The following events occurred in September 1969:
September 1, 1969 (Monday)
A bloodless coup d'état ousted King Idris I of Libya and replaced it with a 12-member group of young officers who formed the Revolutionary Command Council that implemented an end to the traditional rule of older families; soon, the leader of the Council would be identified as a 27-year-old Libyan Army colonel, Muammar Gaddafi."Formal and Informal Authority in Libya since 1969", in Libya since 1969: Qadhafi's Revolution Revisited, ed. by Dirk Vandewalle (Palgrave Macmillan, 2008) p64 The king had traveled out of the country to Turkey for medical treatment. King Idris's nephew, Crown Prince Hassan el-Rida, appeared on a radio broadcast that evening to announce his "voluntary abdication" from serving as the "acting monarch" during Idris's absence, and called on Libyan citizens to support the new government."Socialists Take Over In Libya— Leftist Military Officers Seize Oil-Rich Nation", Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, September 2, 1969, p2 The coup's leader was initially identified as Colonel Saad Eddine Abbou Chouireb, declared the end of the monarchy and the creation of the Libyan Revolutionary Command Council to rule the new republic. Gaddafi, one of the council members, would be the President of the Islamic Republic of Libya until his own overthrow and death in 2011. Jornal Nacional, the first live national news program on Brazilian television, went on the air for the first time, with anchors Cid Moreira and Hilton Gomes. At 7:45 in the evening, Moreira began with the program's slogan "No ar, Jornal Nacional. A notícia unindo 70 milhões de brasileiros" ("On the air, Jornal Nacional— the news uniting 70 million Brazilians")."Jornal Nacional 50 years timeline""Jornal Nacional completa 50 anos com lançamento de livro" ("Jornal Nacional marks 50 years with book launch") Jornal Nacional was based in Rio de Janeiro and telecast over the TV Globo network to the three Globo affiliates in Rio, São Paulo and Porto Alegre. All 22 people on board Aeroflot Flight 55 were killed when the plane crashed into a mountain in the Soviet Union above the Arctic Circle. The airliner was making its approach to Egvekinot after a flight from Anadyr.Aviation Safety Network. Born: Melissa Doi, American senior manager at IQ Financial Systems and one of the victims who died in the September 11 attacks. She is known for the recording of a 9-1-1 call she made during her final moments inside the South Tower as the tower began to collapse; in New York City Died: Drew Pearson, 71, American newspaper columnist
September 2, 1969 (Tuesday)
James Pike, the controversial Episcopalian American evangelist and the church's former Bishop of California, disappeared after his car broke down while he was driving across the Judaean Desert west of the Dead Sea in Israel."Bishop Pike Missing In Dead Sea Desert", Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, September 3, 1969, p1 Pike and his wife, Diana, walked through the desert in search of help until Pike became ill and his wife continued searching for help. Mrs. Pike was rescued by a Bedouin Arab and survived. Bishop Pike was found dead six days later by a search team; while he had survived the heat after finding a source of fresh water, he had attempted to climb up the walls of a steep canyon and was killed when he fell."Pike's Body Found in Israel", Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, September 8, 1969, p1 The first successful communication from one computer to another by Interface Message Processor (IMP) took place at UCLA, the University of California in Los Angeles, three days after the delivery of the first IMP to the university's computer building. The software programming written by a team of engineers led by Leonard Kleinrock, accommodated the packet switching technology of the IMP which was linked to UCLA's mainframe computer by telephone line and "the two machines began talking to each other" in an intramural dialogue, opening the way for a computer in one location to transmit data directly to any other computer in the world with an IMP. The next step would be on October 1 with the installation of an IMP at the Stanford Research Institute."History of the Internet: ARPANET Comes Alive", by John Sherry and Colleen Brown, in The Internet Encyclopedia (Volume 2), ed. by Hossein Bidgoli (John Wiley & Sons, 2004) p117 The first automatic teller machine in the United States, called the "Docuteller", was installed at a branch of the Chemical Bank at 10 North Village Avenue in Rockville Centre, New York.Keith Sawyer, Group Genius: The Creative Power of Collaboration (Basic Books, 2008) p81Wilson Casey, Firsts: Origins of Everyday Things That Changed the World (Penguin, 2009) p16 Born: Cedric "K-Ci" Hailey, American R&B singer for K-Ci & JoJo (with his brother Joel "JoJo" Hailey) and Jodeci; in Monroe, North Carolina Died: Ho Chi Minh, 79, President of North Vietnam. A radio broadcast from Hanoi the next day announced that Ho had died of a heart attack at 9:47 on Wednesday morning and informed listeners that "Everyone tried their utmost and gave of their best to save him at any price, but because of his advanced age and serious illness of the sudden severe heart attack, President Ho left us forever.""Ho Dead at 79, Hanoi Confirms— Heart Attack Fells Chief Of North Vietnam", Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, September 4, 1969, p1
