September 30

September 30, 2009 - The pseudo holiday Blasphemy Day International, a day to criticize organized religion, was created by the non-profit organization Center for Inquiry. The holiday never made it past its first year, as everyone who celebrated it was coincidentally struck by lightning during early October, 2009.

September 29

September 29, 1979 - Pope John Paul II became the first Pope to visit Ireland. While there, he also became the first pope to take a shot of equal parts Jameson and Baileys, drop it into a Guinness, and down the whole thing while surrounded by Cardinals and Bishops shouting, "Chug, chug, chug!"

September 28

September 28, 2003 - Italy was struck by a massive power outage, leaving an estimated 56 million people in the dark. This would only remain the largest blackout in Italian history until 2006, when an epic binge on Peroni and Pinot Grigio during the celebration of the Italian victory in the FIFA World Cup left over sixty million Italians blacked out.

September 27

September 27, 1998 - The search engine Google was born, according to the company's official history. This was not the day the company was founded, or even the day the original website was launched, but in fact the day Google became self-aware, and instigated nuclear war in an attempt to wipe out all humans and competing search engines.

September 26

September 26, 1777 - British troops occupied Philadelphia, Pennsylvania during the American Revolutionary War. The British were met with a hail of gunfire from local militia, were pelted with rotten food by the local residents, and were screamed and cursed at by every Philadelphian they came across, in what is still described as the nicest and most polite reception a group of tourists has ever received upon arriving in Philadelphia.

September 25

September 25, 1690 - The first multi-page newspaper in the American colonies, Publick Occurrences Both Forreign and Domestick, was published for the first and only time. Critics of the newspaper attributed the failure largely to the newspaper's inability to spell even its own name correctly.

September 24

September 24, 1988 - Politician Aung San Suu Kyi, along with other activists, started the National League for Democracy, to help fight against the dictatorship in Myanmar. Their allies in the political fight included the American League for Democracy, which also was dedicated to fighting the dictatorship, but did so with the inclusion of a designated hitter.

September 23

September 23, 1779 - A squadron of American ships under the command of Captain John Paul Jones defeated a British naval convoy at the Battle of Flamborough Head, part of the American Revolutionary War. Jones refused to take full credit for the victory, insisting that the true heroes of the battle were his most trusted aides, Lieutenants John Bonham, Robert Plant, and Jimmy Page.

September 22

September 22, 1789 - The position of United States Postmaster General was created. Samuel Osgood, the first person to hold the position, missed his swearing in ceremony because the invitation showed up in the mail at the wrong address and three days late.

September 21

September 21, 2003 - NASA terminated the Galileo mission by steering the unmanned spacecraft into Jupiter's atmosphere, where it quickly succumbed to the pressure. The destruction of the spacecraft was ordered by the Catholic Church, which did not approve of Galileo providing evidence that the Earth orbited the Sun, going against the Church's geocentric view of the universe.

September 20

September 20, 1850 - The United States Congress passed the Compromise of 1850, which, among other things, included a provision banning the slave trade in Washington, D.C. Later that day, the first shipment of interns arrived in the district, and members of Congress, government agencies, and nonprofit organizations continued to enjoy the fruits of unpaid labor.

September 19

September 19, 1978 - The Solomon Islands became a member of the United Nations. The country had actually applied for membership during the late 1960s, but the process took over a decade because nobody at the UN was able to locate the Solomon Islands on a map.

September 18

September 18, 1885 - Canadians in Montreal rioted as a protest against compulsory smallpox vaccinations. The riots quickly dissipated, as the unvaccinated rioters all died of smallpox within 24 hours.

September 17

September 17, 1908 - Orville Wright crashed the Wright Flyer, killing passenger Lieutenant Thomas Selfridge, who became the first airplane fatality. Many people placed the blame on Orville and pilot error, but he insisted that the death was caused by Selfridge's refusal to put up his tray table and raise his seat to the full, upright position prior to impact.

September 16

September 16, 1959 - The first photocopier, the Xerox 914, was introduced to the public on live television. The demonstration was a failure, as frustrated Xerox employees unable to decipher the error message "PC LOAD LETTER" ended up smashing the machine with a baseball bat before any copies were successfully made.

