1189 – England’s King Richard I was crowned in Westminster.

1783 – The Revolutionary War between the U.S. and Great Britain ended with the Treaty of Paris. 

1833 – The first successful penny newspaper in the U.S., “The New York Sun,” was launched by Benjamin H. Day.

1838 – Frederick Douglass boarded a train in Maryland on his way to freedom from being a slave. 

1895 – The first professional football game was played in Latrobe, PA. The Latrobe YMCA defeated the Jeannette Athletic Club 12-0.

1935 – Sir Malcolm Campbell became the first person to drive an automobile over 300 miles an hour. He reached 304.331 MPH on the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah.

1939 – British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, in a radio broadcast, announced that Britain and France had declared war on Germany. Germany had invaded Poland on September 1.

1943 – Italy was invaded by the Allied forces during World War II.

1967 – Nguyen Van Thieu was elected president of South Vietnam under a new constitution.

1967 – In Sweden, motorists stopped driving on the left side of the road and began driving on the right side.

1976 – The U.S. spacecraft Viking 2 landed on Mars. The unmanned spacecraft took the first close-up, color photos of the planet’s surface. 

1981 – Egypt arrested more than 1,500 opponents of the government.

1984 – Bruce Sutter (St. Louis Cardinals) set a National League record by earning his 38th save of the season.

1986 – Peat Marwick International and Klynveld Main Goerdeler of the Netherlands agreed to merge and form the world’s largest accounting firm.

1989 – The U.S. began shipping military aircraft and weapons, worth $65 million, to Columbia in its fight against drug lords.

1994 – Russia and China announced that they would no longer be targeting nuclear missiles or using force against each other.

1999 – Mario Lemieux’s ownership group officially took over the National Hockey League‘s Pittsburgh Penguins. Lemieux became the first player in the modern era of sports to buy the team he had once played for.

2013 – Hunters in Mississippi caught a 727-pound alligator.

 31 B.C. – The Roman leader Octavian defeated the alliance of Mark Antony and Cleopatra. Octavian, as Augustus Caesar, became the first Roman emperor.

1666 – The Great Fire of London broke out. The fire burned for three days destroying 10,000 buildings including St. Paul’s Cathedral. Only 6 people were killed.

1775 – Hannah, the first American war vessel was commissioned by General George Washington.

1789 – The U.S. Treasury Department was established. 

1864 – During the U.S. Civil War Union forces led by Gen. William T. Sherman occupied Atlanta following the retreat of the Confederates. 

1901 – Theodore Roosevelt, then Vice President, said “Speak softly and carry a big stick” in a speech at the Minnesota State Fair.

1930 – The “Question Mark” made the first non-stop flight from Europe to the U.S. The plane was flown by Captain Dieudonne Coste and Maurice Bellonte.

1938 – The first railroad car to be equipped with fluorescent lighting was put into operation on the New York Central railroad.

1945 – Japan surrendered to the U.S. aboard the USS Missouri, ending World War II. The war ended six years and one day after it began.

1945 – Ho Chi Minh declared the independence the Democratic Republic of Vietnam.

1961 – The U.S.S.R. resumed nuclear weapons testing. Test ban treaty negotiations had failed with the U.S. and Britain when the three nations could not agree upon the nature and frequency of on-site inspections.

1963 – The integration of Tuskegee High School was prevented by state troopers assigned by Alabama Gov. George Wallace. Wallace had the building surrounded by state troopers. 

1969 – NBC-TV canceled “Star Trek.” The show had debuted on September 8, 1966.

1985 – It was announced that the Titanic had been found on September 1 by a U.S. and French expedition 560 miles off Newfoundland. The luxury liner had been missing for 73 years.

1991 – The U.S. formally recognized the independence of Lithuania, Lativa and Estonia.

1992 – The U.S. and Russia agreed to a joint venture to build a space station.

1996 – Muslim rebels and the Philippine government signed a pact formally ending 26-years of insurgency that had killed more than 120,000 people.

1998 – In Canada, pilots for Canada’s largest airline launch their first strike in Air Canada’s history.

On September 2, 1885, 150 white miners in Rock Springs, Wyoming, brutally attack their Chinese coworkers, killing 28, wounding 15 others, and driving several hundred more out of town.

The miners working in the Union Pacific coal mine had been struggling to unionize and strike for better working conditions for years. But at every juncture the powerful railroad company had bested them. Searching for a scapegoat, the angry miners blamed the Chinese. The Chinese coal miners were hard workers, but the Union Pacific had initially brought many of them to Rock Springs as strikebreakers, and they showed little interest in the miners’ union.

Outraged by a company decision to allow Chinese miners to work the richest coal seams, a mob of white miners impulsively decided to strike back by attacking Rock Spring’s small Chinatown. When they saw the armed mob approaching, most of the Chinese abandoned their homes and businesses and fled for the hills. But those who failed to escape in time were brutally beaten and murdered. A week later, on September 9, U.S. troops escorted the surviving Chinese back into the town where many of them returned to work. Eventually the Union Pacific fired 45 of the white miners for their roles in the massacre, but no effective legal action was ever taken against any of the participants.

Source: history.com for the complete article

The Knights of Labor, a labor union of tailors in Philadelphia, hold the first Labor Day ceremonies in American history. The Knights of Labor was established as a secret society of Pennsylvanian tailors earlier in the year and later grew into a national body that played an …read more

READ MORE: Labor Day: Facts, Meaning & Founding

Citation Information

Article Title

America’s first Labor Day

Author History.com Editors

Website Name

HISTORY

URL

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/americas-first-labor-day

Access Date

December 27, 2022

Publisher

A&E Television Networks

Last Updated

December 26, 2019

Original Published Date

February 9, 2010

A repost from 2019 Happy Labor Day! Labor Day is a day for celebrating the achievements and hard work of the American workforce. Working families are the economic backbone of our country, and our policies should support and value them accordingly: all workers deserve fair wages, safe work environments free from harassment and discrimination, and the time and flexibility they need to care for themselves and their loved ones. 5 Ways to Fight for Working Families on Labor Day So today and every day, here are five ways you can thank and support working families: Spread the word about workers’ rights. Knowledge is power, and in order for the law to be meaningful, workers must know and feel empowered to exercise their rights. Our state-by-state guide provides a comprehensive overview of federal, state, and local laws that support working families. Make sure workers know where to get legal help. We run a free and confidential legal clinic where workers call us with questions or when they think their workplace rights have been violated. You can too at 1-833-NEED-ABB (1-833-633-3222). Advocate for strong workplace protections. We’re fighting to pass laws across the country that guarantee fairness for pregnant workers (27 states down!), paid family and medical leave, paid sick time, flexible scheduling, breastfeeding protections, and more. Defend local progressive legislation. We’re working with advocates and elected officials across the country to defend local governments, who increasingly face obstacles to passing progressive legislation in the form of states blocking, or “preempting,” ordinances like paid sick days, increased minimum wage, and more. Fight back against efforts to roll back workers’ rights. It’s important to make our voices heard when workers’ rights are under attack. We must continue to speak out against the Trump administration’s demonstrated hostility towards workers, from the potential appointment of a Labor Secretary with a proven history of prioritizing corporate interests at the expense of workers to its efforts to make it legal to discriminate against LGTBQ workers. Despite much progress, we still have a long way to go in the fight to secure basic workers’ rights and protections across the country. But this Labor Day, let’s pause and say thank you to working families for all that they do!   Warmly, Dina and Sherry Co-Founders & Co-Presidents A Better Balance resource: networkforgood.com

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