Celebrations Today – September 16
Holidays and observances
- Christian feast day:
- Owain Glyndŵr Day, celebrates the life of Owain Glyndŵr who became Prince of Wales on this day in 1400.
- Cry of Dolores, celebrates the declaration of independence of Mexico from Spain in 1810. See Fiestas Patrias
- Independence Day (Papua New Guinea), celebrates the independence of Papua New Guinea from Australia in 1975.
- International Day for the Preservation of the Ozone Layer
- Malaysian Armed Forces Day (Malaysia)
- Malaysia Day (Malaysia, Singapore)
- Martyrs’ Day (Libya)
- National Heroes Day (Saint Kitts and Nevis)
- National Guacamole Day (United States)
- Stay Away from Seattle Day (Chase’s Calendar of Events)
Celebrations Today – USA: September 16
National Play-Doh Day
National Cinnamon Raisin Bread Day
National Step Family Day
National Working Parents Day
Mayflower Day
National Gymnastics Day – Third Saturday in September
Boys’ and Girls’ Club Day for Kids – Third Saturday in September
Puppy Mill Awareness Day – Third Saturday in September
Responsible Dog Ownership Day – Third Saturday in September
Anne Bradstreet Day
International Day for the Preservation of the Ozone Layer
National Mexican Independence Day
National Collect Rocks Day
National Day of Prayer and Remembrance for the Victims of Hurricane Katrina
National Guacamole Day
National Stay Away from Seattle Day
National Tattoo Story Day
National Stepfamily Day
National Trail of Tears Commemoration Day
National Wrinkled Raincoat Day
Today in US History: September 16
Amos Alonzo Stagg
A. A. Stagg,
c 1906.
Prints and Photographs Online Catalog
No coach ever won a game by what he knows; it’s what his players have learned.Amos Alonzo Stagg
On September 16, 1960, college football coach Amos Alonzo Stagg (1862-1965), then ninety-eight years old, announced his retirement after seventy years on the field. Stagg’s career coincided with the evolution of the game from an amalgam of soccer and rugby into American football as we know it. Stagg also coached track, baseball, and basketball.
University of Chicago Football Team Posing in Front of a Fence, Coach Alonzo Stagg is Standing on the Left Side of the Image,
1908.
Photographs from the Chicago Daily News
Born and raised in West Orange, New Jersey, Stagg played football and baseball for Yale University. He attended Yale as a divinity student and graduated in 1888. In 1890, he began his career as a football coach at the International Young Men’s Christian Association Training School in Springfield, Massachusetts (now Springfield College), where he also was a graduate student and faculty member.
Prior to the television age, football was a college sport. A master strategist, Stagg is credited with many innovations in the game of football—from formations and plays to equipment and uniforms. His innovations include the lateral pass, tackling dummy, fake punt, quick-kick, and backfield shift, as well as padded goal posts, and uniform numbers. The “Grand Old Man of the Midway” also helped to organize the Big Ten Conference (then known as the Western Conference) and served on the first rules committee of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). Stagg retired as coach from the University of Chicago Maroons in 1932 when he reached the mandatory retirement age of seventy. He remained an active college coach until 1960 when he stepped down from his position as an advisory coach—a volunteer job that he held for seven years—at Stockton Junior College. He was elected a charter member of the College Football Hall of Fame in 1951 as both a player and a coach and was enshrined as a contributor to the Basketball Hall of Fame in 1959.
Learn more about football in American Memory:
- American Memory collections offer a variety of photographs of early football games and players. Search on football in Washington As It Was: Photographs by Theodor Horydczak, 1923-1959 to see pictures of high school players during this period. Taking the Long View: Panoramic Photographs, 1851-1991 has over forty football photographs including a picture of a game that Stagg coached on November 23, 1907.
- A search on Amos Stagg in Photographs from the Chicago Daily News yields thirty-one photographs of the coach.
- American Life Histories: Manuscripts from the Federal Writers’ Project, 1936-1940 contains many references to the sport and its place in the lives of Americans during the Great Depression. Search on the term football to access touching and informative interviews. “Hughie Campbell is Dead” (1939) explores the fate of a small town football hero; an interview with “Mrs. John Parioli” (1938) reveals the importance of football to the youth of an Italian immigrant community in Montpelier, Vermont.
- Search the Today in History Archive on football, baseball, or basketball to learn more about other legendary sports stars including Jim Thorpe and Jackie Robinson.
- Read more about basketball in the Today in History entry for January 16, 1896—the date that Stagg participated in the first intercollegiate basketball game.
