Mark The Day

On July 2, 1865, William Booth and his wife, Catherine Booth, founded the Christian Mission in London's East End. Their goal was to bring practical help and Christian teaching to people struggling with poverty and hardship. Inspired by military organization, Booth introduced ranks such as officers and recruits, believing discipline and structure would strengthen the movement. Women were given leadership roles alongside men, an uncommon practice for the time.

The Christian Mission quickly expanded its work into some of London's poorest communities, opening soup kitchens and offering both physical assistance and spiritual support. Its energetic public preaching and unusual methods were not welcomed by everyone, and members frequently faced hostility, fines, and even imprisonment as authorities attempted to curb their activities.

In 1878, the organization adopted the name the The Salvation Army, and two years later established its first branch in the United States. During the Great Depression and both World Wars, the organization became widely respected for providing food, shelter, and support to civilians and military personnel alike. Today, the Salvation Army operates in more than 130 countries, delivering disaster relief, rehabilitation programs, community services, hospitals, thrift stores, and other charitable initiatives, supported through donations and the proceeds of its retail operations.

On September 16, 1620, the Mayflower departed Plymouth, England, carrying 102 passengers across the Atlantic in search of a new life in North America. Among them were roughly three dozen English Separatists seeking greater religious freedom, along with other settlers whose motivations were largely economic. Some of the Separatists had previously fled religious persecution in England and settled in the Netherlands, but concerns about their future there eventually encouraged them to pursue a colony in America. Backed financially by English investors, they originally intended to settle within the Virginia Company's territory. An earlier attempt to begin the voyage with two ships had failed when the smaller Speedwell repeatedly proved unseaworthy, leaving the Mayflower to undertake the crossing alone.

The voyage lasted 66 days and was plagued by storms and rough seas that carried the ship far north of its intended destination. Instead of reaching Virginia, the Mayflower arrived off Cape Cod in November. Because the passengers were outside the territory covered by their original authorization, the adult male settlers drew up the Mayflower Compact, agreeing to form a government and abide by laws created for the welfare of the colony. After anchoring near present-day Provincetown, exploration parties searched for a suitable place to settle. They eventually chose an area across Cape Cod Bay with fresh water and previously cleared land, naming their settlement Plymouth. By late December, the colonists had begun constructing shelters as winter descended upon them.

The first winter was devastating, with disease and harsh conditions killing roughly half of the settlers. Those who survived gradually established a functioning colony and developed relationships—sometimes cooperative and later increasingly troubled—with Indigenous peoples of the region. In the autumn of 1621, colonists and members of the Wampanoag gathered for the harvest celebration that later became associated with the American Thanksgiving tradition. Plymouth continued growing but was eventually overshadowed by the much larger Massachusetts Bay Colony. Interestingly, the settlers themselves were not commonly called "Pilgrims" at the time; that name became widespread much later, drawing partly from William Bradford's description of the Separatists leaving the Netherlands as "pilgrimes." By the 19th century, the term had become permanently attached to the passengers whose difficult voyage aboard the Mayflower became one of the best-known episodes of early American colonial history.

On September 16, 1908, Buick president William C. Durant incorporated General Motors in New Jersey, beginning what would become one of the world's largest automobile companies. Durant had made his fortune in horse-drawn carriages and was initially suspicious of automobiles, regarding the early machines as noisy, unpleasant and dangerous. Nevertheless, he recognized their commercial potential at a time when America's young automobile industry was crowded with dozens of manufacturers, many producing very few vehicles and some disappearing before customers who had paid deposits ever received their cars.

Industrialist Benjamin Briscoe believed consolidation could bring stability to the chaotic business and proposed combining major manufacturers including Buick, Ford, REO and Maxwell-Briscoe. Durant liked the general idea but favored a holding company in which individual manufacturers retained their identities rather than disappearing into a single operation. His approach prevailed, and General Motors expanded at extraordinary speed. Within two years, Durant had brought roughly 30 businesses into the organization, including automakers Oldsmobile, Cadillac and Oakland, which later became Pontiac, as well as companies supplying parts and other services. The strategy offered customers a range of automobiles rather than concentrating on a single mass-market model as Henry Ford was doing with the Model T.

