TODAY IN HISTORY

September 12
490 BC		Athenian and Plataean Hoplites commanded by General Miltiades drive back a Persian invasion force under General Datis at Marathon.
1213		Simon de Montfort defeats Raymond of Toulouse and Peter II of Aragon at Muret, France.
1609		Henry Hudson sails into what is now New York Harbor aboard his sloop Half Moon.
1662		Governor Berkley of Virginia is denied his attempts to repeal the Navigation Acts.
1683		A combined Austrian and Polish army defeats the Turks at Kahlenberg and lifts the siege on Vienna, Austria.
1722		The Treaty of St. Petersburg puts an end to the Russo-Persian War.
1786		Despite his failed efforts to suppress the American Revolution, Lord Cornwallis is appointed governor general of India.
1836		Mexican authorities crush the revolt which broke out on August 25.
1918		British troops retake Havincourt, Moeuvres, and Trescault along the Western Front.
1919		Adolf Hitler joins German Worker's Party.
1939		In response to the invasion of Poland, the French Army advances into Germany. On this day they reach their furthest penetration-five miles.
1940		Italian forces begin an offensive into Egypt from Libya.
1940		The Lascaux Caves in France, with their prehistoric wall paintings, are discovered.
1944		American troops fight their way into Germany.
1945		French troops land in Indochina.
1969		President Richard Nixon orders a resumption in bombing North Vietnam.
1977		Steve Biko, a South African activist opposing apartheid, dies while in police custody.
1980		Military coup in Turkey.
1990		East and West Germany, along with the UK, US and USSR—the Allied nations that had occupied post-WWII Germany—sign the final settlement for reunification of Germany.
1992		Space Shuttle Endeavor takes off on NASA's 50th shuttle mission; its crew includes the first African-American woman in space, the first married couple, and the first Japanese citizen to fly in a US spacecraft.
2003		UN lifts sanctions against Libya in exchange for that country accepting responsibility for the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 in 1988 and paying recompense to victims' families.
2007		Joseph Estrada, former president of the Philippines, is convicted of plunder.
2011		In New York City, the 9/11 Memorial Museum opens to the public.