Union soldiers find a copy of Confederate General Robert E. Lee’s orders detailing the Confederates’ plan for the Antietam campaign near Frederick, Maryland. But Union General George B. McClellan was slow to act, and the advantage the intelligence provided was lost. On the morning of September 13, the 27th Indiana rested in a meadow outside […]

On September 13, 1940, Mussolini’s forces finally cross the Libyan border into Egypt, achieving what the Duce calls the “glory” Italy had sought for three centuries. Italy had occupied Libya since 1912, a purely economic “expansion.” In 1935, Mussolini began sending tens of thousands of Italians to Libya, mostly farmers and other rural workers, in […]

The four-day revolt at the maximum-security Attica Correctional Facility near Buffalo, New York, ends when hundreds of state police officers storm the complex in a hail of gunfire. Thirty-nine people were killed in the disastrous assault, including 29 prisoners and 10 prison guards and employees held hostage since the outset of the ordeal. On September […]

On September 13, 1990, the drama series “Law & Order” premieres on NBC; it will go on to become one of the longest-running primetime dramas in TV history and spawn several popular spin-offs. According to the now-famous “Law & Order” formula, the first half of the hour-long program, which is set in New York City, […]

On September 13, 2004, TV talk-show host Oprah Winfrey gives a brand-new Pontiac G-6 sedan, worth $28,500, to everyone in her studio audience: a total of 276 cars in all.) Oprah had told her producers to fill the crowd with people who “desperately needed” the cars, and when she announced the prize (by jumping up […]