Durant's appetite for expansion ultimately created serious financial problems, and GM's directors forced him out in 1910. He responded by helping establish Chevrolet with racing driver Louis Chevrolet and subsequently used his growing Chevrolet interests to regain control of General Motors in 1916. His second reign also ended, however, and Durant was pushed out permanently in 1920. His later fortunes declined dramatically, and after losing his wealth he eventually operated a bowling alley in Flint, Michigan. It was an extraordinary reversal for the businessman whose aggressive vision had helped create an automotive empire that would dominate the American automobile industry for much of the 20th century.

On September 16, 2013, a gunman opened fire inside Building 197 at the Washington Navy Yard in Washington, D.C., killing 12 people and injuring several others before being fatally shot by police. The attacker, 34-year-old Aaron Alexis, was a civilian information-technology contractor who had authorized access to the facility. He entered the building shortly after 8 a.m. and began shooting minutes later, prompting a massive response from local and federal law-enforcement agencies. With early reports raising fears that more than one attacker might be involved, parts of the surrounding area were placed under lockdown until authorities determined that Alexis had acted alone.

Alexis had served in the U.S. Navy Reserve from 2007 until 2011 and had recently begun contract work at the Navy Yard. Investigators found no evidence that he deliberately targeted particular victims or that the attack was connected to terrorism. The subsequent investigation uncovered evidence that Alexis had been experiencing serious psychological disturbances before the shooting, including a belief that he was being influenced by extremely low-frequency electromagnetic waves. The previous month, while working in Rhode Island, he had contacted police and reported hearing voices and being followed, but he subsequently returned to work and retained the security clearance that allowed him access to the Navy Yard.

The 12 people killed were civilian employees and contractors working at the facility. In the aftermath, investigators examined Alexis's background, security-clearance procedures and the warning signs that had appeared before the attack. President Barack Obama attended a memorial service for the victims on September 22, where their families and colleagues gathered to remember those who had been killed. The Washington Navy Yard shooting became one of the deadliest attacks on a U.S. military installation and prompted renewed scrutiny of security practices, contractor screening and the handling of behavioral concerns involving personnel with access to sensitive government facilities.

On September 17, 1967, The Who made their American network television debut on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour and ensured that nobody would forget it. The British rock band performed "My Generation," concluding with their customary destruction of instruments as Pete Townshend attacked his guitar and Keith Moon prepared to detonate explosives hidden inside his bass drum. Moon, however, had reportedly loaded considerably more explosive material than usual. When it went off, the resulting blast filled the stage with smoke, scorched Townshend's hair, injured Moon with flying debris and briefly disrupted the television broadcast. The Who had built a reputation for performances that looked as though a bomb had gone off onstage; this time they removed the "as though."

The chaos was particularly memorable because The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour occupied an unusual place on American television. Hosts Tom and Dick Smothers looked conventional enough, but their CBS program frequently challenged network expectations through satire, controversial guests and material touching on the political and cultural disputes of the late 1960s. The brothers repeatedly clashed with CBS censors during the show's run. The Who were not appearing to make an explicitly political statement, but their deafening volume, rebellious image, destructive performances and lyrics such as those in "My Generation" made them natural representatives of a younger generation increasingly impatient with convention.

Footage of the performance shows bassist John Entwistle maintaining his famously unflappable demeanor while Roger Daltrey quickly moves away from the explosion and Townshend emerges from the smoke visibly affected by the blast. The incident has sometimes been blamed for Townshend's later hearing problems, although years of performing at extraordinary volume through powerful amplifier systems provide a considerably broader explanation for his hearing damage. Whatever its long-term consequences, the Smothers Brothers appearance became one of the defining moments in The Who's early American career: four British musicians arrived to play a song on national television and departed having demonstrated that, where Keith Moon was concerned, the phrase "a little more explosive" required very careful interpretation.

