Once Upon A Time – Sept. 9 – 2015 – Queen Elizabeth II Becomes Great Britain’s Longest-Reigning Monarch At 63 Years, Seven Months

1000 Battle of Svolder, Baltic Sea: King Olaf on board the Long Serpent defeated in one of the greatest naval battles of the Viking Age. He leaps to his death overboard.

1776 Congress officially renames the country as the United States of America (from the United Colonies)

1817 Alexander Twilight, probably first African American to graduate from a US college, receives BA degree at Middlebury College

1914 First fully mechanized unit in the British Army created – the Canadian Automobile Machine Gun Brigade (WWI)

1993 Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization exchange letters of mutual recognition

2015 Queen Elizabeth II becomes Great Britain’s longest-reigning monarch at 63 years and seven months, beating the previous record set by her great-great-grandmother, Queen Victoria

HISTORICAL EVENTS TODAY

TODAY IN FILM & TV

1951 1st broadcast of “Love of Life” on CBS-TV

1956 Elvis Presley appears on “The Ed Sullivan Show” for the 1st time

TODAY IN SPORT

1972 Soviet Union beats the United States 51-50 in the most controversial game in international basketball history; with US leading 50-49 the final 3 seconds is replayed 3 times until the Soviets finally win

MORE FACTS….

1543 Mary Stuart, at nine months old, is crowned “Queen of Scots” in the central Scottish town of Stirling

1861 Nurse Sally Tompkins is officially commissioned as an officer (and its only woman officer) by the Confederate US Army

FAMOUS WEDDINGS

1770 Founding Father of America Robert R. Livingston (23) weds John Steven’s daughter Mary Stevens

1979 British singer-songwriter Yusuf Islam (Cat Stevens) (31) weds Fouzia Ali at Kensington Mosque, in London

1995 American pop singer Chynna Phillips (27) weds American actor William Baldwin (32)