#TodayInHistory – September 11
3 min read
September 11 – Some important events on this day.
1185 👉🏼 Isaac II Angelus kills Stephanus Hagiochristophorites and then appeals to the people, resulting in the revolt that deposes Andronicus I Comnenus and places Isaac on the throne of the Byzantine Empire.
1297 👉🏼 Battle at Stirling Bridge, Scottish rebel William Wallace defeats the English
1390 👉🏼 Lithuanian Civil War (1389-1392): the Teutonic Knights begin a five-week siege of Vilnius
1541 👉🏼 Santiago, Chile, is destroyed by indigenous warriors, lead by Michimalonko
1609 👉🏼 Expulsion order announced against the Moriscos of Valencia; beginning of the expulsion of all Spain’s Moriscos
1649 👉🏼 Massacre of Drogheda, Ireland: English Military and Political Leader Oliver Cromwell kills 3,000 royalists
1697 👉🏼 Battle of Zenta: forces of Prince Eugen of Savoye defeat the Turks, ending Ottoman control of large parts of Central Europe
1708 👉🏼 Great Northern war: Charles XII of Sweden stops his march to conquer Moscow outside Smolensk, marking the turning point in the war
1709 👉🏼 Battle at Malplaquet during War of the Spanish Succession: English, Austrian and Dutch Great Alliance defeat France
1773 👉🏼 Benjamin Franklin writes “There never was a good war or bad peace”
1857 👉🏼 Mountain Meadows Massacre, Mormons dressed as Indians murder 120 colonists in Utah
1897 👉🏼 After months of pursuit, generals of Menelik II of Ethiopia capture Gaki Sherocho, the last king of Kaffa, bringing an end to that ancient kingdom
1945 👉🏼 Hideki Tojo, Japanese Prime Minister during most of World War II, attempts suicide rather than face war crimes tribunal but fails – later he is hanged
1977 👉🏼 The Atari 2600, originally known as the Atari Video Computer System (Atari VCS) is released in North America, revolutionizing the video game industry.
The Atari 2600 was the first successful home game machine. Released in 1977 it sold for $199 and included a console, two joy stocks and a game cartridge and was manufactured until 1982.
Many of the games Atari produced for video arcades had versions for the Atari 2600. Its first big hit was with Space Invaders in 1980, which became the first game to sell over 1 million copies.
However by 1982 the market was saturated with game consoles. This coupled with the rise of the home computer led to the 1983 video game crash. The Atari 2600 was particularly hard hit as the company has invested in two big games, Pac-Man and ET which failed spectacularly.
The Atari 2600 was added to the US National Toy Hall of Fame in 2007 and in 2009 IGN called it “the console that our entire industry is built upon”.
1992 👉🏼 Hurricane Iniki hits Kauai Hawaii. 3 die and 8,000 injured
2001 👉🏼 Two passenger planes hijacked by Al Qaeda terrorists crash into New York’s World Trade Towers causing the collapse of both and deaths of 2,606 people.
On the morning of this day, al-Qaeda terrorists hijacked four aircraft over the skies of America and flew them into the Twin Towers in New York City, the Pentagon in Virginia and crashed a fourth in rural Pennsylvania after passengers on board revolted.
The attacks shocked the world. It remains the deadliest terrorist incident in history – almost 3,000 people died – and caused billions in damage, as well as the destruction of the entire World Trade Center after the Twin Towers collapsed.
In response the US launched the War on Terror, invading Afghanistan and hunting down Osama bin Laden, who was eventually found and killed in Pakistan in 2011.
2001 👉🏼 Terrorists hijack a passenger plane and crash it into the Pentagon causing the deaths of 125 people
2001 👉🏼 Attempt by passengers and crew of United Airlines Flight 93 to retake control of their hijacked plane from terrorists causes plane to crash in Pennsylvania field killing all 64 people on board
2017 👉🏼 Hurricane Irma leaves 7 million US homes without power in Florida and Georgia
