Mary Church Terrell was born on September 23, 1863, in Memphis, Tennessee. Over the next nine decades, she used education, writing, public speaking, and direct protest to challenge racial discrimination and support women’s voting rights.
The American Business Women’s Association was founded on September 22, 1949, to bring together business women from all occupations to help each other. Since 1983, this date has been celebrated as American Business Women’s Day.
On September 21, 1866, the US Army organized six new Black regiments: the 9th and 10th Cavalry and the 38th, 39th, 40th, and 41st Infantry. Created during Reconstruction, they gave African American soldiers a continuing place in the peacetime Regular Army and began the history of the troops later known as the Buffalo Soldiers.
The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) was founded on September 20, 1848, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It grew to become the world’s largest general scientific society with more than 120,000 members.
On September 19, 1796, the American Daily Advertiser published President George Washington’s Farewell Address for the first time. It’s considered one of the most important documents in United States history.
Greta Garbo was born Greta Lovisa Gustafsson on September 18, 1905, in Stockholm, Sweden. Rising from a poor working-class neighborhood to become one of Hollywood’s most private and magnetic stars, she made only 28 films before leaving the screen at age 36.
On September 17, 1730, Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben was born in Magdeburg, Prussia, long before he became the drillmaster who brought order and consistency to the Continental Army at Valley Forge. His training methods did not win the American Revolution by themselves, but they gave inexperienced troops a clearer system for fighting, marching, camping, and working as an army.
On September 16, 1893, some 100,000 people raced to claim 6 million acres of land in former Indian Territory in Oklahoma. It was the largest land run into Oklahoma and resulted in the establishment of 40,000 homesteads.
Clergyman John Harvard died on September 14, 1638, in Charlestown, Massachusetts Bay Colony. He was only about 30 years old, but his final gift gave a struggling colonial college the money and books it needed to continue.