Today in History: September 21

1558: Charles V — the half-German, half-Spanish, Dutch-born, French-speaking Emperor who abdicated his throne as the most powerful European since the days of the Roman Empire — dies at the monastery of Yuste in Spain.

1756: John Loudon MacAdam is born at Ayr, Scotland.  As surveyor for the Bristol Turnpike Trust, he’ll develop a new means of making all-weather roads which will come to be known as “macadamization”; when asphalt is later added to the mix it will be called “tarmacadam,” or “tarmac.”

1897: The New York Sun publishes the most reprinted editorial in history, “Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus.”

1937: George Allen & Unwin, Ltd., publishes a new novel by an Oxford professor of Anglo-Saxon.  The Hobbit, or There and Back Again, proves an unexpected success.

1947: Writer Stephen King is born at Portland, Maine.  He’ll get a $2,500 advance for his first book, Carrie.

1957: King Haakon VII of Norway, who in 1926 became the only foreign head of state to visit Lake Wobegon, Minnesota, dies at age 85.

1970: One of TV’s great franchises, Monday Night Football, debuts on the ABC Television Network, making an unlikely star of former NYU Law Review editor Howard Cosell.