Today in History: September 12

1609: The Dutch East India Co.’s Henry Hudson, looking for a shorter route to the East Indies, discovers the Hudson River instead.

1683: Allied forces under King John III Sobieski of Poland defeat a larger Turkish force and raise the Siege of Vienna, marking the turn of the tide for Muslim expansion into Europe.

1812: Richard March Hoe, who will revolutionize printing by inventing the rotary press, is born at New York City.

1818: Dr. Richard Jordan Gatling, M.D., best known as the inventor of the machine gun, is born at Hertford County, North Carolina.  He came up with the idea as a humanitarian effort to reduce the number of soldiers needed to fight a war.

1847: The captured members of St. Patrick’s Battalion, a unit of Irish Catholics who had deserted from the U.S. Army to fight for Mexico, are hanged en masse by order of General Winfield Scott.

1938:  The contract for the sale of a house is signed in Swinton v. Whitinsville Savings Bank.

1940: Four French teenagers discover some odd paintings inside a cave at Lascaux, France.

1959: The first regularly scheduled color TV program, Bonanza, premieres on NBC.

1993: TV’s most famous lawyer, Raymond “Perry Mason” Burr dies at Healdsburg, California.