11 Days That Never Were

September 2, 1752 marks the last day before British Parliament decided to skip 11 days.
That’s because they chose to end use of the Julian calendar and adopt the Gregorian calendar—170 years after the Catholic Church introduced it.

So you’ll never find anything recorded in British or British Colonial history in America between September 3 and 13, 1752.
Those days never existed… at least on a calendar.

Image shows the Pope, Gregory XIII, presiding over the commission that corrected the Julian calendar in 1582—ushering in the Gregorian system still in use today.
via Wikimedia Commons, public domain

September 2, 1945

General Yoshijiro Umezu signs formal surrender document on behalf of the Imperial Japanese Army aboard the USS Missouri

via Wikimedia Commons, public domain

After a grueling four-month campaign from May to September 1864, Union forces under General William T. Sherman finally broke Atlanta’s defenses by severing its last vital railroad on August 31. With Confederate troops evacuating overnight, Mayor James M. Calhoun surrendered the city on September 2, seeking to protect its remaining citizens from chaos and destruction.

Image from JJonahJackalope via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0

On September 2, 1789 Congress created the United States Department of the Treasury

Image: “Eagle and Treasury Seal” from 1921 via Wikimedia Commons, public domain

On today’s date September 2, 1901 at the Minnesota State Fair…Vice President Theodore Roosevelt addresses those in attendance and delivers the famous phrase, “Speak softly and carry a big stick”

The phrase was used more than a year prior when he was Governor of New York.

Image: Theodore Roosevelt wearing knickerbockers and carrying an axe on his shoulder, later that same September in 1901

Image via Library of Congress, no known restrictions

On September 2, 1814, about a week after the burning of the White House in Washington, the 7th New York City Militia Regiment mustered into service.

Years later, during the American Civil War, the 7th New York City Militia was comprised of a number of wealthy men from Manhattan.

Image of the Trophy Room at the 7th Regiment Armory in Manhattan via Wikimedia Commons, public domain

A photo of General James Harrison Wilson who led Union cavalry in the capture of four industrial centers in the South (Wilson’s Raid) was born on September 2, 1837 in Shawneetown, Illinois.

At the end of the Civil War it was Wilson’s cavalrymen who captured Confederate President Jefferson Davis and Andersonville Prison’s commandant Henry Wirz.

Wilson later served as a Major General during the Spanish-American War and in China during the Boxer Rebellion.

He also represented Theodore Roosevelt during the coronation of King Edward VII of England in 1902.

He was one of the longest living Union Generals.

Image via Wikimedia Commons, public domain

Future President of The United States, George H. W. Bush, being rescued by the submarine, the USS Finback, after being shot down while on a bombing run over the Island of Chichijima.

September 2, 1944

Image from NARA via Wikimedia Commons, public domain

“There are people into whose heads it never enters to conceive of any better state of society than that which now exists.”

– Henry George

American economist Henry George was born on September 2, 1839 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Image of Henry George c. 1885 via Wikimedia Commons, public domain

Ruth Bancroft, who established the Ruth Bancroft Garden in Walnut Creek, California that has over 2,000 varieties of plants and trees from North America, South America, South Africa and Australia, was born on September 2, 1908 in Boston, Massachusetts.

Image from Burkhard Mücke • CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons, public domain

Pro football champion quarterback, Terry Bradshaw, was born on September 2, 1948 in Shreveport, Louisiana.

Image: Bradshaw autographs a football for an American soldier in Kosovo in 1999 via Wikimedia Commons, public domain

American author and journalist Lucretia Peabody Hale was born on September 2, 1820 in Boston, Massachusetts.
Her father was the nephew of the American spy and patriot Nathan Hale (Lucretia’s granduncle.)

One of her works published in 1867 contained prayers, dealt with the subject of grief and included the following:

“…As I look back upon my past life, and recall the long hours of wearisome sickness; shorter,
sudden pangs of more overwhelming sorrow;
moments and hours which I could never have borne to look forward to, – I can recognize
the strength that came out of the weakness, the power that was born of the sorrow.”

From: The Service of Sorrow
Source says not in copyright
https://archive.org/details/serviceofsorrow00halerich/page/10

Image of Lucretia P. Hale c. 1850 via Wikimedia Commons, public domain

A Category 5 Hurricane known as the “Labor Day Hurricane” made landfall on Long Key, Florida on September 2, 1935. It had sustained wins of 185 mph.

Image: Train swept off the tracks by the Labor Day Hurricane in the Florida Keys
via Wikimedia Commons, public domain

Eric Dickerson, born September 2, 1960, remains the NFL’s single-season rushing king with 2,105 yards.

Other running backs have come tantalizingly close to Dickerson’s record since that 1984 season. Saquon Barkley of the Philadelphia Eagles, just this past year in 2024, finished only 100 yards shy of rewriting history.

Image of Dickerson in the 1980s via Wikimedia Commons, public domain

September 2, 1885, Rock Springs, Wyoming Territory

Fueled by economic anger and racial animosity, a group of miners brutally attacked their Chinese coworkers in the early morning hours. Nearly 80 dwellings were destroyed by fire, at least 28 Chinese miners were killed, and numerous others were injured. The survivors were forced to return days later under military protection to bury their dead and begin work amid the destruction after the massacre left Chinatown in ruins. No one ever faced legal action.

Image via Wikimedia Commons, public domain

President Ronald Reagan speaking to the crowd from his limousine on a trip to California on September 2, 1984

via Wikimedia Commons, public domain

A photograph of the “auto house” of Will A. Harris of Texas taken on September 2, 1924

via Library of Congress, no known restrictions