Rachel Carson’s “Silent Spring” is published

Year
1962
Month Day
September 27

Rachel Carson’s watershed work Silent Spring is first published on September 27, 1962. Originally serialized in The New Yorker magazine, the book shed light on the damage that man-made pesticides inflict on the environment. Its publication is often viewed as the beginning of the modern environmentalist movement in America.

Carson received a master’s degree in zoology from Johns Hopkins University in 1932 and spent the next several decades researching the ecosystems of the East Coast. She rose through the ranks of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and published many works on the environment, including The Sea Around Us. In the late ’50s, she became concerned by reports of the unintended effects insecticides were having on other wildlife, and the Audubon Society approached her about writing a book on the topic. Silent Spring was the result of this partnership and several years of research, focusing primarily on the effects of DDT and similar pesticides. Carson was diagnosed with breast cancer during this time, causing the book’s publication to be delayed until 1962.

READ MORE: The Early Environmentalists

Silent Spring did not call for an outright ban on DDT, but it did argue that they were dangerous to humans and other animals and that overusing them would dramatically disrupt ecosystems. Carson met with staunch criticism, largely from the chemical industry and associated scientists. She was called “a fanatic defender of the cult of the balance of nature” and “probably a communist,” among other things, but the firestorm around her drew attention to a problem Americans were finally ready to acknowledge. 

Despite her illness, Carson made a slew of media appearances and testified before President John F. Kennedy‘s Science Advisory Committee, finding more supporters than detractors. Though she died only two years after the book’s publication, the movement she helped popularize blossomed over the next decade. Her successors fought for the creation Environmental Protection Agency, formed in 1970, and her arguments were instrumental in securing a nationwide phase-out of DDT, which began in 1972. Carson’s work on pesticides not only drew attention to their unintended consequences but also familiarized the public with the extent of the harm mankind could inflict upon nature, one of the most important lessons our species has had to learn.

READ MORE: How Nixon Became the Unlikely Champion of the Endangered Species Act

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John Adams appointed to negotiate peace terms with British

Year
1779
Month Day
September 27

On September 27, 1779, the Continental Congress appoints John Adams to travel to France as minister plenipotentiary in charge of negotiating treaties of peace and commerce with Great Britain during the Revolutionary War.

Adams had traveled to Paris in 1778 to negotiate an alliance with France, but had been unceremoniously dismissed when Congress chose Benjamin Franklin as sole commissioner. Soon after returning to Massachusetts in mid-1779, Adams was elected as a delegate to the state convention to draw up a new constitution; he was involved in these duties when he learned of his new diplomatic commission. Accompanied by his young sons John Quincy and Charles, Adams sailed for Europe that November aboard the French ship Sensible, which sprang a leak early in the voyage and missed its original destination (Brest), instead landing at El Ferrol, in northwestern Spain. After an arduous journey by mule train across the Pyrenees and into France, Adams and his group reached Paris in early February 1780.

While in Paris, Adams wrote to Congress almost daily (sometimes several letters a day) sharing news about British politics, British and French naval activities and his general perspective on European affairs. Conditions were unfavorable for peace at the time, as the war was going badly for the Continental Army, and the blunt and sometimes confrontational Adams clashed with the French government, especially the powerful Foreign Minister Charles Gravier, Comte de Vergennes. In mid-June, Adams began a correspondence with Vergennes in which he pushed for French naval assistance, antagonizing both Vergennes and Franklin, who brought the matter to the attention of Congress.

By that time, Adams had departed France for Holland, where he was attempting to negotiate a loan from the Dutch. Before the end of the year, he was named American minister to the Netherlands, replacing Henry Laurens, who was captured at sea by the British. In June 1781, capitulating to pressure from Vergennes and other French diplomats, Congress acted to revoke Adams’ sole powers as peacemaker with Britain, appointing Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, John Jay and Laurens to negotiate alongside him.

The tide of the war was turning in America’s favor, and Adams returned to Paris in October 1782 to take up his part in the peace negotiations. As Jefferson didn’t travel to Europe and Laurens was in failing health after his release from the Tower of London, it was left to Adams, Jay and Franklin to represent American interests. Adams and Jay both distrusted the French government (in contrast with Franklin), but their differences of opinion and diplomatic styles allowed the team to negotiate favorable terms in the Peace of Paris (1783). The following year, Jefferson arrived to take Adams’ place as American minister to France, forming a lifelong bond with Adams and his family before the latter left to take up his new post as American ambassador to London and continue his distinguished record of foreign service on behalf of the new nation. 

