01010921 This Day In History, September 21

454: Flavius Aetius, Roman general and statesman, died. He was a commander against the Hunnish, Frankish, Burgundian and Gothic tribes of central Europe (see A History Of Jerusalem: Pompey And The Caesars).

455: Amidst the decline and fall of the original Roman Empire, Emperor Avitus entered Rome with a Gallic army to unify his rule. Over the following centuries, the prophetic Roman Empire was continued by Germany (see The Holy Roman Empire Of The German Nation).

1338: The Battle of Arnemuiden during the Hundred Years' War. It was the first naval battle in history using artillery.

1451: Jews in the Netherlands were forced to wear an identifying badge.

1520: Suleiman "the Magnificent" became the Ottoman sultan. The Ottoman Empire held Jerusalem for centuries before it was liberated by the British during the First World War (see A History Of Jerusalem: The British Mandate; also listen to our Sermon The Ottoman Empire).

1435: Charles VII of France and Philip the Good agreed to end the alliance between the English and Burgundy in the Hundred Years' War.

1643: Abahai, Chinese military leader and emperor, died at age 51. He established the Ch'ing Dynasty that ruled China from 1644 to 1911.

1745: The Battle of Prestonpans. Hanoverian forces under Sir John Cope were defeated by the Jacobite forces of Prince Charles Edward Stuart.

1792: The First French Republic was proclaimed when the French National Convention voted to abolish the monarchy.

1897: The New York Sun published its famous "Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus" (the present-day lie of "Santa Claus" was invented in New York; the myth of the "jolly old elf" was based upon a violent, fanatical Turkish bishop of the Church of Rome who lived centuries earlier; see Could Santa Claus Have Become The Pope?).

1915: The ancient stone monuments at Stonehenge were sold at auction to an Englishman, who later donated the site to the nation.

1931: Britain went off the gold standard i.e. currency was of monetary value based solely upon the government's word.

1934: A typhoon struck western Honshu, Japan, killing over 3,000 people.

1938: A hurricane struck parts of New England, causing widespread damage and claiming more than 600 lives.

1949: The People's Republic of China was proclaimed by its Communist revolutionary leaders Mao Tse-Tung.

1949: Germany was officially split into 2 separate countries - West Germany (under western allies control) and East Germany (under the control of the Soviet Union). The division of Germany didn't last, as it never did before (see Ein Volk! Ein Reich! Ein Euro! and listen to our Sermon The European World Wars).

1964: Malta became independent from the United Kingdom.

1972: As a response to his losing control of his U.S.-backed dictatorship, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos signed a proclamation to place the Philippines under martial law.

1978: Two Soviet cosmonauts set a space endurance record after 96 days in orbit.

1991: Armenia became independent from the Soviet Union.

1993: Russian President Boris Yeltsin suspended Parliament and discarded the constitution, thereby beginning the Russian constitutional crisis of that year.