All Things in Moderation

9/11 – On what will prove to be one of the most significant days in United States history, members of the Islamic terrorist organization Al Qaeda successfully attack the US on its own soil, sending shock waves throughout the world. Four teams teams of terrorists board and hijack 4 early morning cross-country flights departing from Boston and New York, with the goal of flying them into various landmark buildings in New York and Washington. Two of the planes are flown into the Twin Towers of New York City’s World Trade Center in southern Manhattan, resulting in the eventual collapse of both and killing nearly 3,000 people, including over 400 NYC firefighters, policemen, and paramedics. A third plane flies to Washington D.C, crashing into the Pentagon, killing nearly 200 passengers, civilians, and military personnel. The fourth plane fails to reach its destination when passengers, made aware of the other crashes after making calls to the ground to report their own hijacking, stage their own attack on the hijackers. Upon breaching the cockpit, the hijackers dive the plane into a field in western Pennsylvania, killing all 45 passengers.

Much of the day’s events are played out in front of a live and captivated television audience, including the second plane hitting the WTC, the collapse of both towers, and perhaps most disturbingly, the sight of desperate office workers, trapped on floors above the infernos caused by the two crashes, making the horrific choice to leap more than a thousand feet to their death rather than be incinerated in the growing flames. The traumatic events of the day immediately enter the national consciousness, to be forever known as, and immediately brought to mind by, the simple numbers, 9-11.

Within a month of the attacks, America will retaliate, with President Bush initiating Operation Enduring Freedom, a military operation aimed at destroying AQ’s terrorist network in Afghanistan and ousting AQ’s Afghani hosts, the Taliban regime. Over the ensuing years the US will capture or kill many high ranking AQ operatives, an effort that will continue even into the presidency of Bush’s successor, Barack Obama, culminating in a 2011 raid on a Pakistani housing compound resulting in the killing of AQ founder and leader, Osama Bin Laden.

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1897 – London cab driver George Smith becomes the first person to get arrested for drunk driving after slamming his taxi into a building wall. Although no scientific test exists to establish a blood alcohol level, Smith proclaims himself to be drunk, leading to his arrest. He is eventually fined 25 shillings.

1833 – President Andrew Jackson announces that he will remove all federal funds from the Second National Bank of the United States, effectively ending central banking in the US and opening an era of “free banking”. The successor to the First National Bank of the US, the Second National Bank was chartered from 1816 – 1836, and was 20% owned by the federal government, but was controversial both constitutionally and with regard to its policies, which many saw as favoring monied interests in the urban northeast. The populist Jackson was opposed to the bank’s existence, and it became a focal point of the 1832 presidential election. Upon being re-elected in 1832, Jackson vetoed congressional efforts to extend the bank’s charter beyond 1836, and eventually used executive power to withdraw federal funds and prevent the bank from taking new deposits. Although the bank continued to exist as a private corporation following the end of its charter, by 1841 it was liquidated.

1776 – Captain Nathan Hale of the Continental Army answers General Washington’s call for someone to gather intelligence behind enemy lines, becoming America’s first known spy against the British. Hale spent several weeks gathering intelligence, but is eventually detained aftyer being caught on Long Island Sound trying to get back to Colonial controlled territory. In possession of incriminating documents, British General Howe quickly orders Hale to be executed. Although there are no contemporary accounts to establish it, Hale’s legendary last words before being hanged are said to have been “I only regret that I have but one life to give for my country.”

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1997 – At the funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales, Elton John—a man not given to understatement—gave a tear-jerking performance of “Candle in the Wind,” his 1973 Marilyn Monroe tribute rewritten in honor of the deceased princess.

It is safe to say that Westminster Abbey had never seen a performance quite like the one Elton John gave on this day in 1997. But then Westminster Abbey had never seen a royal funeral quite like Diana’s, what with her brother, Earl Spencer, openly criticizing the royal family for mistreating her while television cameras beamed a live feed to the hundreds of thousands of mourners gathered directly outside and the millions more watching on television around the world. But it was Elton John’s performance, seated alone at a grand piano, which stole the show.

1901 – President William McKinley is shaking hands at the Pan-American Exhibition in Buffalo, New York, when a 28-year-old anarchist named Leon Czolgosz approaches him and fires two shots into his chest. The president rose slightly on his toes before collapsing forward, saying “be careful how you tell my wife.”

Czolgosz moved over the president with the intent of firing a third shot, but was wrestled to the ground by McKinley’s bodyguards. McKinley, still conscious, told the guards not to hurt his assailant. Other presidential attendants rushed McKinley to the hospital where they found two bullet wounds: one bullet had superficially punctured his sternum and the other had dangerously entered his abdomen. He was rushed into surgery and seemed to be on the mend by September 12. Later that day, however, the president’s condition worsened rapidly and, on September 14, McKinley died from gangrene that had gone undetected in the internal wound. Vice President Theodore Roosevelt was immediately sworn in as president.

1781 – British Brigadier General Benedict Arnold, a former Patriot officer already infamous and much maligned for betraying the United States the previous year, adds to his notoriety by ordering his British command to burn New London, Connecticut.

The Continental Army had been using New London to store a large stash of military supplies, but only stationed Captain Adam Sharpley and a contingent of 24 Continental soldiers there to protect it. General Arnold’s British soldiers, with help from the area’s Loyalists, quickly overwhelmed Captain Sharpley and the Continentals, who had no other option but to retreat and leave New London and the military supplies unguarded.

After looting the town, Arnold ordered his British soldiers to set fire to every building, causing the equivalent of more than $500,000 in damages. Benedict Arnold was already despised throughout the colonies for his attempt to sell the Patriot fort at West Point, New York, to the British in 1780 for a bribe of £20,000. The burning of New London sealed his reputation as a public enemy and his name became a synonym in common American parlance for “traitor.”

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