World Trade Center Hit by Two Planes

Attack on America

Born on This Day

Portrait of Novelist David Herbert Lawrence

D.H. Lawrence

1885 - 1930

British writer who challenged early-20th-century norms about class and sexuality in novels like "Lady Chatterley's Lover."

71st Emmy Awards - Arrivals

Taraji P. Henson

1970 -

American actress who brought a feisty strength to roles in "Hustle & Flow," "Hidden Figures" and TV's "Empire."

Brian de Palma

Brian De Palma

1940 -

American filmmaker known for his Hitchcockian style in thrillers like "Dressed to Kill," "Scarface" and "Blow Out."

D.H. LawrenceBettmann Archive

Taraji P. HensonGetty Images

Brian De PalmaCorbis via Getty Images

1841

SEP11

John Goffe Rand, an American portrait painter, receives a patent for the first collapsible tin paint tube. Up until then, artists had to mix their own oil paints and store whatever was left over in animal bladders.

Timeline

Also on This Day in History

Discover more of the major events, famous births, notable deaths and everything else history-making that happened on September 11th

The Battle of Brandywine begins

On September 11, 1777, General Sir William Howe and General Charles Cornwallis launch a full-scale British attack on General George Washington and the Patriot outpost at Brandywine Creek near Chadds Ford, in Delaware County, Pennsylvania, on the road linking Baltimore and Philadelphia. Howe and Cornwallis spilt their 18,000 British troops into two separate divisions, with […]

1:28m read read

Russians dedicate Fort Ross, their first stronghold on the California coast

Staking a tenuous claim to the natural riches of California, Russians dedicate Fort Ross on the coast north of San Francisco on September 11, 1812. As a growing empire with a long Pacific coastline, Russia was in many ways well positioned to play a leading role in the settlement and development of the West. The […]

2:10m read read

America victorious on Lake Champlain

During the Battle of Plattsburg on Lake Champlain, a newly built U.S. fleet under Master Commandant Thomas Macdonough destroys a British squadron, forcing the British to abandon their siege of the U.S. fort at Plattsburg and retreat to Canada on foot. The American victory saved New York from possible invasion and helped lead to the […]

2:26m read read

The Christiana Riot

In Christiana, Pennsylvania, a group of African Americans and white abolitionists skirmish with a Maryland posse intent on capturing four fugitive enslaved people hidden in the town. The violence came one year after the second fugitive slave law was passed by Congress, requiring the return of all escapees to their owners in the South. One […]

1:58m read read

120 emigrants murdered at the Mountain Meadows Massacre

Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (also known as Mormons), stoked by religious zeal and a deep resentment of decades of public abuse and federal interference, murder 120 emigrants at Mountain Meadows, Utah on September 11, 1857. Although historical accounts differ, the conflict with the wagon train of emigrants from Missouri and […]

Donny Osmond has the #1 hit on the U.S. pop charts with “Go Away Little Girl”

On September 11, 1971, 13-year-old teen idol Donny Osmond earns his first solo (and second overall) #1 hit with “Go Away Little Girl.” Donny Osmond began his professional career in the early 1960s, as the dimpled, five-year-old frontman of the family barbershop quintet. These days, he is still a reliable Las Vegas nightclub draw; an […]

2:12m read read

Nikita Khrushchev dies

Former Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, one of the most significant figures of the Cold War and certainly one of the most colorful, dies on September 11, 1971. During the height of his power in the late 1950s and early 1960s, Khrushchev was involved in some of the most important events of the Cold War. Khrushchev […]

Chilean president Salvador Allende dies in coup

Chile’s armed forces stage a coup d’état against the government of President Salvador Allende, the first democratically elected Marxist leader in Latin America. Allende retreated with his supporters to La Moneda, the fortress-like presidential palace in Santiago, which was surrounded by tanks and infantry and bombed by air force jets. Allende survived the aerial attack […]

8:26m read read

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