A Spanish flotilla sailed from the port of San Lucar in the mouth of the Guadalquivir River to circumnavigate the globe on this day in 1519. In keeping with an agreement with the Portuguese nobleman Fernando Magellan who led the expedition, King Carl I of Spain undertook to send out an estimated 300 men on five ships and provide them with food and all other necessities for a period of two years.  The flotilla led by the flagship Trinidad cleared Cape Horn at the southern tip of the American continent and sailing through a strait that was latter named after the daring Portuguese explorer, entered a new ocean theretofore unknown to Europeans.  Because the ocean was quiet throughout the nearly four-month trek, Magellan called it the Pacific Ocean.

Faddei Bellinsgausen, a Russian naval officer, was born on this day in 1778.  He took part in the first Russian circumnavigation and later led the first expedition to the Antarctic, the expedition that discovered the White Continent. 

September 21…

On this day in 862 the Russian city of Novgorod invited Varangian brothers Rurik, Sineus and Truvor to rule the Russian lands. On that day the Russian state was born…

On September 21 of 1799 a 20,000-strong Russian army led by Field Marshal Alexander Suvorov left for the legendary Swiss March crossing the Alps and beating back all attacks by the numerically stronger French forces. In recognition for that trying campaign Suvorov was promoted to the rank of Generalissimo. 

September 22…

Robert Walpole became the first British Prime Minister to settle at Downing Street 10 in London on this day in 1735. The house has since been the official residence of the British Prime Ministers. 

Pyotr Pallas, the Russian nature explorer who became the first to provide a detailed description of Russian flora and fauna, was born on this day in 1741. 

Russians built their first permanent settlement in Alaska on this day in 1784. 

On September 22 of 1789, at the height of the Russo-Turkish War, the Turkish army still hurting after the Foksany debacle in August launched a new offensive. Grand Vizier Yusuf Pasha was leading a 100,000 strong force against an 18,000 strong Austrian army led by Russia’s good ally, Prince of Coburg. Alexander Suvorov rushed to the rescue with 7,000 men and covering 100 kilometers in less than three days, assumed general command and immediately engaged the enemy destroying three Turkish camps one after another. Taken off guard, the Turks beat a hasty retreat. The allied Russian-Austrian army lost only 700 men killing more than 10,000 enemy troops and seizing vast Turkish supplies and artillery. For that victory Suvorov was given the title of Count by Emperor Pavel I and was made a Count of the Holy Roman Empire by the Austrian Emperor. 

On September 22 of 1980 the Iraqi troops invaded Iran at the start of a full-scale war between the two neighboring countries.  The Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein thus tried to resolve a border dispute with Iran where the Shah had just been ousted by an Islamic Revolution. The war that lasted for a eight years killed hundreds of thousands on both sides and left dozens of destroyed cities and burnet out land in its bloody wake. During the war Iraq was helped by the Western powers, which only recently had been thrown out of Iran by Ayatollah Khomeini. Along with the diplomatic, military and intelligence assistance to Baghdad, the Americans also attacked Iranian ships and offshore oil rigs in the Gulf. The West’s political honeymoon with Iraq came to an end in 1990 when Saddam Hussein sent his troops stomping into neighboring Kuwait and was immediately stigmatized as a devil incarnate. 

September 23…

On this day in 1846 in Berlin German astronomer Johann Gottfried Galle discovered the eighth planet of our solar system, the Neptune.

The great Russian writer Leo Tolstoy married Sofia Bers on this day in 1862. 48 years and 13 children later Sofya Tolstaya wrote in her diary that she still did not full know the man she once married.

On September 23 of 1938, during the World Fair in New York, they interred a container with a lady’s hat, a tobacco pipe and 1,100 microfilms to be opened in the year 6939.

September 24…

Iran’s Islamic leader the Ayatollah Khomeini was born in this day in 1902.  Coming to power following the overthrow of  Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, Khomeini revived the country’s traditional Islamic values and laws. 

British, US and Soviet representatives opened a conference in London on this day in 1941 adopting the so-called Atlantic Charter where the allies publicly outlined the goals of their joint fight against Nazi aggression. 

On September 24 of 1942, during the battle of Stalingrad, Olga Yamshchikova became the first Soviet woman   pilot to shoot down an enemy plane.

On September 24 of 1964 a special commission investigating the assassination of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy led by Chief Justice Earl  Warren ruled that Lee Harvey Oswald acted on his own and there was no evidence of a conspiracy. The  conclusions made by the Warren Commission were immediately cast in doubt by independent investigators and  15 yeas later a special panel set up by the US House of Representatives admitted there could have been  a second sniper and  a secret plot to kill President Kennedy. 

September 25…

The great Russian composer and 20th century classic Dmitry Shostakovich was born on this day in 1906.

On September 25 of 1968 Dorogoi Dlinnoyu became the first-ever Russian song to top the British music charts. Translated into English as Those Were the Days, it was performed by Mary Hopkin who, edging past the Beatles’ evergreen Hey Jude, stayed at the top of the chars for six consecutive weeks.

And we finally arrive at September 26…

On this day in 1580 at Plymouth Sir Francis Drake returned to England on board the Golden Deer completing his 2-year and 10-month circumnavigation of the globe thus becoming the first captain to safely complete such navigation. 

And on September 26 of 1965 Queen Elizabeth II of Britain awarded the Beatles knighthood in the Order of the British Empire.