This day in America in September

1864 : Confederates evacuate Atlanta
With Union General William T. Sherman threatening to cut his only escape route, Confederate General John Bell Hood evacuates Atlanta, Georgia, at the climax of a four-month campaign by Sherman to capture the vital Rebel supply center.

1959 : Ford Falcon is introduced
The Ford Motor Company introduced its new marque, the Ford Falcon, in the first nationwide closed-circuit television news conference. Originally envisioned as a compact economy car, the Falcon name grew to include everything from sporty convertibles to the Ranchero truck, though all Falcons essentially remained small, fuel-efficient cars. When the Mustang was introduced in 1964, Ford used the Falcon's unitized chassis, as well as elements of the Falcon drive train, to "re-market" and "re-adapt" the Mustang. The Mustang was an immediate success, leaving the Falcon to exist in the shadow of its more powerful cousin. The Ford Falcon was eventually discontinued in 1971, but the success of the Volkswagen and other compacts just a few years later proved how forward-thinking the original Falcon designers were.

1966 : Final episode of The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet
Popular TV show The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet airs its last episode after more than a decade on television. The sitcom focused on the comic antics of a young family based on the real-life family of show founders and stars Ozzie and Harriet Nelson. The show premiered as a radio comedy in 1944 and ran for 10 years. Even before the radio show ended, a TV version launched in 1952; the television show ran until 1966. The Nelson's two sons, Ricky and David, played themselves on the TV version. Ricky later became a rock musician and died in a plane crash in 1985.

1886 : The last American Indian warrior surrenders
For almost 30 years he had fought the whites who invaded his homeland, but Geronimo, the wiliest and most dangerous Apache warrior of his time, finally surrenders in Skeleton Canyon, Arizona, on this day in 1886.
Known to the Apache as Goyalkla, or "One Who Yawns," most non-Indians knew him by his Spanish nickname, Geronimo. When he was a young man, Mexican soldiers had murdered his wife and children during a brutal attack on his village in Chihuahua, Mexico. Though Geronimo later remarried and fathered other children, the scars of that early tragedy left him with an abiding hatred for Mexicans.
Operating in the border region around Mexico's Sierra Madre and southern Arizona and New Mexico, Geronimo and his band of 50 Apache warriors succeeded in keeping white settlers off Apache lands for decades. Geronimo never learned to use a gun, yet he armed his men with the best modern rifles he could obtain and even used field glasses to aid reconnaissance during his campaigns. He was a brilliant strategist who used the Apache knowledge of the arid desert environment to his advantage, and for years Geronimo and his men successfully evaded two of the U.S. Army's most talented Indian fighters, General George Crook and General Nelson A. Miles. But by 1886, the great Apache warrior had grown tired of fighting and further resistance seemed increasingly pointless: there were just too many whites and too few Apaches. On September 4, 1886, Geronimo turned himself over to Miles, becoming the last American Indian warrior in history to formally surrender to the United States.
After several years of imprisonment, Geronimo was given his freedom, and he moved to Oklahoma where he converted to Christianity and became a successful farmer. He even occasionally worked as a scout and adviser for the U.S. army. Transformed into a safe and romantic symbol of the already vanishing era of the Wild West, he became a popular celebrity at world's fairs and expositions and even rode in President Theodore Roosevelt's inaugural parade in 1905. He died at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, in 1909, still on the federal payroll as an army scout.

1957 : On the Road is published
One of the first novels of the Beat movement of the 1950s, On the Road, by Jack Kerouac, is published on this day in 1957. The novel chronicles the cross-country wanderings of a Kerouac-like hero, Sal Paradise, and his pal Dean Moriarty, and their free-ranging encounters with drugs, free love, and the budding counterculture. The book, which Kerouac wrote in just three weeks, became an instant classic.
Although a credo of the Beat-inspired Hippie movement of the 1960s was "Never trust anyone over 30," Kerouac was 35 when the book came out. He had long been associated with the Beat movement when On the Road came out, and the novel is filled with characters based on Beat figures like Allen Ginsberg and William Burroughs.
Kerouac was born in March 1922 in Lowell, Massachusetts. The son of French-Canadian parents, he learned English as a second language. In high school, Kerouac was a football star and won a scholarship to Columbia University. In World War II, he served in the Navy but was expelled for severe personality problems. He became a merchant seaman. In the late 1940s, he wandered the United States and Mexico and wrote his first novel, The Town and the City. His later novels included The Dharma Bums (1958), The Subterraneans (1958), and Lonesome Traveler (1960). Kerouac was a heavy drinker when he died in Florida from an internal hemorrhage, at the age of 47, on October 21, 1969.

