September Almanac

[The 7th month of the year until the Romans moved New Year’s Day from March to January.]

 

Sept 1 – Educator A. Bartlett Giamatti dies in 1989.  This multi-talented Renaissance scholar was president of Yale University and later America’s Commissioner of Baseball.

– World Heavyweight Champion Rocky Marciano (Rocco Marchegiano) was born in 1923.  He won all of his 49 professional fights, 43 by knockout.

– The Free Speech Movement was launched by student Mario Savio and others in 1964 at the University of California at Berkeley.

Sept 2 – The sea battle at Actium (off the coast of Greece) in 31 B.C is won by Octavian against Anthony and Cleopatra.  Octavian later established the Roman Empire and received the title of Augustus.

Sept 3 – In 1950, Italian racer Giuseppe Farina wins the first Formula One Italian Grand Prix World’s Championship at the wheel of his Alfa Romeo at Monza.

– The last Italian pope of the 20th Century, John Paul I is installed in 1978.  He died later that year.

– Inspirational football coach Vince Lombardi dies in 1970.

Sept 4 – In A.D. 476 Romulus Augustulus, last Western Roman Emperor, abdicates after forces led by the Germanic leader Odoacer invade Rome. Considered the traditional end of the Western Roman Empire

Sept 5 – In 1877, Italian astronomer Giovanni Virginio Schiaparelli detects a complex network of lines crisscrossing the surface of the planet Mars.  His description of the mysterious features, soon to be known as the Martian Canals, causes a worldwide sensation as others interpret the discovery as evidence for intelligent, extraterrestrial life.

Sept 6  – Architect Sebastiano Serlio is born in 1475.  He introduced the principles of Roman architecture to France and began construction on Fontainebleau.

Sept 7  – In A.D. 70, a Roman army under General Titus breeches the walls of Jerusalem to suppress the fanatical Zealot rebellion.  The event is commemorated on the Arch of Titus in Rome.  The spoils of this war financed the building of the Colosseum.

Sept 8 – Italo-French general Joseph Gallieni mobilizes a last-ditch effort to defend Paris in 1914 against invading German troops.  His unorthodox means of transport became known as the “taxicab army.”  His troops stopped the invaders at the Marne River.

– Poet Ludovico Ariosto is born in 1474.  Penned the epic Orlando Furioso, a model for later epic English literature.

– Earthquakes ravage southern Italy in 1908 killing more than 80,000 people and driving many to immigrate.

Sept 9  – Scientist Luigi Galvani is born in 1737 in Bologna.  This genius demonstrated how electrical impulses energized muscles.  The word “galvanize” was derived from his work.

Sept 10 – Elsa Schiaparelli is born in Rome in 1896.  She introduced “shocking pink,” accessories and padded shoulders to the world of fashion.

Sept 11 – In 1919,  Lt. Gianni Ancilotto completes a non-stop flight from Rome to Warsaw in an S.V.A. biplane.  The feat brings a purchase order from the newly-organized Polish government for 75 Italian aircraft.

– Filmmaker Brian DePalma is born in 1940, famous for the horror movie Carrie.

Sept 12 – In 1919, Soldier/Poet Gabriello D’Annunzio led an unauthorized military expedition to seize the Austrian port city of Fiume which was historically and culturally Italian.

Sept 13 – Football quarterback Dan Marino is born in 1961.

Sept 14 – In 1784, Italian aeronaut Vincenzo Lunardi is the first to introduce lighter-than-air flight to England, completing a 25-mile journey from London to Ware, Herefordshire in a hot air balloon.

– Dante Alighieri dies in 1321.  Italy’s greatest poet after Vergil established Florentine Italian as Italy’s “national” language with the writing of The Divine Comedy.

Sept 15 – Umberto II, last of the Savoy kings of Italy is born in 1904.

– Italian cyclist champion Fausto Coppi is born in 1919 in Castellania, Piemonte.

Sept 16 – British peer Sir Anthony Panizzi is born in 1797.  As director of the British Museum he established its library as a world-class research facility.

Sept 17 – Opera composer Saverio Mercadante is born in 1795

– Actress Anne Bancroft (Anna Italiano) is born in 1931, New York

Sept 18 – Italian actor Rossano Brazzi is born in 1916.  He is remembered for the 1950s movies South Pacific and Summertime in Venice.

– Singer/actor Frankie Avalon is born in 1940.  He is famous for rock songs like Venus, and beach movies co-starring Annette Funicello.

Sept 19 – Argentine paleontogist Fiorentino Ameghino is born in 1853.  He made major discoveries of extinct mammals in the 19th century.

– Italian troops enter Rome in 1870 expelling the French Army, completing the reunification of Roman Italy.

Sept 20 – In 1870, the temporal power of the Popes comes to an end as the city of Rome is annexed by the Italian Kingdom and made its capital.

– Actress Sophia Loren (Sofia Scicolone) was born in Naples in 1930.

– In 1519, Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan sets sail for the first around-the-world trip with Italian crew member Antonio Pigafetta, who will chronicle the voyage for posterity.

– Italian architect Giacomo Quarenghi is born in 1744, Rota d’Imagna (Bergamo) Italy.  He was court architect for Empress Catherine the Great.  He designed palaces and Moscow’s Red Square.

Sept 21 – Publius Vergilius Maro (aka Virgil), Italy’s greatest poet prior to Dante Alighieri, dies in 19 B.C.  He wrote the Aeneid (“Of arms and the man I sing…”), the epic of Rome’s link to Troy and Romulus & Remus.

Sept 22 – In 1903, Italo Marchioni, an Italian street vendor in New York City files a patent for his invention of the ice cream cone.

Sept 23 – The founder of the Roman Empire, Caesar Augustus, is born in 63 B.C.

– Mussolini, having been rescued from prison by Hitler, founds the vassal state of Repubblica Sociale Italiana (RSI) in German-occupied northern Italy in 1943.

Sept 24 – Mathematician Geronimo Cardano is born in 1501, in Pavia, Italy.

Sept 25 – Yankee baseball great Phil Rizzuto (“The Scooter”) and announcer (“Holy Cow!”) is born in 1918.

Sept 26 – In 1997, priceless frescoes and other works of art in the Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi are destroyed as a series of earthquakes erupts across central Italy.

– Jurist Antonin Scalia joins the U.S. Supreme Court in 1986 as the first Italian-American to be appointed to that body.

– Engineer Gaetano Lanza is born in 1848.  He develops the engineering school at M.I.T. (Massachusetts Institute of Technology).

Sept 27 – In 1933, Rex, the largest Italian luxury liner ever constructed to date, begins her maiden voyage from Genoa to New York.  She later held the Atlantic speed record until 1935.

Sept 28 – In 1911, Italian warships bombard the Libyan city of Tripoli upon Italy’s declaration of war against the Ottoman Turk Empire.

– Artist Caravaggio is born in 1573

Sept 29 – In 1911, approximately 115 acres of land in Tientsin, China are ceded to Italy as part of Chinese reparations following the Boxer Rebellion.  The micro-colony will remain Italy’s only territorial possession in the Far East.  It was lost with Italy’s defeat in WW II.

– Italy is the first nation to use airplanes in combat during the Italo-Turk War in 1911.  Italy wins control of Libya the following year.

– Physicist Enrico Fermi is born in 1901.  He produced the world’s first controlled nuclear chain reaction in 1942.  Considered the “Architect of the Nuclear Age.”

– Actor Marcello Mastroianni is born in 1924

Sept 30 – In 1946, Italian women win voting rights in the new Italian Republic.