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Today in History September 20

Posted on September 20, 2018February 5, 2019
1498 – The  Nankai earthquake generates a tsunami that washes away the building housing the statue of the Great Buddha at Kotoku-in in Japan. The Buddha now sits on open air.
1519 – Ferdinand Magellan sets sail from Sanlúcar de Barrameda with just under three-hundred men on his expedition to circumnavigate the globe.
1737 – The heirs of William Penn abandon their father’s principles, and swindle 1.2 million acres from the Lenape tribe in the “Walking Purchase” and forced them to vacate. The Lenape appeal to the Iroquois for aid, but none comes. In 2004, the Delaware nation, one of three federally recognized Lenape tribes, filed suit against the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania unsuccessfully seeking to recaim just 314 acres included in the 1737 treaty.
1893 – Charles Duryea and his brother road-test the first American-made gasoline-powered automobile.
1911 – The White Star Line’s RMS Olympic collides with the British warship HMS Hawke.
1971 – Having weakened after making landfall in Nicaragua the previous day, Hurricane Irene regains enough strength to be renamed Hurricane Olivia, making it the first known hurricane to cross from the Atlantic Ocean into the Pacific.
1973 – Billie Jean King beats Bobby Riggs in the Battle of the Sexes tennis match at the Houston Astrodome.
2001 – In an address to a joint session of Congress and the American people, U.S. President George W. Bush declares a “War on Terror”.
Mayor La Guardia speaks over WNYC on Grade A milk
Births
524 – Kan Bahlam I, Mayan ruler (d. 583)

1878 – Upton Sinclair, American novelist, critic, and essayist (d. 1968)
1956 – Jennifer Tour Chayes, American mathematician and computer scientist

Deaths
1328 – Ibn Taymiyyah, Syrian theologian and scholar (b. 1263)

1947 – Fiorello H. La Guardia, American lawyer and politician, 99th Mayor of New York City (b. 1882)
1996 – Paul Erdos, P.G.O.M, Hungarian-Polish mathematician and academic (b. 1913)

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(sourced from various websites including wikipedia and others)
Cora Frederick

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