On This Day: Saturday September 23, 2006

This is the 266th day of the year, with 99 days remaining in 2006.

Fact of the Day: checkers

One of the oldest board games in the world is checkers. Checkers is played by two people with 24 playing pieces on a board with 64 light and dark squares. Early games similar to checkers date back to ancient Egypt (c. 1600 BC). There is even a reference to a checkers-like game in Homer's Odyssey. The modern version of checkers arrived in the 12th century AD with the adoption of the 64-square board; in the 16th century the rule of capture was added, giving us the contemporary version of the game. The earliest checkers book was published in Spain in 1547. In England and Scotland checkers is called "draughts."

Holidays

Saudi Arabia: Unification Day/Kingdom Unification.
Wyoming: Frontier Day.
United States: Native American Day.
Pennsylvania Dutch: Schwenkenfelder Day/Thanksgiving Day.

Events

1518 - The Royal College of Physicians was established to protect citizens from medical charlatans and quacks.
1642 - Harvard College held first commencement.
1779 - American warship Bonhomme Richard defeated the HMS Serapis after the American commander, John Paul Jones, was said to have declared: "I have not yet begun to fight!"
1780 - British spy John Andre was captured along with papers revealing Benedict Arnold's plot to surrender West Point to the British.
1788 - Louis XVI of France declared the Parliament restored.
1806 - Lewis and Clark and their expedition returned to St. Louis from the Pacific Northwest, three years after it departed.
1846 - Neptune, the eighth planet, was discovered by German astronomer Johann Gottfried Galle.
1912 - Mack Sennet's first "Keystone Cop" film debuted.
1945 - The first American died in Vietnam during the fall of Saigon to French forces.
1952 - Republican vice-presidential candidate Richard M. Nixon went on television to deliver the "Checkers" speech, a refute of allegations of improper campaign financing.
1962 - New York's Philharmonic Hall opened.
1962 - "The Jetsons" premiered on TV.
1964 - Marc Chagall's painted ceiling of the Paris Opera House was unveiled.
1973 - Former Argentine president Juan Peron returned to power after an 18-year exile in Spain.
2002 - A 24-count indictment charging conspiracy, securities fraud and wire fraud was filed against the founding family and two executives of bankrupt cable company Adelphia Communications.

Births

484 B.C.E. - Euripides, Greek playwright.
63 B.C.E. - Augustus Caesar (Octavian), first Roman emperor.
1800 - William McGuffy, American educator and author of the "McGuffy Readers."
1838 - Victoria Chaflin Woodhull, the first woman American presidential candidate (1872).
1863 - Mary Church Terrell, American educator, activist, and first president of the National Associated of Colored Women.
1880 - Walter Lippmann, American journalist and political commentator.
1920 - Mickey Rooney (Joe Yule, Jr.), American actor.
1926 - John Coltrane, American composer and musician.
1930 - Ray Charles (Robinson), American singer and piano player.
1943 - Julio Iglesias, Latin singer.
1949 - Bruce Springsteen, American singer-songwriter.
1975 - cheezey, aka the Cheezey one

Deaths

1939 - Sigmund Freud, Austrian neurologist and founder of psychoanalysis.
1987 - Bob Fosse, American theater and motion-picture choreographer and director.