Sept. 14
Today in history
Today is Sept. 14. On this day in:
1847: Gen. Winfield Scott led U.S. forces to victory in the Mexican-American War by capturing Mexico City. This decisive action led to the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in February 1848, which formally ended the war and gave the U.S. territory that later became California, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, most of Arizona and Colorado and parts of Oklahoma, Kansas and Wyoming.
1899: Henry Hale Bliss became the first person in the United States to die in a motor vehicle collision. The accident occurred a day prior in New York City when he was struck by an electric-powered taxicab after stepping off a trolley car.
1901: President William McKinley died eight days after being shot by an
anarchist during the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York. He was the third U.S. president to be assassinated, following Abraham Lincoln in 1865 and James A. Garfield in 1881.
1956: IBM demonstrated its 305 RAMAC, the world’s first commercial computer to feature a moving-head hard-disk drive for secondary storage. This groundbreaking system revolutionized data processing, allowing users to store, access and manage 5 million alphanumeric characters with unprecedented speed and efficiency.
1964: The Kellogg Co. began selling Pop-Tarts, the now-famous toaster pastries. Initially released in four flavors (strawberry, blueberry, brown sugar/cinnamon and apple currant), Pop-Tarts were an instant hit and have since become a staple in American breakfast culture.
1964: American author John Steinbeck was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. The honor recognized his significant contributions to literature, including his Pulitzer Prize-winning work “The Grapes of Wrath” and a Nobel Prize.
1975: Elizabeth Ann Seton was canonized by Pope Paul VI, becoming the first person born in what's now the United States to be named a Roman Catholic saint. She founded the Sisters of Charity of St. Joseph, the first community of Catholic women in the United States, and her life’s work had a lasting impact on Catholic education and charity work.
1985: “The Golden Girls” made its debut on NBC. The sitcom, starring Bea Arthur, Betty White, Rue McClanahan and Estelle Getty, revolved around four older women sharing a home in Miami. The series twice won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Comedy Series, and all four stars received Emmys for their performances.
2000: Microsoft released to retail Windows Millennium Edition, known as Windows Me. It was the last operating system in the Windows 9x series and served as a bridge toward the more stable Windows XP, which was released the following year.
2015: Ahmed Mohamed, a 14-year-old student, was arrested at his Texas school after bringing a homemade clock that was mistaken for a bomb. The charge was later dropped, and the incident ignited a national debate on racial profiling and Islamophobia, culminating in an invitation to the White House for Mohamed from President Barack Obama.
– USA TODAY Network
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Today in history, September 14