1901 : President McKinley is shot
President William McKinley is shot at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York. McKinley was greeting the crowd in the Temple of Music when Leon Czolgosz, an anarchist, stepped forward and shot the president twice at point-blank range. McKinley lived for another week before finally succumbing to a gangrene infection on September 14.
At the time of the shooting, President McKinley was very popular and America was in the midst of a period of peace and prosperity. Czolgosz, a laborer from Cleveland who fell under the sway of charismatic leaders of anarchy such as Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman, became particularly obsessed with Gaetano Bresci, an anarchist who shot and killed King Humbert I of Italy on July 29, 1900. Czolgosz decided to kill McKinley to further the anarchist cause.
While Presidents Lincoln and Garfield had been completely unprotected at the time of their assassinations, the newly formed Secret Service was now available to protect President McKinley. But when Czolgosz stepped up to shake McKinley's hand with a handkerchief covering the .32 revolver in his hand, the agents thought nothing of it.
After the shots were fired, the agents grabbed Czolgosz and began pummeling him, but McKinley warned, "Be easy with him, boys," as he was helped to an ambulance. The president then told his secretary to be careful in telling the First Lady what happened. Working in a building with no electricity, surgeons operated on the president, who seemed to be recovering at first. Legend has it that his recovery diet was raw eggs and whiskey. Before lapsing into a coma and dying, McKinley's last words were: "It is God's way. His will, not ours, be done."
McKinley's assassination led to reprisals against his critics across the country. Those who had spoken poorly of the president were tarred and feathered. Emma Goldman was even arrested for allegedly inspiring the murder. But Czolgosz took full and sole responsibility for the assassination and was sent to the electric chair less than two months later. On October 29, his last words were: "I am not sorry for my crime."

1823: The United States gets a nickname, Uncle Sam.
Uncle Sam, a figure symbolizing the United States, is portrayed as a tall, white-haired man with a goatee. He is often dressed in red, white, and blue, and wears a top hat.
The exact origins of Uncle Sam as a symbol for the United States are unknown. But the most widely accepted theory is that Uncle Sam was named after Samuel Wilson.
During the War of 1812, Samuel Wilson was a businessman from Troy, NY that supplied the U.S. Army with beef in barrels. The barrels were labeled "U.S." When asked what the initials stood for, one of Wilson's workers said it stood for Uncle Sam Wilson. The suggestion that the meat shipments came from "Uncle Sam" led to the idea that Uncle Sam symbolized the Federal Government and association stuck. In 1961, Congress passed a resolution that recognized Samuel Wilson as the inspiration for the symbol Uncle Sam.
But Sam Wilson looked nothing like the Uncle Sam pictured above. Uncle Sam's traditional appearance, with a white goatee and star-spangled suit, is an invention of artists and political cartoonists. One of these political cartoonists was named Thomas Nast. Nast produced many of the earliest cartoons of Uncle Sam.

The most famous picture of Uncle Sam appeared on an Army recruiting poster. The poster was designed in World War I, and was used again in World War II. The caption reads "I Want You for U.S. Army." James Montgomery Flagg drew this picture, and served as the model too!

1900 : Deadly hurricane batters Texas
One of the deadliest hurricanes in U.S. history hits Galveston, Texas, on this day in 1900, killing more than 6,000 people. The storm caused so much destruction on the Texas coast that reliable estimates of the number of victims are difficult to make. Some believe that as many as 12,000 people perished, which would make it the most deadly day in American history.
Galveston Island lies just off the Texas coast. It is long and narrow, about 28 miles long by 2 miles wide, and is barely above sea level. The harbor on the bay side of Galveston was a prime port with numerous rail connections. As a major hub for trade, thousands of people settled on the island at the end of the 19th century.
It was a Friday afternoon when the residents of Galveston first got an indication that a storm was imminent. For a few days the storm had been bearing down on the Texas coast, coming across the Gulf of Mexico from the Florida Keys. At the time, there was no reliable warning system in place for hurricanes; it was not until 1908 that ships began radioing the mainland about approaching storms.
The storm hit Galveston on Saturday, September 8, with sustained winds of at least 115 miles per hour; the town’s wind gauge blew away so the wind speed may have been even higher. A Category 4 hurricane, the storm brought with it an enormous storm surge and, by 3 p.m., water had covered nearly the entire island. It came in waves that were 15 feet higher than the mean tide. At the Bolivar Point lighthouse, there was a report that salt water spray from the ocean reached a height of 115 feet. Buildings crumbled and fell from the force of the water and high winds ripped the roofs off of nearly every building in town. Many Galveston businesses and families had installed slate roofs after a serious 1885 fire and these roofs became flying weapons of destruction as the hurricane tossed them through the air.
The St. Mary’s Orphanage collapsed and killed all the inhabitants. At the Ursuline Convent, 1,000 people gathered seeking shelter, but when a 10-foot retaining wall fell, the entire front part of the convent collapsed. Ships in the harbor were tossed into each other and some were later found 30 miles away. Survivors reported seeing corpses floating all over and around the island. Thousands died in Galveston and at least another 2,000 on the mainland coast also perished. Precise numbers will never be known, in part because thousands of bodies were disposed of in the Gulf of Mexico without being counted or identified. When Clara Barton of the Red Cross came to Galveston soon after the disaster she said, "It would be difficult to exaggerate the awful scene here."
Galveston began to rebuild almost immediately. On October 2, 1902, construction began on a massive protective sea wall. Two years later, the wall, 16 feet thick by 17 feet high and constructed of cement, stone and steel bars, was complete. By 1910, the population of Galveston had grown to 36,000.

1956 : Elvis appears on Ed Sullivan
Elvis Presley sings "Don't Be Cruel" and "Hound Dog" on Ed Sullivan's immensely popular show Toast of the Town. Presley scandalized audiences with his suggestive hip gyrations, and Sullivan swore he would never book the singer on his show. However, Presley's tremendous popularity and success on other shows changed Sullivan's mind. Although Elvis had appeared on a few other programs already, his appearance on Ed Sullivan's show made him a household name.