On this day: September 21
"The Hobbit" is published for the first time, Jimmy Hendrix becomes Jimi, Sandra Day O'Connor is confirmed as the first female Supreme Court justice, and a track superstar dies, all on this day.
1776: Part of New York City burns shortly after being occupied by British forces during the American Revolutionary War. The fire crosses Broadway near Beaver Street, and then burns most of the city between Broadway and the Hudson River. Among the buildings destroyed is Trinity Church.
1776: Part of New York City burns shortly after being occupied by British forces during the American Revolutionary War. The fire crosses Broadway near Beaver Street, and then burns most of the city between Broadway and the Hudson River. Among the buildings destroyed is Trinity Church.
1776: Nathan Hale, who went behind enemy lines to report on British troop movements for American rebels, is arrested in New York City. He would be hanged the next day by British forces. He is best remembered for his purported last words: "I only regret that I have but one life to give for my country."
1784: "The Pennsylvania Packet and Daily Advertiser" is published for the first time in Philadelphia. It was the first daily paper in America.
1823: Joseph Smith is reportedly visited by the angel Moroni, who tells him the location of gold plates, which Smith would obtain four years later and partially translate into The Book of Mormon.
1832: Writer Sir Walter Scott, best known for such works as "Rob Roy" and "Ivanhoe," dies at the age of 61 in Melrose, Scotland.
1866: Author H.G. Wells, best known for his science fiction works, including "The War of the Worlds," "The Time Machine" and "The Invisible Man," is born in Bromley, Kent, England.
1897: The New York Sun runs an editorial answering a question from an 8-year-old girl that included the line, "Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus."
1912: Animator Chuck Jones, the creator of the famed "Looney Tunes" and "Merrie Melodies" shorts for Warner Bros., "Tom & Jerry" cartoons, the TV version of "Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas" and many other well-known animated classics, is born in Spokane, Wash.
1931: Actor Larry Hagman, whose best known roles include astronaut Maj. Tony Nelson on "I Dream of Jeannie" and J.R. Ewing on "Dallas," is born in Ft. Worth, Texas.
1933: Salvador Lutteroth runs the first ever Empresa Mexicana de Lucha Libre show in Mexico, marking the birth of Lucha Libre. Under its current name of Consejo Mundial de Lucha Libre (CMLL), it is, to date, the longest running active professional wrestling promotion in the world presenting three weekly matches.
1934: Typhoon Muroto hits western Honshu, Japan, killing 3,036 people and injuring nearly 15,000 more.
1934: Singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen, best known for songs such as "Suzanne" and "Hallelujah," is born in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
1937: J. R. R. Tolkien's "The Hobbit" is published. The book, which remains popular today, debuts to wide critical acclaim, being nominated for the Carnegie Medal and awarded a prize from the New York Herald Tribune for best juvenile fiction.
1938: The Great Hurricane of 1938 makes landfall on Long Island in New York as a Category 3 hurricane. The storm kills between 682 and 800 people, damages more than 57,000 homes and causes property losses estimated at $306 million ($4.7 billion in 2012 dollars).
1942: The B-29 Superfortress makes its maiden flight.
1945: Film and television producer Jerry Bruckheimer, best known for TV shows such as "CSI" and "The Amazing Race" and movies like "Beverly Hills Cop," "Top Gun" and "Armageddon," is born in Detroit.
1947: Author Stephen King, best known for such horror novels as "Carrie," "Cujo," "The Shining," "Misery" and "The Green Mile," is born in Portland, Maine.
1950: Actor and comedian Bill Murray, best known for movies such as "Caddyshack," "Stripes," "Ghostbusters," "Groundhog Day," "Lost in Translation" and "Rushmore," is born in Wilmette, Ill.
1953: North Korean pilot Lt. No Kum-Sok defects during the Korean War by flying his MiG-15 to the Kimpo Air Base in South Korea, claiming that he wanted to get away from the "red deceit." He receives a $100,000 reward offered by Operation Moolah for defecting with his aircraft and later emigrates to the United States.
1957: Film director Ethan Coen (left), who would go on to make movies such as "Blood Simple," "Fargo, "The Big Lebowski" and "No Country for Old Men," with his brother Joel (right), is born in St. Louis Park, Minn.
1957: The TV series "Perry Mason," starring Raymund Burr as the titular lawyer, makes its debut. The show would last for nine seasons before ending on May 22, 1966.
1961: The CH-47 Chinook transportation helicopter has its maiden flight. Today, the twin-engine, tandem rotor heavy-lift helicopter's primary roles for the U.S. military include troop movement, artillery emplacement and battlefield resupply.
1962: Actor Rob Morrow ("Northern Exposure," "Numb3rs") is born in New Rochelle, N.Y.
1964: The North American XB-70 Valkyrie, the world's first Mach 3 bomber, makes its maiden flight from Palmdale, Calif. A prototype of the proposed B-70 nuclear-armed deep-penetration strategic bomber (which was canceled in 1961 and never built), two of the aircraft were built and used in supersonic test flights from 1964 to 1969.
1966: Jimmy Hendrix changes the spelling of his name to Jimi at the suggestion of Chas Chandler, a former bassist for The Animals who he had just signed as his manager. Chandler would also help Hendrix form his new band, The Jimi Hendrix Experience.
