#Middlebury
On Sept. 8, 1504, one of the world’s most beloved works of art, “David,” by Michelangelo Buonarroti, is unveiled to the public in Florence, Italy’s Piazza della Signoria. It reportedly took 40 men four days to move the 17-foot-tall, 12,000-pound marble masterpiece 1/2 mile to the site.- On Sept. 3, 1777, the American flag is flown in battle for the first time, during a Revolutionary War skirmish in Delaware. Patriot Gen. William Maxwell ordered the stars and stripes raised as a detachment of his infantry and cavalry met an advance guard of British and Hessian troops.
- On Sept. 7, 1813, the United States gets its nickname, Uncle Sam, when a newspaper picks up on the story of Samuel Wilson, a meat packer who supplied barrels of beef to the United States Army. Wilson stamped the barrels with “U.S.” for United States, but soldiers began referring to the grub as “Uncle Sam’s.”
- On Sept. 6, 1847, writer Henry David Thoreau moves in with Ralph Waldo Emerson in Concord, Massachusetts, after living for two years in a shack he built himself on Walden Pond. In 1854, his collection of essays, “Walden, or Life in the Woods,” was published.
- On Sept. 4, 1951, President Harry Truman’s speech before a conference in San Francisco becomes the first television program to be broadcast from coast to coast. It was picked up by 87 stations in 47 cities.
- On Sept. 2, 1969, America’s first automatic teller machine (ATM) makes its public debut, dispensing cash to customers at Chemical Bank in Rockville Center, New York.
- On Sept. 5, 1970, U.S. forces launch the last major American operation of the war in Vietnam when the 101st Airborne Division, in coordination with the South Vietnamese army, initiates Operation Jefferson Glenn in Thua Thien Province west of Hue.
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