READ MORE: Why John Adams Defended British Soldiers in the Boston Massacre Trials

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Jesuit order established

Year
1540
Month Day
September 27

In Rome, the Society of Jesus—a Roman Catholic missionary organization—receives its charter from Pope Paul III. The Jesuit order played an important role in the Counter-Reformation and eventually succeeded in converting millions around the world to Catholicism.

The Jesuit movement was founded by Ignatius de Loyola, a Spanish soldier turned priest, in August 1534. The first Jesuits–Ignatius and six of his students–took vows of poverty and chastity and made plans to work for the conversion of Muslims. If travel to the Holy Land was not possible, they vowed to offer themselves to the pope for apostolic work. Unable to travel to Jerusalem because of the Turkish wars, they went to Rome instead to meet with the pope and request permission to form a new religious order. In September 1540, Pope Paul III approved Ignatius’ outline of the Society of Jesus, and the Jesuit order was born.

Under Ignatius’ charismatic leadership, the Society of Jesus grew quickly. Jesuit missionaries played a leading role in the Counter-Reformation and won back many of the European faithful who had been lost to Protestantism. In Ignatius’ lifetime, Jesuits were also dispatched to India, Brazil, the Congo region, and Ethiopia. Education was of utmost importance to the Jesuits, and in Rome Ignatius founded the Roman College (later called the Gregorian University) and the Germanicum, a school for German priests. The Jesuits also ran several charitable organizations, such as one for former prostitutes and one for converted Jews. When Ignatius de Loyola died in July 1556, there were more than 1,000 Jesuit priests.

During the next century, the Jesuits set up ministries around the globe. The “Black-Robes,” as they were known in Native America, often preceded other Europeans in their infiltration of foreign lands and societies. The life of a Jesuit was one of immense risk, and thousands of priests were persecuted or killed by foreign authorities hostile to their mission of conversion. However, in some nations, such as India and China, the Jesuits were welcomed as men of wisdom and science.

With the rise of nationalism in the 18th century, most European countries suppressed the Jesuits, and in 1773 Pope Clement XIV dissolved the order under pressure from the Bourbon monarchs. However, in 1814, Pope Pius VII gave in to popular demand and reestablished the Jesuits as an order, and they continue their missionary work to this day. Ignatius de Loyola was canonized a Catholic saint in 1622.

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British suffragette Sylvia Pankhurst dies

Year
1960
Month Day
September 27

Sylvia Pankhurst, British suffragette and international socialist, dies in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, at the age of 78.

Born in Manchester, England, in 1882, Sylvia Pankhurst was the daughter of Emmeline Pankhurst, a champion of woman suffrage who became active in the late 1880s. Sylvia won a scholarship to the Royal College of Art and in London divided her time between her studies and involvement in her mother’s campaign to win women the right to vote. With her mother and older sister–Christabel–she helped found the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) in 1903, a political organization dedicated to achieving equality between the sexes, with an emphasis on female enfranchisement.

In 1906, she abandoned her studies and a promising career in art to pursue politics full time. A socialist, she believed that lower-class women would never be liberated until they were brought out of poverty. Because of this view, she began to drift from her more conservative mother and sister, who were focused on the goal of woman suffrage. Nevertheless, she remained a dedicated member of the WSPU and, like her sister and mother, was arrested numerous times for nonviolent protests and conducted hunger strikes. When Christabel and other members of the WSPU began to advocate violent acts of agitation–particularly arson–Sylvia, a pacifist, opposed them.

In 1914, Sylvia was expelled from the WSPU for her insistence on involving working-class women in the suffrage movement. Emmeline and Christabel Pankhurst felt that suffrage could best be achieved through the efforts of middle-class women like themselves. Bringing leftist politics into the movement, they reasoned, would only enflame the British government. The gulf between the Pankhursts grew wider when Emmeline and Christabel called off their suffrage campaign at the outbreak of World War I and became adamant supporters of the British war effort. These actions won them the admiration of the British government, but Sylvia refused to compromise her pacifist beliefs and took an opposite approach.