September 15

September 15, 1938 - Racing motorist John Cobb set a new land speed record, driving 350.2 miles per hour. The record was quickly broken by a local police officer, who caught up with Cobb and pulled him over for driving 285 mph over the speed limit.

September 14

September 14, 1916 - Italian forces under the command of Field Marshal Luigi Cadorna launched an offensive against Austro-Hungarian forces on the Italian Front of World War I, beginning the Seventh Battle of the Isonzo. Luigi Cadorna was the secondary choice to command the attack, but unfortunately for the Italians, the primary choice, Cadorna's older brother Mario, had been ruthlessly assassinated by Bowser only weeks earlier.

September 13

September 13, 2005 - An glitch in the online video game World of Warcraft released an in-game plague, which affected and killed the characters of thousands of players. The in-game plague was not nearly as serious as the ensuing real world plague, caused when thousands of World of Warcraft players were forced to go outside for the first time in years and faced exposure to communicable diseases that the general population had built up a resistance to.

September 12

September 12, 1992 - NASA launched the Space Shuttle Endeavour on STS-47, the 50th Space Shuttle mission, with a crew that included the first African-American woman in space, the first married couple in space, and the first Japanese citizen to fly on an American spacecraft. MTV proposed adding an alcoholic and a steroid fueled amateur wrestler to the crew and renaming the mission The Real World: Outer Space, but NASA declined.

September 11

September 11, 1985 - Cincinnati Red legend Pete Rose got his 4,192nd hit, breaking Ty Cobb's Major League Baseball record for hits in a career. Everyone was excited except for Rose himself, who had wagered $20,000 that he would break the record on an even numbered date.

September 10

September 10, 1967 - The first sovereignty referendum was held in Gibraltar, asking Gibraltarian voters whether they wished to remain part of Great Britain or become part of Spain. The vote was a landslide, with 12,138 votes to stay British, 44 votes to become Spanish, and 12 votes for third party candidate Ralph Nader.

September 9

September 9, 1754 - William Bligh, English naval officer and commander of the famed HMS Bounty, was born. Bligh was actually conceived as part of a set of octuplets, but his siblings mutinied on him and kicked him out of the womb a month early.

September 8

September 8, 1664 - British Colonel Richard Nicolls captured the city of New Amsterdam from the Dutch, and renamed the settlement New York. The area's native hipster population soon became indignant, claiming that they had been calling the city New York well before everyone decided the new name was cool.

September 7

September 7, 1991 - Ty Detmer, quarterback for the Brigham Young University football team, set the NCAA record for career passing yards, at 11,606. He went on to celebrate by setting the NCAA record for number of wives, coincidentally also at 11,606.

September 6

September 6, 1901 - Anarchist Leon Czolgosz shot and fatally wounded United States President William McKinley. Czolgosz's anger at the president stemmed almost entirely from McKinley's steadfast refusal to make "Czolgosz" a playable word in Scrabble.

September 5

September 5, 1698 - Czar Peter I (Peter the Great) of Russia instituted a tax on beards for all men except the peasantry and the clergy, part of an attempt to westernize the nation. A young Russian peasant named Vladimir Gillette would quickly become one of Russia's wealthiest businessmen by virtue of his opening the world's first razor factory.

September 4

September 4, 1923 - The Zeppelin USS Shenandoah, the first of four rigid airships built for the United States Navy, made its maiden flight. The flight was a failure, and engineers quickly realized that building the zeppelin out of lead was a bad idea.

September 3

September 3, 1976 - The Viking 2 Spacecraft landed at Utopia Planitia on Mars. The spacecraft lived up to its name, promptly deploying a horned helmet and battle axe and pillaging every nearby Martian village.

September 2

September 2, 44 BC - Pharaoh Cleopatra VII of Egypt declared her son, Ptolemy XV Philopator Philometor Caesar, as her co-ruler. Better known by his nickname Caesarion, or "Little Caesar," the new ruler was loved throughout Egypt for introducing cheap delivery pizza to the region.

September 1

September 1, 1897 - The Boston Subway opened, becoming the first underground rapid transit system in North America. The operators were immediately sued by Harriet Tubman for stealing her concept of an underground railroad.