BRAZIL DECLARES INDEPENDENCE – SEPT. 7, 1822

 

Independence or death by Pedro Américo (1843–1903)
 

When John VI, King of the United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil and the Algarves, returned to Portugal in the early 1820s, most of the privileges that had been accorded to Brazil were rescinded, sparking the ire of local nationalists. Pedro, the King’s son, who had remained in the country as regent, sided with the nationalist element and even supported the Portuguese Constitutionalist movement that led to the revolt in Porto in 1820.

When pressed by the Portuguese court to return, he refused. Pedro’s official declaration of permanence on January 9, 1822 is known today in Brazil as the Dia do Fico (I Will Remain Day). For that, he was demoted from regent to a mere representative of the Lisbon court in Brazil. This news reached him on 7 September 1822, when he had just arrived in São Paulo, from a visit to the port of Santos. On the banks of the Ipiranga River, he unsheathed his sword, removed the blue and white Portuguese shield from his coat, and declared “Independence or death!” This later became his famous speech O grito do Ipiranga (The Cry of Ipiranga). He was proclaimed Emperor of Brazil on 12 October his 24th birthday, and crowned on December 1. [Source: Wikipedia]

 

 

THE BLITZ: 76 NIGHTS OF LONDON BOMBINGS BEGIN – SEPT. 7, 1940

 

Photograph by AP Photo/U.S. Office of War Information
 

The Blitz (from German, “lightning”) was the sustained strategic bombing of Britain by Nazi Germany between 7 September 1940 and 10 May 1941, during the Second World War. The city of London was bombed by the Luftwaffe for 76 consecutive nights and many towns and cities across the country followed. More than one million London houses were destroyed or damaged, and more than 40,000 civilians were killed, half of them in London.

The bombing did not achieve its intended goals of demoralising the British into surrender or significantly damaging their war economy. In fact, the eight months of bombing never seriously hampered British production and the war industries continued to operate and expand. The Blitz did not facilitate Operation Sea Lion, the planned German invasion of Britain. By May 1941, the threat of an invasion of Britain had passed, and Hitler’s attention was focused on Operation Barbarossa in the East. [Source: Wikipedia]

 

The effects of a large concentrated attack by the German Luftwaffe, on London dock and industry districts, on September 7, 1940. Factories and storehouses were seriously damaged; the mills at the Victories Docks (below at left) show damage wrought by fire. (AP Photo)

 

Firemen spray water on damaged buildings, near London Bridge, in the City of London on September 9, 1940, after a recent set of weekend air raids. (AP Photo)

 

 

PRO FOOTBALL HALL OF FAME OPENS – SEPT. 7, 1963

 

Photograph by COEMGENUS
 

The Pro Football Hall of Fame is the hall of fame of professional football in the United States with an emphasis on the National Football League (NFL). It opened in Canton, Ohio, on September 7, 1963, with 17 charter inductees. Through 2010, all but one of the player inductees played some part of their pro career in the NFL (the lone exception is Buffalo Bills guard Billy Shaw, who played his entire career in the American Football League (AFL) prior to the 1970 AFL-NFL merger).

The Chicago Bears have the most Hall of Famers in the league at 27, and to date, no player who served exclusively as a punter has been inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. [Source: Wikipedia]

 

 

THE TORRIJOS-CARTER TREATY IS SIGNED – SEPT 7, 1977

 

 

The Torrijos–Carter Treaties (sometimes referred to in the singular as the Torrijos-Carter Treaty) are two treaties signed by the United States and Panama in Washington, D.C., on September 7, 1977, which abrogated the Hay-Bunau Varilla Treaty of 1903. The treaties guaranteed that Panama would gain control of the Panama Canal after 1999, ending the control of the canal that the U.S. had exercised since 1903.

The treaties are named after the two signatories, U.S. President Jimmy Carter and the Commander of Panama’s National Guard, General Omar Torrijos. Although Torrijos was not democratically elected as he had seized power in a coup in 1968, it is generally considered that he had widespread support in Panama to justify his signing of the treaties.

According to The New York Times, the day after the U.S. Senate ratified the treaty, Torrijos declared that his regime had contingency plans to sabotage the Canal if ratification had failed. In August 1990, the Chicago Tribune reported that documents captured by the U.S. military revealed that Torrijos had asked Manuel Noriega to prepare such plans. Noriega’s handwritten notes on the plan were found during the 1989 U.S. invasion of Panama.