From her base in the poor East End of London, Sylvia ran the East London Federation of the Suffragettes (ELFS) and published a working-class women’s paper, the Woman’s Dreadnought. She became regarded as a leader of working-class men as well as women and convinced a few labor organizations to oppose the war. Because non-agricultural male laborers had also not yet been granted the vote, she changed the name of the ELFS to the Workers’ Suffrage Federation in 1916, and in 1917 the Woman’s Dreadnought became the Workers’ Dreadnought. She corresponded with Russian revolutionary Vladimir Lenin and in 1920 was a founding member of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB). In 1921, however, she was expelled from the party when she refused to close the Workers’ Dreadnought in favor of a single CPGB paper.

Britain granted universal male suffrage in 1918. Soon after, women age 30 or over were guaranteed the vote. In 1928, the voting age for women was lowered to 21, the age that men could vote. By then, Sylvia Pankhurst had shifted her energies to opposing racism and the rise of fascism in Europe. In 1935, she campaigned vigorously against the invasion of Ethiopia by Fascist Italy and founded The New Times and Ethiopia News to publicize the plight of the Ethiopians and other victims of fascism. She later helped settle Jewish refugees from Germany.

In 1956, Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie invited her to live in Ethiopia, and she accepted the invitation. Although in her 70s, she founded the Ethiopia Observer and edited the paper for four years. She died on September 27, 1960, and was given a state funeral by the Ethiopian government in recognition of her service to the country.

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John Kipling killed at the Battle of Loos

Year
1915
Month Day
September 27

On September 27, 1915, Second Lieutenant John Kipling of the British army, the only son of Nobel Prize-winning author Rudyard Kipling, is killed at the Battle of Loos, in the Artois region of France.

The Battle of Loos, part of a joint Allied offensive on the Western Front, began on September 25, 1915, and engaged 54 French and 13 British divisions on a front of some 90 kilometers running from Loos in the north to Vimy Ridge in the south. The death toll at Loos was greater than in any previous battle of the war. The names of the British soldiers killed on the opening day of battle alone filled four columns in London’s Times newspaper the following morning.

The British made five separate attempts to push past German positions at the Bois Hugo forest before calling off the attack on September 27. One of the many officers reported “missing” after facing machine-gun fire and shellfire from the Bois Hugo was Second Lieutenant John Kipling. His body was never found; neither were those of several of his fellow officers. Twenty-seven soldiers under their command were also killed.

Rudyard Kipling, perhaps best-known for his classic children’s novel The Jungle Book (1894), later wrote a haunting elegy to his son, and to the legions of sons lost in the First World War:

That flesh we had nursed from the first in all cleanness was given…

To be blanched or gay-painted by fumes – to be cindered by fires –

To be senselessly tossed and retossed in stale mutilation

From crater to crater. For this we shall take expiation.

But who shall return us our children?

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Franklin Roosevelt appeals to Hitler for peace

Year
1938
Month Day
September 27

On September 27, 1938, President Franklin Roosevelt writes to German Chancellor Adolf Hitler regarding the threat of war in Europe. The German chancellor had been threatening to invade the Sudetenland of Czechoslovakia and, in the letter, his second to Hitler in as many days, Roosevelt reiterated the need to find a peaceful resolution to the issue.

The previous day, FDR had written to Hitler with an appeal to negotiate with Czechoslovakia regarding Germany’s desire for the natural and industrial resources of the Sudetenland rather than resort to force. Hitler responded that Germany was entitled to the area because of the “shameful” way in which the Treaty of Versailles, which had ended World War I, had made Germany a “pariah” in the community of nations. The treaty had given the Sudetenland, a territory that was believed by Hitler and many of his supporters to be inherently German, to the state of Czechoslovakia. Therefore, Hitler reasoned, German invasion of the Sudetenland was justified, as annexation by Germany would simply mean returning the area to its cultural and historical roots. Hitler assured Roosevelt that he also desired to avoid another large-scale war in Europe.

In his letter of September 27, Roosevelt expressed relief at Hitler’s assurances but re-emphasized his desire that “negotiations [between Germany and Czechoslovakia] be continued until a peaceful settlement is found.” FDR also suggested that a conference of all nations concerned with the current conflict be convened as soon as possible. He appealed to Hitler’s ego, saying “should you agree to a solution in this peaceful manner I am convinced that hundreds of millions throughout the world would recognize your action as an outstanding historic service to all humanity.” FDR then assured Hitler that the U.S. would remain neutral regarding European politics, but that America recognized a responsibility to be involved “as part of a world of neighbors.”

