The Week Ahead In History; A Glimpse Into The Past

We step back in time to see what happened in history in the week ahead. From Black Friday to the circumnavigation of the world, here are some of the most important events in history for the upcoming week.

September 23

1846 – Astronomer Johann Gottfried Galle became the first person ever to observe the planet Neptune, the existence of which had been mathematically predicted by Urbain-Jean-Joseph Le Verrier and John Couch Adams.

1939 – Sigmund Freud, the founder of modern psychoanalysis, died in London.

1980 – Jamaican musician Bob Marley, who was especially known for popularising reggae, performed his last concert, a sold-out show in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; he died of cancer the following year.

September 24

1493 – Christopher Columbus embarks on his second expedition to the New World, setting sail with a fleet of 17 ships

1869 – Plummeting gold prices led to a panic known as Black Friday, when U.S. President Ulysses S. Grant, after learning of an attempt by Jay Gould and James Fisk to drive up the gold market, ordered $4 million of government gold to be sold on the market.

1960 – The first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, the Enterprise, was launched by the United States.

September 25

1066 – Battle of Stamford Bridge: English army under King Harold II defeat invading Norwegians led by King Harald Hardrada and Harold’s brother Tostig, who were both killed.

1237 – Treaty of York signed between kings Henry III of England and Alexander II of Scotland which establishes a boundary between the two countries (mostly unchanged in modern times)

1926 – Henry Ford announces an 8 hour, 5-day work week for workers at the Ford Motor Company.

September 26

1580 – Francis Drake completes circumnavigation of the world, sailing into Plymouth aboard the ‘Golden Hind’.

1960 – The first in a series of historic televised debates (seen by some 85 to 120 million viewers) between U.S. presidential candidates John F. Kennedy and Vice President Richard M. Nixon was broadcast.

1968 – “Oliver!” directed by Carol Reed and starring Mark Lester and Ron Moody premieres in London.

September 27

1066 – William the Conqueror’s troops set sail from Normandy to conquer England.

1822 – French scholar Jean-François Champollion announces he has deciphered Egyptian hieroglyphics using the Rosetta Stone.

1905 – The physics journal Annalen der Physik publishes Albert Einstein’s paper “Does the Inertia of a Body Depend Upon Its Energy Content?”, introducing the equation E=mc².

September 28

1066 – William, duke of Normandy, landed in southeastern England, thus beginning the Norman Conquest, which resulted in his becoming king.

1542 – Explorer Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo, known as the “discoverer” of California, landed near what is now San Diego and became the first European to set foot on the west coast of what would become the United States.

1968 – The Beatles “Hey Jude” single goes to number one in the charts and stays there for 9 weeks.

September 29

1829 – The first units of the London Metropolitan Police appear on the streets of the British capital, the city’s first modern police force.

1906 – The United States occupied Cuba after the rebellion surrounding the reelection of Tomás Estrada Palma.

1988 – Discovery was launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida, marking a resumption of NASA’s space shuttle programme, which had been suspended following the Challenger explosion in 1986.

Come back next Saturday for another round-up of the week ahead in history.