meower wrote: 
Like, thanks.

September 17th 1849: Tubman escapes On this day in 1849, Harriet Tubman escaped from slavery. Tubman was born into slavery but eventually escaped to Philadelphia, using the North Star to guide her. She soon returned to Maryland to rescue her family from slavery. She became a major figure in the Underground Railroad, helping to rescue hundreds of slaves. Tubman was a notable member of the abolitionist movement, and served as a Union spy during the Civil War. After the war she campaigned for female suffrage alongside Susan B. Anthony. Harriet Tubman died in 1913 aged 93.

On the 17th day of September, 226 years ago, the Framers signed their names to the U.S. Constitution.

1400: Owain Glyndŵr is proclaimed Prince of Wales; the last Welshman to hold the title.

1870: Louisa Ann Swain of Laramie, Wyoming becomes the first woman in the United States to cast a vote legally after 1807.

1522: The Victoria, the only surviving ship of Ferdinand Megellan's expedition, returns to Spain, becoming the first ship to circumnavigate the world.

1952:  A number of witnesses report seeing a ten-foot-tall "monster" with a red face and a green body in Flatwoods, West Virginia.

1977: Voyager I is launched

1882: The first Labor Day parade in the country is held in New York City

1836: Sam Houston is elected first President of the Republic of Texas

 black321 wrote: 

I know, what a killjoy, right? The cool thing is, sometimes reality is even weirder than legend/myth.

Mark Twain said, "Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities. Truth isn't."

Think about how unusual it was that this free black woman, born in New Haven, CT prior to the civil war, had the gumption to go work for a man who lived in the deep South, where slavery existed. I don't think I would have had the guts to do that if I were an African-American. She ends up being captured, not by bounty hunters seeking to pass her off as a fugitive slave, but by a Mexican General.

 aflanigan wrote: 
spoiler

 black321 wrote: 
The song was definitely copyrighted in 1858, and a houskeeper named Emily was captured by Santa Anna's army. Beyond that, this seems to be pure mythmaking.  Emily D. West was not a slave, but a hired housekeeper. It's highly unlikely she even knew where Sam Houston was in order to be able to send someone to alert him. There's no real evidence that the mulatto Rose of the song was based on Emily West.

Makes for a nice story, though.

On this day in 1858, a man in New York City was granted a copyright on a song. While there was nothing unusual about a New York man writing a song, this case was a bit different. Most folks think this guy didn't write the song (it had probably been sung for ten years or more). Secondly, it seemed to refer to a non-existent flower. The name of the song was…."The Yellow Rose of Texas" and there was no yellow rose native to Texas. That's because the song was about a girl (er...a woman) not a flower.

The song was about a beautiful young slave named Emily Morgan. She was, in the words of those times, a mixed-race with rather fair complexion, a combination which in those pre-Civil War days was called a high yellow.

When General Santa Ana set out to crush Sam Houston and the Texas rebellion, he overran the plantation of James Morgan. He noticed Emily's stunning beauty and carried the young slave off with him to be his "companion" for the campaign. Santa Ana fancied himself a great lover and set up an opulent "love tent" each evening.

When Santa Ana was preparing for what he hoped would be the decisive battle, Emily sent another slave to warn Sam Houston. Then she kept Santa Ana busy through the evening and through much of the next morning. That gave Houston enough time to launch a surprise attack and decimate the Mexican Army in less than 20 minutes. Santa Ana was so surprised he ran from his tent wearing only his underwear.

For the next decade, the Yellow Rose of Texas became celebrated in song.

 Red_Dragon wrote: 
Ford announced the end of the Edsel program on Thursday, November 19, 1959.

1998: Google is founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin, two students at Stanford University.

 Red_Dragon wrote: 
Two hours later he was arrested for trying to get "dirty" pictures of his wife developed at the drug store.

1972: Mark Spitz becomes the first competitor to win seven medals at a single Olympic Games.

1957: Ford Motor Company introduces the Edsel.

1888: George Eastman registers the trademark "Kodak" and receives a patent for his camera that uses roll film.