1967: Country singer Faith Hill, whose songs include "This Kiss," "Breathe" and "The Way You Love Me" and who is married to fellow country star Tim McGraw, is born under the birth name Audrey Faith Perry in Ridgeland, Miss.
1968: Actress and talk show host Ricki Lake ("Hairspray," "Cry-Baby") is born in Hastings-on-Hudson, N.Y.
1968: The Jimi Hendrix Experience releases a cover of Bob Dylan's "All Along the Watchtower." The single reaches No. 5 on the British charts and No. 20 on the U.S. Billboard chart, Hendrix's only top 20 entry there.
1970: "NFL Monday Night Football" makes its debut on ABC with a game between the Cleveland Browns and the New York Jets. The Browns won 31-21. In 2006, the show would move to ESPN.
1971: Actor Luke Wilson ("Old School," "Legally Blonde," "The Royal Tenenbaums") is born in Dallas, Texas.
1971: The American League approves the Washington Senators' move to Arlington, Texas, for the 1972 season by a vote of 10 to 2 (the Orioles' Jerold Hoffberger and John Allyn of the Chicago White Sox registered the dissenting votes). The team would become known as the Texas Rangers.
1972: Singer Liam Gallagher (center), who would go on to front the band Oasis with his brother Noel Gallagher (right), is born in Burnage, Manchester, England.
1973: Henry Kissinger is confirmed by the U.S. Senate to become the 56th secretary of state, the first naturalized citizen to hold that office.
1974: Actor Walter Brennan (right), a three-time Oscar-winner for his roles in "Come and Get It," "Kentucky" and "The Westerner," and also known for his roles in other movies such as "Rio Bravo," "Red River" (as pictured here with John Wayne) and "Sergeant York," dies from emphysema at the age of 80 in Oxnard, Calif.
1975: The movie "Dog Day Afternoon," starring Al Pacino and John Cazale and directed by Sidney Lumet, debuts in theaters. The movie would go on to earn six Oscar nominations, including ones for Pacino and Lumet and for Best Picture, but won only one for Best Original Screenplay.
1981: Sandra Day O'Connor is unanimously approved by the U.S. Senate as the first female U.S. Supreme Court justice.
1981: Nicole Richie, who rose to prominence with her role in the reality TV series "The Simple Life" alongside her childhood best-friend and fellow socialite Paris Hilton, is born in Berkeley, Calif.
1982: The National Football League players begin a 57-day strike. The strike, which ended on Nov. 16, 1982, would end up shortening the season from 16 games to nine. The new five-year agreement eventually ratified would provide severance packages to players upon retirement, an increase in salaries and post-season pay, and bonuses based on the number of years of experience in the league.
1983: Actress Maggie Grace ("Lost," "Taken") is born under the birth name Margaret Grace Denig in Worthington, Ohio.
1991: USA Basketball announces the first 10 players selected for the "Dream Team," a team comprised mostly of professional NBA players, for the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona, Spain. The players selected were Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen, John Stockton, Karl Malone, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, Patrick Ewing, Chris Mullin, David Robinson and Charles Barkley.
1993: Russian President Boris Yeltsin suspends parliament and scraps the then-functioning constitution, although he didn't have the constitutional power to do so, thus triggering the Russian constitutional crisis of 1993. In response, the parliament would declare his decision null and void, impeach Yeltsin and proclaim vice president Aleksandr Rutskoy to be acting president. The crisis continued until Yeltsin managed to push through his new constitution in December 1993, creating a strong presidency and giving the president sweeping powers to issue decrees.
1996: John F. Kennedy Jr. marries Carolyn Bessette in a secret ceremony on Cumberland Island, Ga.
1996: The board of the all-male Virginia Military Institute votes 8-7 to admit women. The school, which officially enrolls its first female cadets in August 1997, is the last U.S. military college to admit women.
1998: Track star Florence Griffith-Joyner, a five-time Olympic medalist, including three gold medals at the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul, South Korea, dies in her sleep as the result of an epileptic seizure at the age of 38 in Mission Viejo, Calif.
1998: President Bill Clinton's videotaped grand jury testimony in the Monica Lewinsky scandal is publicly broadcast for the first time.
1999: The Jiji earthquake strikes central Taiwan, leaving about 2,400 people dead and 11,305 injured and causing about $10 billion in damage.
2001: The probe Deep Space 1 performs a flyby of Comet Borrelly. Despite the failure of a system that helped determine its orientation, Deep Space 1 managed to send back to Earth what were, at the time, the best images and other science data from a comet.
2001: "America: A Tribute to Heroes" is broadcast by more than 35 network and cable channels, raising more than $200 million for the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attack victims. Done in the style of a telethon with a celebrity-staffed phone bank, it featured 21 live musical performances from the likes of Bruce Springsteen, Stevie Wonder, Neil Young, Billy Joel, Mariah Carey, Alicia Keys and Paul Simon along with short spoken messages delivered by other stars.
2003: The Galileo mission, after 14 years in space and eight years spent exploring Jupiter and its moons, is terminated by sending the probe into Jupiter's atmosphere, where it is crushed by the pressure at the lower altitudes. The probe was destroyed to avoid any chance of it contaminating local moons with terrestrial bacteria.
2004: The album "American Idiot" by Green Day is released. The album spawned five singles, all of which went platinum, and sold more than 14 million copies worldwide. It would chart in 27 countries and peak at No. 1 in 19 of them, including the United States and the United Kingdom.
