Sept. 4
1781: Los Angeles was founded by Spanish settlers under the leadership of Governor Felipe de Neve.
1957: Arkansas Gov. Orval Faubus ordered Arkansas National Guardsmen to prevent nine Black students from entering all-white Central High School in Little Rock.
1972: The longest-running game show in U.S. history, “The Price is Right,” debuted on CBS.
Sept. 5
1774: The first Continental Congress assembled in Philadelphia.
1905: The Treaty of Portsmouth was signed, ending the Russo-Japanese war; for mediating the peace negotiations, U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt was awarded the Noble Peace Prize the following year.
1957: Jack Kerouac’s novel “On the Road” was published.
1975: President Gerald R. Ford survived an assassination attempt by Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme, a disciple of Charles Manson.
1972: Palestinian militants attacked the Israeli Olympic team in Munich, killing two and taking nine hostages; all hostages and five militants died.
Sept. 6
1901: President William McKinley was shot and mortally wounded by anarchist Leon Czolgosz at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York.
1975: 18-year-old tennis star Martina Navratilova of Czechoslovakia requested political asylum in the United States.
1997: A public funeral was held for Princess Diana at Westminster Abbey in London.
Sept. 7
1940: Nazi Germany began The Blitz, an eight-month bombing campaign on Britain that killed more than 40,000 civilians.
1921: The first Miss America Pageant was held in Atlantic City, New Jersey.
1977: The Panama Canal Treaty, which called for the U.S. to turn over control of the waterway to Panama at the end of 1999, was signed.
1986: Bishop Desmond Tutu was installed as the first Black clergyman to lead the Anglican Church in southern Africa.
Sept. 8
1504: Michelangelo’s towering marble statue of David was unveiled to the public in Florence, Italy.
1565: Spanish settlers founded St. Augustine, the first permanent European settlement in North America.
1664: The Dutch surrendered New Amsterdam to the British, who renamed it New York.
1935: Sen. Huey P. Long, D-La., was fatally shot in the Louisiana State Capitol building.
1974: One month after taking office, President Gerald R. Ford granted a “full, free, and absolute pardon” to former President Richard Nixon.
2022: Queen Elizabeth II, who spent more than seven decades on the British throne, died at age 96.
Sept. 9
1776: The Second Continental Congress formally adopted the name “United States of America.”
1850: California was admitted as the 31st U.S. state.
1919: About 1,100 members of Boston’s 1,500-member police force went on strike.
1948: The People’s Democratic Republic of Korea (North Korea) was declared.
1971: Prisoners seized control of the maximum-security Attica Correctional Facility in New York, taking 42 staff members hostage and demanding better treatment and living conditions.
Sept. 10
1608: John Smith was elected president of the Jamestown colony council in Virginia.
1963: Twenty Black students entered Alabama public schools following a standoff between federal authorities and Gov. George C. Wallace.
1991: The Senate Judiciary Committee held hearings on Clarence Thomas’s Supreme Court nomination, becoming a watershed moment when law professor Anita Hill accused him of sexual harassment.