On September 17, 1976, NASA introduced the world to Enterprise, the first completed vehicle of the Space Shuttle program, during a ceremony at the Rockwell International facility in Palmdale, California. Although Enterprise was never equipped for orbital flight, it became an essential test vehicle for NASA's reusable spacecraft concept. In 1977, it was carried aloft on the back of a specially modified Boeing 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft and released during a series of Approach and Landing Tests. On its first free flight, astronauts Fred Haise and Gordon Fullerton separated Enterprise from the carrier aircraft at roughly 24,000 feet and successfully glided it to a runway at Edwards Air Force Base. The unusual spacecraft had demonstrated that, after returning from orbit, a shuttle could actually fly — albeit as a very large glider with no opportunity for a second attempt.

The operational Space Shuttle era began on April 12, 1981, when Columbia lifted off from Kennedy Space Center on the STS-1 mission. Over the following three decades, NASA's shuttle fleet carried satellites and scientific experiments into orbit, deployed and serviced the Hubble Space Telescope and played a central role in assembling and supplying the International Space Station. The program also endured two devastating disasters. Challenger was destroyed 73 seconds after liftoff on January 28, 1986, killing all seven crew members and grounding shuttle flights until Discovery returned to space in September 1988. On February 1, 2003, Columbia broke apart during atmospheric reentry after damage sustained during launch compromised its left wing, killing its seven-member crew and again bringing shuttle operations to a halt.

Flights resumed with Discovery in July 2005, and NASA continued operating the remaining shuttles until 2011. The final mission, STS-135, was flown by Atlantis, which landed at Kennedy Space Center on July 21, bringing the 30-year operational Space Shuttle era to a close after 135 missions. Enterprise, meanwhile, never reached space despite being the spacecraft that helped prove the basic landing concept could work. Its name had originally been planned as Constitution, but a successful campaign by Star Trek fans persuaded the White House to request Enterprise instead. Members of the television show's cast and creator Gene Roddenberry attended the 1976 unveiling — meaning America's first space shuttle began its public life with a little help from a starship that had already been boldly going where no one had gone before.

On September 17, 2011, demonstrators gathered in Lower Manhattan for the beginning of Occupy Wall Street, a protest movement focused on economic inequality, the influence of corporations and wealthy interests on politics, and the consequences of the 2008 financial crisis. The demonstration had been promoted by the Canadian anti-consumerist magazine Adbusters, which called for protesters to occupy Wall Street. With access to some intended gathering places restricted, participants established themselves in privately owned Zuccotti Park near the Financial District. What began with hundreds of demonstrators developed into an encampment that lasted for nearly two months and attracted widespread national and international attention.

Occupy Wall Street deliberately avoided conventional centralized leadership, relying instead on general assemblies and loosely organized working groups. Social media helped its message travel far beyond New York, while the slogan "We are the 99%" became its most enduring expression. The phrase contrasted the economic circumstances of most Americans with those of the wealthiest one percent and helped push discussion of income and wealth inequality into mainstream political debate. Similar Occupy demonstrations appeared in cities across the United States and internationally, although the movement's decentralized structure meant there was no single set of leaders or detailed policy demands representing everyone involved.

In the early hours of November 15, New York City police cleared the Zuccotti Park encampment, arresting numerous protesters and effectively ending its continuous occupation, although demonstrations continued afterward. Occupy Wall Street did not produce a unified legislative program that could be measured simply as passed or defeated, but its language, organizational methods and use of social media remained influential in later activism. Its lasting importance is therefore debated: supporters credit it with changing public discussion about economic inequality and demonstrating new methods of decentralized organizing, while critics point to its lack of specific demands and lasting organizational structure. Either way, the language of the "99 percent" outlived the tents in Zuccotti Park and became one of the most recognizable political phrases to emerge from the aftermath of the financial crisis.