September 3, 1969 (Wednesday) U.S. Marine General Leonard F. Chapman Jr., the Commandant of the Marine Corps, issued orders immediately changing some policies within the Corps to bring an end to racial violence while maintaining discipline against persons of any race who failed to live up the standards of the United States Marines, acknowledging discrimination in the past, making concessions to African-American culture, and ordering that "legitimate grievances" of racial discrimination would "receive sympathetic consideration and rapid response.""End Color Line, Marines Told", Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, September 4, 1969, p2 The Chicago Cubs, who had the best record in baseball's National League (84 wins, 52 losses) and who were in first place in the NL's East Division, five games ahead of the New York Mets with 26 games left to play, began an 8-game losing streak with a 2–0 defeat by the Cincinnati Reds. The Mets, on the other hand, began a winning streak the next day that would eventually see them capture the division title and, soon afterward, the 1969 World Series. Born: John Fugelsang, American actor, writer, comedian and politician commentator; in Long Island Noah Baumbach, American film director and screenwriter; in Brooklyn Died: John Lester, 98, American cricket star and captain of the United States team during international matches between 1894 and 1908
September 4, 1969 (Thursday) Charles B. Elbrick, the United States Ambassador to Brazil, was kidnapped after guerrillas of the 8th October Revolutionary Movement group stopped his limousine at a roadblock in Rio de Janeiro."U.S. Brazil Envoy Kidnaped in Rio", Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, September 5, 1969, p1 The "MR–8" group left the limo driver with a letter setting a 48-hour ultimatum for Brazil's military government to release 15 political prisoners and to publish the MR–8 manifesto, or face the execution of the Ambassador. After three days and six hours in captivity, Ambassador Elbrick was released unharmed after the 15 prisoners were taken from prison and flown to Mexico City."Ambassador Elbrick Is Freed", Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, September 8, 1969, p1 Born: Giorgi Margvelashvili, President of Georgia from 2013 to 2018; in Tbilisi, Georgian SSR, Soviet Union
September 5, 1969 (Friday) U.S. Army Lieutenant William Calley was charged with six counts of premeditated murder for the 1968 My Lai Massacre deaths of over 109 South Vietnamese civilians.Kendrick Oliver, The My Lai Massacre in American History and Memory (Manchester University Press, 2006) p38 The story itself would be made public by two different investigative journalists two months later."Officer Is Held in Army Inquiry", New York Times, November 13, 1969, p1 Calley would be court martialed and sentenced to life imprisonment in March 1971, but would be paroled on September 10, 1975, after serving all but three years of his incarceration under house arrest."Calley, William Laws, Jr.", in Historical Dictionary of the Nixon-Ford Era, by Mitchell K. Hall (Rowman & Littlefield, 2008) pp36-37 Born: Dweezil Zappa, American singer and actor; as Ian Donald Calvin Euclid Zappa in Los Angeles
September 6, 1969 (Saturday) The government of Portugal acted to suppress and censor an interview of former Portuguese dictator Antonio de Oliveira Salazar, published in that day's edition of the Paris newspaper L'Aurore. Salazar, who had ruled Portugal from 1932 until suffering a 1968 stroke that put him in a coma, had never been told after awaking that he had been replaced as the nation's ruler. He was quoted in the interview as saying that he looked forward to resuming his duties as soon as he could "gather enough strength"; his housekeeper told the interviewer that the former dictator remained unaware."News He's Out Still being Kept From Salazar", Cincinnati Enquirer, September 8, 1969, p4 The very first episode of Sid and Marty Krofft’s “H.R. Pufnstuf” is aired on the NBC television network in the United States. Born: CeCe Peniston, American singer and former beauty Queen; in Dayton, Ohio Brian Barczyk, American reptile enthusiast and YouTuber (d. 2024) Died: Arthur Friedenreich, 77, Brazilian soccer football player credited with at least 1,239 goals in his career during the amateur era between 1909 and 1935, and holder of the world record at the time of his death. Franz Binder, who played in Austria between 1933 and 1949, was second with 1,006 goals.
September 7, 1969 (Sunday) Princeton University, an all-male Ivy League college for its first 233 years of operation, welcomed its first female undergraduate students as 171 young women jointed the 4,600 men already enrolled. New York's Daily News, reflecting the attitudes of the day, reported that many of "the girls" were wearing "chic miniskirts" as they walked to class from Pyne Hall, the campus' first dormitory for women."Minichicks Arrive at Princeton", Daily News, New York, September 8, 1969, p5 Born: Jimmy Urine (stage name for James Euringer), American electropunk musician and founder of Mindless Self Indulgence; in New York City Diane Farr, American TV star known for NUMB3RS; in La Cañada Flintridge, California Died: Everett Dirksen, 73, Republican U.S. Senator for Illinois since 1951 and Senate Minority Leader since 1959. Dirksen suffered cardiac arrest while recovering from surgery six days earlier for lung cancer. Gavin Maxwell, 55, Scottish naturalist for whom the otter subspecies Lutrogale perspicillata maxwelli ("Maxwell's Otter") is named, died of cancer.
September 8, 1969 (Monday) All 32 people aboard SATENA Airlines Flight 742 were killed when the plane crashed during a storm. The Colombian DC-3 airliner was flying to Apiay after taking off from Villavicencio on a multistop flight that had originated in Bogota.Aviation Safety Network"32 Colombians Die In Crash of Plane", Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, September 10, 1969, p1 Mahmud Sulayman al-Maghribi, a physician, was named by the Libyan Arab Republic's new Revolutionary Council to be the new Prime Minister of Libya."Libya Junta Forms New Government", Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, September 9, 1969, p1 Jamaica changed from the British Pound to the Jamaican Dollar as part of its transition from a colony to a fully independent state Born: Gary Speed, Welsh soccer football midfielder who had a record 535 appearances in the Premier League, as well as 85 games for the Wales national team, which he later managed; in Mancot, Flintshire (committed suicide, 2011) Rachel Hunter, New Zealand supermodel and TV host; in Glenfield