In the end, Hitler ignored the international community’s pleas for a peaceful solution and invaded Czechoslovakia in March 1939. The invasion was just the first in Hitler’s quest to control Europe and create a “Third Reich” of German geopolitical supremacy.

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Sheriff Wild Bill Hickok proves too wild for Kansas

Year
1869
Month Day
September 27

Just after midnight on September 27, 1869, Ellis County Sheriff Wild Bill Hickok and his deputy respond to a report that a local ruffian named Samuel Strawhun and several drunken buddies were tearing up John Bitter’s Beer Saloon in Hays City, Kansas. When Hickok arrived and ordered the men to stop, Strawhun turned to attack him, and Hickok shot him in the head. Strawhun died instantly, as did the riot.

Such were Wild Bill’s less-than-restrained law enforcement methods. Famous for his skill with a pistol and steely-calm under fire, James Butler Hickok initially seemed to be the ideal man for the sheriff of Ellis County, Kansas. The good citizens of Hays City, the county seat, were tired of the wild brawls and destructiveness of the hard-drinking buffalo hunters and soldiers who took over their town every night. They hoped the famous “Wild Bill” could restore peace and order, and in the late summer of 1869, elected him as interim county sheriff.

Tall, athletic, and sporting shoulder-length hair and a sweeping mustache, Hickok cut an impressive figure, and his reputation as a deadly shot with either hand was often all it took to keep many potential lawbreakers on the straight and narrow. As one visiting cowboy later recalled, Hickok would stand “with his back to the wall, looking at everything and everybody under his eyebrows–just like a mad old bull.” But when Hickok applied more aggressive methods of enforcing the peace, some Hays City citizens wondered if their new cure wasn’t worse than the disease. Shortly after becoming sheriff, Hickok shot a belligerent soldier who resisted arrest, and the man died the next day. A few weeks later Hickok killed Strawhun. While his brutal ways were indisputably effective, many Hays City citizens were less than impressed that after only five weeks in office he had already found it necessary to kill two men in the name of preserving peace.

During the regular November election later that year, the people expressed their displeasure, and Hickok lost to his deputy, 144-89. Though Wild Bill Hickok would later go on to hold other law enforcement positions in the West, his first attempt at being a sheriff had lasted only three months.

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“My Own Private Idaho” premieres in theaters

Year
1991
Month Day
September 27

On September 27, 1991, My Own Private Idaho, an independent film written and directed by Gus Van Sant and starring Keanu Reeves and River Phoenix, premieres at the New York Film Festival. The movie told the story of two young male hustlers, one of whom (Phoenix) is a hapless narcoleptic searching for the mother who abandoned him, and the other of whom (Reeves) comes from a wealthy family (the character was inspired, in part, by Shakespeare’s Prince Hal in Henry IV). The pair meets in Portland, Oregon, and later travels to Idaho and Italy. My Own Private Idaho–the title reportedly came from a song by the rock band the B-52s–was nominated for six Independent Spirit Awards and won for Best Screenplay, Best Male Lead (Phoenix) and Best Film Music.

Gus Van Sant, who was born on July 24, 1952, received a strong critical reception for his first film, 1985’s Mala Noche, about a romance between a gay liquor store clerk and a Mexican immigrant. The writer-director became a star in the indie film world with 1989’s Drugstore Cowboy, about four Portland junkies (led by a character played by Matt Dillon) who rob pharmacies to feed their addictions. Van Sant’s first Hollywood project was the black comedy To Die For (1995), which starred Nicole Kidman as a weather girl who convinces her teenage lover (played by Joaquin Phoenix, River’s younger brother) to murder her husband, played by Dillon. Van Sant achieved major mainstream success when he directed 1997’s Good Will Hunting, which earned nine Academy Award nominations (including Best Director and Best Picture) and won a Best Screenplay Academy Award for Ben Affleck and Matt Damon and a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for Robin Williams. Van Sant’s directorial credits also include a 1998 remake of Alfred Hitchcock’s classic thriller Psycho; 2000’s Finding Forrester, starring Sean Connery; Elephant (2003), about 1999’s Columbine High School massacre; Last Days (2005), about the late musician Kurt Cobain; Milk (2008), about San Fransisco politician Harvey Milk; and Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far on Foot (2018), about a recently paralyzed cartoonist (played by Joaquin Phoenix).  

