Date with History: September 1

The 4:45 a.m. shelling of Westerplatte, and the night the Titanic's grave gave itself up.

One paperback for one calendar date: what happened on September 1, and who was born on it.

What happened on September 1

1939: Germany invades Poland and World War II begins

At 4:45 a.m. on September 1, 1939, the German battleship Schleswig-Holstein opened fire on the Polish depot at Westerplatte while aircraft bombed the town of Wielun. The Blitzkrieg that followed would consume six years and an estimated 70 to 85 million lives. Britain and France declared war two days later, turning a regional invasion into a world war and exposing appeasement as a catastrophic failure.

1985: Robert Ballard finds the Titanic two miles down

Using the deep-sea submersible Argo, a team led by Dr. Robert Ballard located the wreck of the RMS Titanic about 12,500 feet below the North Atlantic, 73 years after she sank. Ballard refused to salvage artifacts, treating the wreck as a grave site, though later expeditions would retrieve thousands of objects. At that depth the pressure is roughly 380 atmospheres, about three SUVs stacked on every square inch.

Famous birthdays on September 1

1875 — Edgar Rice Burroughs
Failed pencil-sharpener wholesaler who, broke at 35, invented Tarzan and then 24 sequels.

1957 — Gloria Estefan
Havana-born Miami Sound Machine star who came back from a broken back to sell 100 million records.

Nearby dates

August 31 · September 2 · All September dates

Part of Date with History, a 366-book collection with one book for every date of the year. 5″×8″ paperback, cream paper.

Historical selections are editorially researched. This is a date-specific book, not a personalized or custom-made product.