This Week in History (September 6-12)

September 6, 1620 – With 101 colonists and 48 crew members aboard, the Mayflower sails from Plymouth, England. Thirty-five colonists board ship, Separatists from Leiden, Holland, and later known as the Pilgrims.

September 6, 1651 – Obadiah Holmes, who had been arrested for preaching Baptist doctrine, is given 30 lashes with a three-corded whip in Boston Commons. During the beating, he was so filled with divine joy that he told the magistrates, “You have struck me with roses.” His punishment occasioned the conversion of Henry Dunster, president of Harvard, to the Baptists, and led to the founding of Boston’s first Baptist church.

September 6, 1757 – Marquis de Lafayette was born in Chavaniac, France (as Marie-Joseph-Paul-Yves-Roch-Gilbert du Motier). He came to America in 1777 to volunteer in the American Revolution, beginning a long friendship with George Washington. He later persuaded Louis XVI of France to send a 6,000-man force to assist the Americans. Lafayette was given command of an army in Virginia and was instrumental in forcing Cornwallis to surrender at Yorktown, leading to the American victory.

September 6, 2012 – In a national convention defined by its delegates infamously booing God on Day Two, Barack Hussein Obama accepts the Democratic nomination for a second term as president.

September 6, 2018 – Brazilian conservative presidential candidate Jair Bolsonaro is stabbed by socialists at a campaign rally in Juiz de Fora, Brazil. But in an overwhelming rejection of Brazil’s socialist Worker’s Party for having ruined South America’s largest economy and it’s socialist president convicted, impeached, and removed from office for taking bribes, Bolsonaro not only survived the attack, but went on to win the presidency the following year.

September 7, 1885 – The Minnesota State Fair opens on its present grounds. The Twin Cities had battled about which one would host the fair, but Ramsey County’s donation of two hundred acres for a permanent fairgrounds clinched St. Paul’s victory. The site had been the Ramsey County poor farm.

September 7, 1940 – The German Luftwaffe began its Blitz bombing campaign against London during World War II.

September 8, 70 – Following a six-month siege, Jerusalem surrendered to the 60,000 troops of Titus’ Roman army. Over a million Jewish citizens perished in the siege and, following the city’s capture, another 97,000 were sold into slavery.

September 8, 1636 – Harvard College (later University) was founded by the Massachusetts Puritans at New Towne a mere six years after arriving from England. It was the first institution of higher learning established in North America, and was originally founded to train future ministers. Two years after its founding, the college was named after John Harvard, a learned English Protestant minister who had emigrated to America and who helped to found the institution. On his deathbed Harvard bequeathed half his estate and his entire library (400 volumes) to the fledgling college.

September 8, 1858 – Abraham Lincoln said in a speech: “You may fool all the people some of the time; you can even fool some of the people all the time; but you can’t fool all of the people all the time.”

September 8, 1900 – A hurricane with winds of 120 mph struck Galveston, Texas, killing over 8,000 persons, making it the worst natural disaster in U.S. history. The hurricane and tidal wave that followed destroyed over 2,500 buildings.

September 8, 1905 – The celebrated trotting horse Dan Patch paces a mile in 1:55 at the Minnesota State Fair, setting the world’s record.

September 8, 1916 – Democrat President Woodrow Wilson signs the unprecedented Emergency Revenue Act, doubling the rate of income tax and adding inheritance and munitions profits taxes.

September 9, 1776 – The United States came into existence as the Continental Congress changed the name of the new American nation from the United Colonies.

September 9, 1952 – The religious program “This is the Life” premiered on Dumont (later ABC) television. This long-running series was produced under the auspices of the Missouri Synod Lutheran Church.

September 9, 1976 – Longtime ruler of Communist China, Chairman Mao Zedong, died. As a Chinese revolutionary terrorist and ruthless communist dictator, he had proclaimed the “People’s” Republic of China in 1949 in Beijing after the communists won China’s civil war, the aftermath of which led to a bloodbath against all who disagreed with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)—including the killing of 45 million in just 4 years from 1958-1962 alone before Mao’s 1966 Cultural Revolution began—costing the lives of tens of millions of people. CCP rule continues to rule to this day.

September 9, 2021 – President Biden orders all federal employees to receive the COVID-19 “vaccination.”

September 10, 1718 – Founded in 1701 by Congregationalists who feared Harvard was straying from its Calvinist roots, The Collegiate School at New Haven, CT, changes its name to Yale.

September 10, 1819 – Birth of Canadian hymnwriter Joseph Scriven. The accidental drowning of his bride-to-be the night before their wedding led to a life of depression; yet he also authored the hymn of comfort, “What a Friend We Have in Jesus.”

September 10, 1934 – Baseball slugger Roger Maris is born in Hibbing. In 1961 he would hit sixty-one home runs for the Yankees, breaking Babe Ruth’s single season record, which had stood for thirty-four years.

September 10, 1953 – Swanson sells its first “TV dinner.”

September 11, 1900 – How strong was the Galveston hurricane of 1900? The remnants of the storm dropped 6.65 inches of rain on Minnesota from September 9 to 11.

September 11, 1971 – The first Minnesota Renaissance Festival opens at Lake Grace in Jonathan. One of the largest of its kind, the festival now operates from a permanent encampment near Shakopee.

September 11, 1998 – Independent counsel Ken Starr’s report to the U.S. Congress discloses 11 impeachable offenses by Democrat President Bill Clinton.

September 11, 2001 – 19 militants from the terrorist group, Al Qaeda, hijack 4 planes, aiming to crash them into major American landmarks. Two planes were crashed into the two towers of the World Trade Center. One plane was crashed into the Pentagon building. A fourth plane, thought to be bound towards Washington DC, crashed in a field in Pennsylvania after passengers, including Todd Beamer, a Christian father and graduate of Wheaton College, tried to fight back against the hijackers. Beamer’s words, “Are you guys ready? Let’s Roll,” heard over an open phone line, became a rallying cry for many in the wake of the tragedy. The attacks claimed 3,000 live in the worst terrorist attack in American history.

September 11, 2012 – The U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, is stormed, looted, and burned down, with terrorists killing five people, including the U.S. ambassador, after the Obama administration refused their urgent pleas for help, even though there was more than enough time for planes based in Sigonella Air base, just 480 miles away, to arrive. Also, two separate Tier One Special operations forces were ordered to wait. Among them were Delta Force operators who later said they could have rescued the victims. In the cover-up that followed, both Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and President Barack Obama repeatedly lied to the media about the cause of the event and their lack of response to it.

September 11, 2012 – The three main credit agencies–Moody’s, Fitch, and S&P–for the first time in U.S. history, lowered their top-tier AAA credit rating because the Obama administration and lawmakers didn’t produce a long-term debt reduction plan. The downgrade raised the cost of U.S. borrowed money, mainly from China, which had become the world’s largest holder of U.S. debt during Obama’s administration. Economists said the U.S. “deserves to have this happen,” because of its incompetent, clumsy handling of fiscal policy.

September 12, 1913 – Olympic athlete Jesse Owens was born in Oakville, AL. He won four medals in track and field at the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin, defeating Nazi athletes and embarrassing National Socialist (Nazi) leader Adolf Hitler.