| September 14, 1918 |
 | Eugene V. Debs was sentenced to ten years in prison for opposing U.S. entry into World War I. Debs had been an elected official in Indiana, a labor organizer, writer and editor, had founded the first industrial union in the U.S., the American Railway Union, and had run for President four times on the Socialist Party ticket. |
| He ran again for president from prison in 1920 with the slogan “From Atlanta Prison to the White House,” and received nearly one million. Learn more about Eugene V. Debs |
| September 14, 1940 Congress passed the Selective Service Act, providing for the first peacetime draft (though Japan had already invaded China in 1937 and Germany had invaded Poland and Czechoslovakia in 1939) in U.S. history.  |
| September 14, 1948 A groundbreaking ceremony took place in New York City at the site of the United Nations’ world headquarters.  The site selected for the permanentheadquarters of the United Nations as it was in 1946. The 39-story building on 18 acres of Manhattan’s Turtle Bay neighborhood (donated by John D. Rockefeller, Jr.) on the East River. It is a major expression of the International Style with its simple geometric form and glass curtain wall, designed principally by Le Corbusier.  The UN building todayBackground and more examples of the minimalist, utilitarian International style |
| September 14, 1963 The ABC television network invited singer, songwriter, banjo player and activist Pete Seeger to appear on its Saturday night folk and acoustic music show, Hootenanny, despite the fact that he had been blacklisted.  But the invitation stood only if he’d sign an oath of loyalty to the U.S. He described his reaction: “This is ridiculous. I’d sign ’em, if you sign ’em, and everybody who’s born will sign ’em, then we’d all be clean.” In the 1940s Seeger traveled throughout the country with Woody Guthrie, performing at union meetings, strikes and demonstrations. After World War II, he and Lee Hays co-founded the Weavers, the legendary folk group that gained commercial success despite being blacklisted. A Pete Seeger Biography More about Hootenanny |
September 14, 1964 The Free Speech Movement began at the University of California-Berkeley when its Dean Katherine Towle (pronounced toll) announced that existing University regulations prohibiting advocacy of political causes or candidates, signing of members, and collection of funds by student organizations at the corner of Bancroft and Telegraph, would henceforth be ”strictly enforced.”  Read more |
| September 14, 1982 Wisconsin became the first to approve a statewide referendum calling for a freeze on all testing of nuclear weapons. |
| September 14, 1990 The Pentagon announced a $20 billion arms sale to Saudi Arabia. Saddam Hussein’s Iraq (Saudi Arabia’s eastern neighbor) had invaded Kuwait six weeks earlier.  Saud royal family |
| September 14, 1991 The South African government, the African National Congress, the Inkatha Freedom Party, a total of forty organizations, signed the National Peace Accord. It led to the country’s first multi-racial elections and the end of South Africa’s racially separatist apartheid (literally separateness in the Afrikaans language) political, economic and social system by 1994. “ Bearing in mind the values which we hold, be these religious or humanitarian, we pledge ourselves with integrity of purpose to make this land a prosperous one where we can all live, work and play together in peace and harmony.” Background of the conflict |
https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistoryseptember.htm#september14
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