19 September

10 weird and wonderful things which happened on 19 September:

Butch Cassidy

1. People born on this date seem to be more likely to be businessmen who care enough about their workforce to build them a village to live in. This date in 1839 saw the birth of George Cadbury, chocolate manufacturer, who, as a Quaker, believed in taking care of his workforce, and he created a village for his employees at Bourneville, Birmingham. Also born on this date, in 1851, was William Hesketh Lever, who changed the process of soap manufacture by using vegetable oils instead of tallow. Like Cadbury, he cared about the welfare of his workers, and established the new town of Port Sunlight, Merseyside.
2. In 1881 James A Garfield, 20th US President, and the first one to be Left-handed, was shot and fatally wounded. His last words were "My work is done." Alexander Graham Bell tried to save Garfield with his latest invention – a metal detector. Bell hadn't accounted for the fact that the detector would react to metal bed springs as well as the bullet, so Garfield was opened up in several places by mistake, so Bell probably did more harm than good.
3. A beautiful autumn day inspired poet John Keats to write one of the best-loved English poems, Ode to Autumn. The poem was inspired by a Sunday walk in Winchester on this date in 1819.
4. In 1783, the Montgolfier brothers achieved the first manned Hot air balloon flight, watched by Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette at Versailles. Also in the balloon were a Sheep, a duck and a rooster.
5. In 2018, astronomers discovered an exoplanet located in the 40 Eridani star system, which, in the Star Trek universe, is where the planet Vulcan is located.
6. In 1952 the US barred Charlie Chaplin from re-entering the country after a trip to England with his wife and children to promote his film Limelight. Attorney General McGranery ordered his re-entry permit revoked until Chaplin could pass tests to prove he had sound moral character and was not a subversive. Chaplin declined the opportunity and moved to Switzerland.
7. In 1959, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev ate with Hollywood celebrities, including Marilyn Monroe, Frank Sinatra, and Gary Cooper. Later, the Soviet leader reacted angrily when told that, for security reasons, he would not be allowed to visit Disneyland.
8. In 1900, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid committed their first robbery together.
9. In 2000, a sculpture of a pub, out of ice, was made by Jonathan Lloyd in the City of London. The ice had been shipped from Canada. There was an ice pool table, dart board, bar stools, and was even licensed to sell drinks. It lasted 5 hours before it melted.
10. In 1991, German tourists Helmut and Erika Simon discovered Otzi the Iceman, a well-preserved natural mummy of a man from about 3300 BC at about 3,200m in a glacier of the Ötztaler Alps on the border between Austria and Italy.

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