September 19

634 – The moslem Rashidun Arabs under Khalid ibn al-Walid capture Damascus from the Byzantine Empire.

1676 – Jamestown Virginia Colony is burned to the ground by the forces of Nathaniel Bacon during Bacon’s Rebellion.

1777 – Attempting to flank Continental forces under General Benedict Arnold at Bemis Heights, New York; British forces under General John ‘Gentleman Johnny’ Burgoyne win a costly tactical victory in taking the Freeman Farm near Albany in the First Battle of Saratoga.

1778 – The Continental Congress passes the first United States federal budget.

1796 – George Washington’s Farewell Address is published across America as an open letter to the public.

1862 – Near Luka Mississippi, on the opening day of the Luka-Corinth Campaign, the Union Army of the Mississippi, under General William Rosecrans engages the Confederate Army of the West, under General Sterling Price, and forces them to withdraw.

1863 – Near Chickamauga Creek in northwestern Georgia, the Confederate Army of Tennessee under General Braxton Bragg, engages the Army of the Cumberland, under General William Rosecrans; forcing them to retreat back into Union occupied Chattanooga,  effectively ending the Chickamauga Campaign.

1864 – Near Winchester, Virginia, during the Valley Campaign; the Union VI Corps, XIX Corps, Cavalry Corps and the Army of West Virginia under General Philip Sheridan engages the Confederate Army of the Valley District under General Jubal Early, forcing them to retreat and ending with the Union occupation of Winchester.

1881 – President James A. Garfield dies of wounds suffered in a July 2 assassination attempt; Vice President Chester A. Arthur becoming President.

1940 – Polish Cavalry officer Witold Pilecki is voluntarily captured and sent to Auschwitz concentration camp to gather and smuggle out information of Nazi atrocities for the resistance movement.

1944 – Units of the U.S. First Army under the command of Lieutenant General Courtney Hodges engage the Nazi 275th and 353rd Infantry Divisions under Generalleutnant Hans Schmidt holding positions within the Hürtgen Forest on the border between Belgium and Germany.

1950 – During the Korean War, an attack by North Korean forces along the Nam River at the Pusan Perimeter is repelled by U.S. troops of the 25th Infantry Division & South Korean National Police.

1976 – As 2 Imperial Iranian Air Force F-4 Phantom jets fly out to investigate an unidentified flying object detected by radar near Tehran, both independently lose instrumentation and communications as they approach, only to have them restored upon withdrawal.

1985 – Tipper Gore and other politician’s wives form the PMRC -Parents Music Resource Center

1991 – Ötzi the Iceman is discovered in the Alps on the border between Italy and Austria.

1995 – The Washington Post and The New York Times co-publish the Unabomber manifesto.

2010 – The leaking oil well in the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is sealed.

2016 – The suspect – Ahmad Khan Rahimi- in a series of bombings in New York and New Jersey is apprehended after a shootout with police. At trial he is later sentenced to life in prison, without parole.