U.S. President William McKinley dies on September 14, 1901, eight days after being shot by a deranged anarchist during the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York. McKinley won his first Congressional seat at the age of 34 and spent 14 years in the House, becoming known as the leading Republican expert on tariffs. After losing […]

On September 14, 1964, the Kellogg’s Company begins selling the Pop-Tart. The innovative portable-breakfast-treat-turned-anytime-snack would go on to sell billions annually and help redefine the breakfast food market.  It all started when one of Kellogg’s biggest competitors, Post Consumer Brands, trumpeted to the press that it had created an innovative new breakfast item: a shelf-stable, […]

“I Shot the Sheriff” hits No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 on September 14, 1974. Written by reggae legend Bob Marley in 1973, it was Eric Clapton’s cover that ascended to the top of the charts.

During the Mexican-American War, U.S. forces under General Winfield Scott enter Mexico City and raise the American flag over the Hall of Montezuma, concluding a devastating advance that began with an amphibious landing at Vera Cruz six months earlier. The Mexican-American War began with a dispute over the U.S. government’s 1845 annexation of Texas. In […]

On September 14, 1814, Francis Scott Key pens a poem which is later set to music and in 1931 becomes America’s national anthem, “The Star-Spangled Banner.” The poem, originally titled “The Defence of Fort M’Henry,” was written after Key witnessed the Maryland fort being bombarded by the British during the War of 1812. Key was […]

Steinbeck had already received a Nobel Prize and Pulitzer Prize.

One week after winning a bloody victory over the Russian army at the Battle of Borodino, Napoleon Bonaparte’s Grande Armée enters the city of Moscow, only to find the population evacuated and the Russian army retreated again. Moscow was the goal of the invasion, but the deserted city held no czarist officials to sue for […]

A Soviet rocket crashes into the moon’s surface, becoming the first man-made object sent from earth to reach the lunar surface. The event gave the Soviets a short-lived advantage in the “space race” and prompted even greater effort by the United States to develop its own space program. In 1957, the Soviets shocked the United […]

On September 14, 1927, dancer Isadora Duncan is strangled in Nice, France, when the enormous silk scarf she is wearing gets tangled in the rear hubcaps of her open car. (“Affectations,” said Gertrude Stein when she heard the news of Duncan’s death, “can be dangerous.”) Isadora Duncan was born in 1877 in San Francisco and […]

On September 14, 1988, labor leader Dolores Huerta is severely beaten by a police officer while at a peaceful protest for farm workers in San Fransisco. The incident triggers widespread outrage in the labor movement and beyond, but does not deter Huerta from decades more organizing and protest. At the protest outside the St. Francis […]