's "Mad Men" becomes the first basic-cable show to win a top series Emmy award. The show would go on to repeat its Emmy win for Outstanding Drama Series in 2009, 2010 and 2011.
2010: The leaking oil well in the Deepwater Horizon oil spill is permanently sealed. The well had gushed oil since the offshore oil rig sank into the Gulf of Mexico on April 22 after an explosion and resulting fire killed 11 crewman, causing the largest offshore oil spill in U.S. history.
