Check out Today in History for Sept. 23, MainStream’s daily look at significant progressive, intersectional historical events.
1780: Benedict Arnold, an American general who had led many victories since 1777, is discovered to be plotting to turn over the West Point fort to the British.
1806: Meriwether Lewis & William Clark arrive in St. Louis, Mo., after their three-year western expedition during which they “claimed” the Pacific Northwest for America.
1879: The first-ever non-electric hearing aid to use bone conduction for hearing enhancement, bypassing the ear canal, is invented by Richard S. Rhodes.
1913: Charlotte Maxeke, the first African woman to graduate from an American university (Wilberforce University, Ohio), leads South African protests against “pass laws” that restricted South Africans’ movement based on their ethnicity.
1941: Nazis in Germany conduct the first gas murder experiments at the Auschwitz concentration camp.
1949: The worldwide nuclear arms race begins when President Harry S. Truman announces that the Soviet Union exploded a nuclear bomb a month earlier.
1950: Ralph Bunche becomes the first African American to win the Nobel Peace Prize, for his work mediating an end to the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, through the Armistice Agreements with Israel, Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan and Syria.
1955: An all-white jury finds Roy Bryant and John William Milam “not guilty” of the violent murder of Black teenager Emmett Till in Sumner, Miss.. a crime they’d confess to later in Look Magazine.
1957: The Little Rock Integration Crisis takes place, when federal troops are called up to escort nine Black children to Little Rock Central High School after a mob of whites blocked them.
2018: Indian Prime Minister Narendra Damodardas Modi launches Modicare (Ayushman Bharat), a free healthcare program for India’s 500 million residents that continues today.
2019: Greta Thunberg gives her “How Dare You” speech at age 16 at the United Nations Climate Action Summit in New York City. The speech launched Thunberg’s international fame for chastising the world for ignoring climate change.
2020: Then-president Donald Trump announces during a press conference that he may not participate in a peaceful transfer of power after November’s election. “We’ll have to see what happens,” he says in response to a reporter’s question.
2022: Russia holds fake elections in the Ukraine, pressing residents to support Russia’s annexation of the country, seven months after Russian forces first invaded the country.
2024: Israel kills more than 500 people in attacks on more than 2,000 sites throughout Lebanon with the launch of Northern Arrows, Israel’s campaign to pursue Hezbollah in the Middle East following the October 7 Massacre in Israel enacted by Hamas.
(Photos courtesy Wikimedia Commons; sources for historical references include On This Day, History)