River Phoenix was born on August 23, 1970, and began his professional acting career as a teenager. His early movie credits included Stand by Me (1986), Little Nikita (1988) and Running on Empty (1988), which earned him a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination. Phoenix went on to appear in such films as Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989); I Love You to Death (1990), which co-starred Keanu Reeves; Dogfight (1991) and The Thing Called Love (1993). On October 31, 1993, Phoenix, considered one of the most promising actors of his generation, died of a drug overdose at the age of 23 outside a Hollywood club called The Viper Room. Phoenix’s younger brother is the Academy Award-nominated actor Joaquin Phoenix, whose movie credits include Gladiator (2000), Walk the Line (2005), The Master (2012), Inherent Vice (2014), You Were Never Really Here (2017) and Joker (2019). 

Reeves, born on September 2, 1964, first rose to fame with the 1989 comedy Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure. He went on to star in a long list of movies, including the 1994 blockbuster Speed, with Sandra Bullock, the mega-hit 1999 sci-fi thriller The Matrix and its two sequels, and the action-thriller movie John Wick and its two sequels. 

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Ships collide off Newfoundland, killing 322

Year
1854
Month Day
September 27

Sudden and heavy fog causes two ships to collide, killing 322 people off the coast of Newfoundland on September 27, 1854.

The Arctic was a luxury ship, built in 1850 to carry passengers across the Atlantic Ocean. It had a wooden hull and could reach speeds of up to 13 knots per hour, an impressive clip at that point in history. On September 20, the Arctic left Liverpool, England, for North America. Seven days later, just off of the Newfoundland coast, it came into a heavy fog. Unfortunately, the ship’s captain, James Luce, did not take the usual safety measures for dealing with fog—he did not slow the Arctic, he did not sound the ship’s horn and he did not add extra watchmen.

At 12:15, the Arctic slammed into the steamer Vesta, an iron-hulled ship piloted by Captain Alphonse Puchesne. Since it was the Arctic that hit the Vesta, the crew of the Arctic initially directed their energy at helping the Vesta. They had not realized that the iron hull of the Vesta had actually done much more damage to the Arctic than vice versa.

Soon, the Arctic released lifeboats, but many capsized in the choppy waters. As the crew of the Arctic discovered that their ship was seriously damaged, Captain Luce decided to try to beach the ship. In doing so, he ran over several of the lifeboats, causing even more people to drown. The Arctic was too far from shore for the attempt to be successful and the action only increased the rate of flooding inside the ship.

General panic then ensued. Desperate Arctic crew members took lifeboats from women and children attempting to escape. When one of the ship’s high-ranking officers tried to stop this, the crew killed him. The final 70 people left on board crowded onto a makeshift raft as the Arctic sank. Reportedly only one member of this group survived.

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Zsa Zsa Gabor storms out of the courtroom

Year
1989
Month Day
September 27

Hollywood socialite Zsa Zsa Gabor, on trial for slapping a police officer, storms out of the courtroom in the middle of the district attorney’s closing argument. The prosecutor told the jury that Gabor “craves media attention . . . and abused two weeks of this process for her own self-aggrandizement.” Although her attorney objected when the prosecutor said, “the defendant doesn’t know the meaning of truth,” Gabor was already running out in tears.

Gabor, was accused of slapping Officer Paul Kramer during a June 14 traffic stop. She had been pulled over for expired tags on her Rolls Royce. As Kramer checked for other violations, including having an open container of alcohol in the vehicle and an expired license, Gabor drove off. When the officer chased her down and pulled her over again, Gabor slapped him, although she claimed that she had only acted in self-defense because Kramer used excessive force in arresting her. She said that her treatment by the police was “like Nazi Germany.”

During the trial, Gabor violated a court-imposed gag order by calling prosecution witness Amir Eslaminia, “a little punk with a hairdo like a girl.” In a bizarre attempt to make amends with the witness, she told him that she spoke Turkish, to which the young man replied, “So? I’m from Iran.” Gabor replied, “Well, that’s close.”

Later that day, Gabor was convicted and sentenced to 72 hours in jail, 120 hours of community service, and $13,000 in fines and restitution. Gabor died in 2016. 

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