Cry of Dolores
My Children, a new dispensation comes to us today…Will you free yourselves? Will you recover the lands stolen three hundred years ago from your forefathers by the hated Spaniards? We must act at once.Cry of Dolores, attributed to Father Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, September 16, 1810.
The [National] Palace from the Cathedral, city of Mexico,
William Henry Jackson, photographer,
between 1880 and 1897.
Touring Turn-of-the-Century America: Photographs from the Detroit Publishing Company, 1880-1920
Early on the morning of September 16, 1810, Father Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla summoned the largely Indian and mestizo congregation of his small Dolores parish church and urged them to take up arms and fight for Mexico’s independence from Spain. His El Grito de Dolores, or Cry of Dolores, which was spoken—not written—is commemorated on September 16 as Mexican Independence Day.
Father Hidalgo was born into a moderately wealthy family in the city of Guanajuato, northwest of Mexico City, in 1753. He attended the Jesuit College of San Francisco Javier, received a bachelor’s degree from the University of Mexico in 1774, and was ordained into the priesthood in 1778. He soon earned the enmity of the authorities, however, by openly challenging both church doctrine and aspects of Spanish rule by developing Mexican agriculture and industry.
In 1803, Hidalgo accepted the curacy of the small parish of Dolores, not far from his native city of Guanajuato. Between 1803 and 1810, he directed most of his energy to improving the economic prospects of his parishioners. He also joined the Academia Literaria, a committee seeking Mexico’s independence from Spain.
Guanajuato, Mexico,
William Henry Jackson, photographer,
between 1880 and 1897.
Touring Turn-of-the-Century America: Photographs from the Detroit Publishing Company, 1880-1920
In September 1810, Spanish authorities learned of the group’s plot to incite a rebellion. On September 13, they searched the home of Emeterio González in the city of Queretaro where they found a large supply of weapons and ammunition. Warned of his impending arrest, Hidalgo preempted authorities by issuing the ElGrito de Dolores on the morning of September 16. Attracting enthusiastic support from the Indian and mestizo population, he and his band of supporters moved toward the town of San Miguel.
The rebel army encountered its first serious resistance at Guanajuato. After a fierce battle that took the lives of more than 500 Spaniards and 2,200 Indians, the rebels won the city. By October, the rebel army, now 80,000 strong, was close to taking Mexico City. Hidalgo, fearful of unleashing the army on the capital city, hesitated, then retreated to the north. He was captured in Texas, then still a part of the Spanish empire, and executed by firing squad on July 31, 1811. After ten more years of fighting, a weakened and divided Mexico finally won independence from Spain with the signing of the Treaty of Córdoba on August 24, 1821.
Learn more about Mexico:
- View the Huexotzinco Codex, one of the Top Treasures in the Library of Congress’ American Treasures online exhibition. The codex is an eight-sheet document on amatl, a pre-European paper made from tree bark in Mesoamerica. It is part of the testimony in a legal case against representatives of Spain’s colonial government in Mexico and dates to 1531, ten years after Mexico’s defeat.
- Touring Turn-of-the-Century America: Photographs from the Detroit Publishing Company, 1880-1920 has a rich collection of photographs of Mexico, many of them by noted photographer William Henry Jackson. To view these pictures, search the collection on Mexico.
- Search the collection Taking the Long View: Panoramic Photographs, 1851-1991 on Mexico to find panoramic photographs.
- Read the Today in History feature on the Mexican holiday Cinco de Mayo, which celebrates Mexico’s defeat of French troops at the town of Puebla in 1862. This event is also widely celebrated by Latinos in the U.S.
- With over 8,000 items, The South Texas Border, 1900-1920: Photographs from the Robert Runyon Collection is a unique visual resource documenting the Lower Rio Grande Valley during the early 1900s. Search the collection on terms such as weddings to gain insight into turn-of-the-century border culture.
- To locate resources for the study of Mexico and its history, search the Handbook of Latin American Studies, an online bibliography of works selected and annotated by scholars of Latin American history and culture, or visit the Hispanic Reading Room.
Today in History – September 16-External Links
Today’s Weather in History
Today in Earthquake History
This Day in Naval History
Today’s Document from the National Archives
Today’s Events, Births & Deaths –Wikipedia
Today in History by AP
On this Day -1950 to 2005 – Today’s Story–BBC
On This Day: The New York Times
This Day in History –History.com
Today in Canadian History – Canada Channel
History of Britain that took place On This Day
Russia in History –Russiapedia