1776 - George Washington asks for a spy volunteer, Nathan Hale volunteers
1608 – Having survived capture by Indians (reputedly through the efforts of Pocahontas, a chief’s daughter), John Smith became president of Jamestown colony, the first permanent English settlement in North America
1846 – American inventor Elias Howe was granted a patent for his sewing machine, which revolutionized garment manufacture in the factory and in the home.
1924 - Leopold and Loeb found guilty of the murder of Robert Franks in Chicago in the “the crime of the century”
2008 - The Large Hadron Collider at CERN, described as the biggest scientific experiment in the history of mankind is powered up in Geneva, Switzerland
2017 – Hurricane Irma makes landfall in the Florida Keys in the US as a category 3 hurricane
2019 – Novelist Margaret Atwood publishes “The Testaments”, her follow-up to “The Handmaid’s Tale”
Births & Deaths: 1977 - Hamida Djandoubi, convicted of torture and murder, is the last person to be executed by Guillotine in France
Film & TV:
1993 - “The X-Files”, created by Chris Carter and starring David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson debuts on Fox
1999 – “Fight Club” film based on the novel by Chuck Palahniuk, directed by David Fincher and starring Edward Norton and Brad Pitt premieres at the Venice Film Festival
Music:
1991 - Rock band Nirvana release their single “Smells like Teen Spirit”, often dubbed the anthem of Generation X
2000 – Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical Cats closed after 7,485 performances; it was the longest-running show on Broadway until it was surpassed by Lloyd Webber’s Phantom of the Opera in 2006.
Sport:
1972 - American long distance runner Frank Shorter scores a famous win in the men’s marathon in 2:12:19.8 at the Munich Olympics
