10 stories from 1620 to 2021, written as the news broke.
The Yesterday Times front page for September 16.
On September 16, Mendelssohn completes his final violin concerto as Austrian forces face siege at Przemyśl, nations unite to save the ozone layer, and civilians finally reach orbit.
September 16 in History
Musical Intelligence
1844 — Mendelssohn Finishes Violin Concerto, His Last
The E minor work, six years in the making for Ferdinand David, will premiere in March at Leipzig's Gewandhaus; illness keeps the composer from its podium.
At his desk in Leipzig, the quill lifts from the final bar of a work that overturns the old etiquette of orchestral display. Felix Mendelssohn, thirty-five and director of the Gewandhaus concerts, has this day dated the autograph score of his Violin Concerto in E minor — the sixteenth day of September, 1844. This concerto, his last in the form, breaks with tradition before the first tutti ends. The solo violin enters at once, singing its main theme without the customary orchestral preamble. Such audacity was promised six years past, when Mendelssohn wrote to Ferdinand David, the Gewandhaus concertmaster, proposing a work tailored to his bow. The premiere awaits 13 March 1845. David will stand as soloist. Mendelssohn, by his own physician's orders, will not conduct; the baton passes to Niels Gade, his Danish deputy. The composer in the year he finished the concerto appears drawn and hurried, the illness that kept him from Dresden now threatening larger engagements. The E minor concerto, swift and singing, runs just under half an hour — compressing the old three-movement architecture into continuous argument. Copyists take the score tonight. The parts must be ready for March.
The autograph score of the Violin Concerto is dated 16 September 1844.
Mendelssohn originally proposed the concerto to Ferdinand David in a letter dated 30 July 1838.
The concerto was first performed on 13 March 1845 in Leipzig with Ferdinand David as soloist.
Mendelssohn was unable to conduct the premiere due to illness; Niels Gade conducted instead.
The concerto opens with the solo violin entering almost immediately, playing the tune in E minor.
The age of government monopoly on human spaceflight ended this morning with a pillar of flame at Kennedy Space Center. Inspiration4, the first private orbital crewed mission in history, achieved liftoff aboard a Falcon 9 rocket, carrying four civilians to an altitude no purely commercial traveler has previously reached.
Unlike the brief suborbital hops that marked earlier private ventures, this Crew Dragon capsule will circle Earth for multiple days at orbital altitude. The launch from Florida's historic pad 39A represents SpaceX's expansion from cargo and government astronaut delivery to fully commercial human spaceflight. The four-person crew, selected and trained over months, carry no professional astronauts. Their three-day free-flight trajectory, unattached to the International Space Station, demonstrates that civilian access to Earth orbit has moved from aspiration to operational reality. Insurance markets, regulatory frameworks, and competing providers now face a changed landscape.
Inspiration4, the first private orbital crewed spaceflight, is launched from the Kennedy Space Center.
1914 — Austrian Garrison at Przemyśl Surrounded; Siege Opens
Russian armies complete encirclement of the Galician fortress, beginning what may prove the war's first major siege operation.
In the grinding arithmetic of the Eastern Front, where numbers of men and rounds of shell contend against fixed works, the fortress of Przemyśl has passed into that condition which modern war makes perilous — investment by superior force.
World War I: The Siege of Przemyśl (present-day Poland) begins.
1987 — Nations Sign Montreal Protocol to Halt Ozone Layer Destruction
The agreement mandates the elimination of chlorofluorocarbons and halons found in aerosols, refrigerants, and solvents, with trade penalties for those outside the pact and financial assistance for developing nations seeking alternatives.
Twenty-four nations committed today to history's most comprehensive environmental treaty, signing the Montreal Protocol to phase out industrial chemicals blamed for shredding the ozone layer.
The agreement sets mandatory timetables for eliminating chlorofluorocarbons and halons used in aerosols, refrigerants, and solvents. Scientists have warned that continued depletion threatens increased skin cancers, crop damage, and disruption of marine food chains.
U.S. negotiators hailed the pact as proof that industrialized nations can act before ecological damage becomes irreversible. The treaty includes trade sanctions against non-signatories and establishes a fund to help developing countries adopt alternative technologies.
Ratification requires approval by at least eleven nations representing two-thirds of global CFC consumption. Environmental groups pressed for faster phase-out schedules than the treaty mandates.
The Montreal Protocol is signed to protect the ozone layer from depletion.
1810 — Priest Hidalgo Begins Mexico's Independence With Dawn Rebellion
The Grito de Dolores summons parishioners in Dolores toward Mexico City.
Father Miguel Hidalgo rang his church bell before dawn in the village of Dolores. With the Grito de Dolores, he began Mexico's fight for independence from Spain. His call to rebellion summoned parishioners to arms. The movement swept toward Mexico City.
With the Grito de Dolores, Father Miguel Hidalgo begins Mexico's fight for independence from Spain.
1776 — Rebels Repulse British in Manhattan, Restore Army Spirit
Washington claims first battlefield success as rebels check British pursuit and steady retreating army.
General George Washington has won his first battlefield success of this rebellion, a sharp engagement on the heights of Harlem that checked British pursuit and steadied his retreating army.
The battle took place on September 16, 1776, in what is now the Morningside Heights area and east into future Harlem neighborhoods of Manhattan.
Continental Army forces under Generals Washington, Greene, and Putnam totaled around 9,000 men, opposed by about 5,000 British under Major General Henry Clinton.
British casualties were officially reported by General Howe at 14 killed and 78 wounded.
The battle was Washington's first battlefield success of the war and helped restore the confidence of the Continental Army after several defeats.
During the flanking attack, Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Knowlton and Major Andrew Leitch were both shot and fatally injured.
1620 — Mayflower Departs With Colonists Bound for Virginia Plantations
The 180-ton Mayflower carries scores of Separatists and adventurers toward a Virginia plantation despite late-season tempests.
The great age of plantation doth now extend its hand across the Atlantic, for this morning the ship Mayflower, of some 180 tons burden, made sail from Plymouth harbour bearing passengers bound for the northern parts of Virginia.
The company aboard, being Separatists of Leiden and other English adventurers, number in scores. They go to establish a settled plantation under patent of the Virginia Company. The voyage is like to last six weeks or more, God willing, with the season late for such crossing.
This plantation moveth forward despite hazard of tempest and the savage coasts afore them.
Pilgrims set sail for Virginia from Plymouth, England in the Mayflower.
1979 — East German Families Flee in Homemade Balloon
Two families spent over a year preparing a craft built from 800 square metres of fabric before successfully flying to Bavaria.
Peter Strelzyk and Günter Wetzel put their families into a homemade hot air balloon Saturday night and rose over the East German border into Bavaria, completing an escape that took more than a year and a half of secret preparation. The two families—eight people including four children aged 2 to 15—had tried once before. On July 3, their first balloon came down 180 metres short of the border. The craft that carried them to freedom was built from 800 square metres of taffeta fabric purchased in Leipzig for 4,800 DDM. Total weight: 750 kilograms.
Eight people from two families escaped from East Germany to West Germany on 16 September 1979.
The escape was the result of over a year and a half of preparations involving three different balloons.
A first attempt on 3 July 1979 failed when the balloon landed 180 metres short of the border.
The balloon was made from 800 square metres of taffeta fabric purchased in Leipzig for 4,800 DDM.
The families included four children aged 2 to 15, and the total weight was calculated at 750 kilograms.