These reports were confirmed in Noriega’s book, America’s Prisoner published in 1997. The contingency plan was code-named “Huele a Quemado” (“It smells like something’s burning”). In Noriega’s account, Panamanian military specialists had infiltrated the U.S. security cordon and lived for two months, posing as peasants and fishermen. They were prepared to assault the Canal and the Panama-Colón railway with explosives and rocket launchers upon Torrijos’ signal, to be broadcast as a coded message on the program of a popular radio personality.

In the book, Noriega also repeats the charge made by critics of U.S. foreign policy that the invasion of Panama under Operation Just Cause was launched primarily to circumvent the treaty. [Source: Wikipedia]

 

 

ESPN LAUNCHES – SEPT. 7, 1979

 

 

Entertainment & Sports Programming Network (ESPN) is an American cable television network focusing on sports-related programming—including live and pre-taped event telecasts, sports talk shows, and other original programming.
Founded by Bill Rasmussen, his son Scott Rasmussen and Aetna insurance agent Ed Eagan, it launched on September 7, 1979, under the direction of Chet Simmons, the network’s President and CEO (and later the United States Football League’s first commissioner). The Getty Oil Company provided funding to begin the new venture via executive Stuart Evey.

George Bodenheimer is ESPN’s current president, a position he has held since November 19, 1998. Since March 2003, Bodenheimer has also headed ABC Sports, which was operationally folded into ESPN in 2006. ESPN’s signature telecast, SportsCenter, debuted with the network and aired its 30,000th episode on February 11, 2007. ESPN broadcasts primarily from its studios in Bristol, Connecticut. The network also operates offices in Miami; New York City; Seattle, Washington; Charlotte, North Carolina; and Los Angeles. The Los Angeles office, from which the late-night edition of SportsCenter is now broadcast, opened at L.A. Live in early 2009. [Source: Wikipedia]

 

Photograph by ROB POETSCH

 

 

TUPAC SHAKUR SHOT IN LAS VEGAS – SEPT. 7, 1996

 

 

Tupac Amaru Shakur (June 16, 1971 – September 13, 1996), known by his stage names 2Pac (or simply Pac) and Makaveli, was an American rapper and actor. Shakur has sold over 75 million albums worldwide as of 2007, making him one of the best-selling music artists in the world. Rolling Stone Magazine named him the 86th Greatest Artist of All Time.

On September 7, 1996, Shakur was shot four times in the Las Vegas metropolitan area of Nevada. He was taken to the University Medical Center, where he died 6 days later of respiratory failure and cardiac arrest. On the night of September 7, 1996, Shakur attended the Mike Tyson–Bruce Seldon boxing match at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. After leaving the match, one of Suge’s associates spotted 21-year-old Orlando “Baby Lane” Anderson, a member of the Southside Crips, in the MGM Grand lobby and informed Shakur, who then attacked Anderson. Shakur’s entourage, as well as Suge and his followers, assisted in assaulting Anderson. The fight was captured on the hotel’s video surveillance. Earlier that year, Anderson and a group of Crips had robbed a member of Death Row’s entourage in a Foot Locker store, precipitating Shakur’s attack.

After the brawl, Shakur went to rendezvous with Suge to go to Death Row-owned Club 662 (now known as restaurant/club Seven). He rode in Suge’s 1996 black BMW 750iL sedan as part of a larger convoy including many in Shakur’s entourage.
At 10:55 pm, while paused at a red light, Shakur rolled down his window and a photographer took his photograph. At approximately 11:15 pm, a white, four-door, late-model Cadillac with an unknown number of occupants pulled up to the sedan’s right side, rolled down one of the windows, and rapidly fired a volley of gunshots at Shakur; bullets hit him in the chest, pelvis, and his right hand and thigh. One of the rounds apparently ricocheted into Shakur’s right lung. Suge was hit in the head by fragmentation, though it is thought that a bullet grazed him. [Source: Wikipedia]

 

The famous photograph of Shakur taken twenty minutes before the drive-by-shooting

 

 

FIRST ALLEGED PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION IN EGYPT – SEPT. 7, 2005

 

 

The Egyptian presidential election of 2005, held on September 7, 2005, was the first allegedly contested presidential election in Egypt’s history. Hosni Mubarak, the former President of Egypt, won a fifth consecutive six-year term in office, with official results showing he won 88.6% of the votes cast by fraud. A prominent opposition candidate, Ayman Nour of the Tomorrow Party, is estimated to have received 7.3% of the vote and Numan Gumaa received 2.8%. Criticism of the election process has centred on the process of selecting the eligible candidates, and on alleged election-law violations during voting. Mubarak was sworn in for his new term on September 27.[Source: Wikipedia]