Today in History: September 23
490 BC: A Greek soldier, Pheidippides, runs the first Marathon and dies.
1241: Poet-historian-politician Snorri Sturleson is killed at Reykholt in western Iceland after taking part in an unsuccessful revolt against King Haakon IV of Norway.
1529: After massacring 4,000 the civilians who fled the city — young women suitable for slavery excepted — Suleiman the Magnificent begins the siege of Vienna with an army of 100,000 men and 300 cannons.
1728: Christian Thomasius, the first German law professor to lecture in the vernacular instead of German (at the University of Halle), dies at 73.
1806: Meriwether Lewis and William Clark return from their long trip.
1912: Mack Sennett’s new Keystone Film Co. releases its first “Keystone Kops” feature, Hoffmeyer’s Legacy.
1943: Elinor Glyn, sister of Lucy, Lady Duff Gordon, and inventor of the modern bodice-ripping novel, dies at age 78.