What happened on this day in history: Legendary guitarist Jimi Hendrix dies in London, Patty Hearst is arrested for armed robbery, and more historical events that took place on September 18th.
1634: Anne Hutchinson Arrives In The New World
Englishwoman Anne Hutchinson arrives in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, from which she will be banished just four years later. Hutchinson was controversial for her religious views that salvation could be achieved by faith alone.
In 1637, she was put on trial and found guilty of heresy against the Puritan orthodoxy, as her teachings suggested that individuals didn’t need to attend church or follow church laws to go to Heaven. Banished from the colony, Hutchinson led a group of followers to Rhode Island, where they established a new settlement.
1709: Samuel Johnson Is Born
English poet and literary critic Samuel Johnson is born in Lichfield, England. He is perhaps best known for writing A Dictionary of the English Language, the preeminent dictionary for nearly 200 years until the Oxford English Dictionary was published in the late 19th century. Johnson single-handedly completed the dictionary over the course of eight years in “one of the greatest single achievements of scholarship.”
1959: “Lonely Hearts Killer” Harvey Glatman Is Executed
Bettmann/Getty ImagesHarvey Glatman in jail in 1958.
Harvey Glatman — also known as the “Lonely Hearts Killer” or the “Glamour Girl Slayer” — is executed for murdering at least three women. Starting in 1957, Glatman posed as a photographer and searched modeling agencies in Los Angeles for victims to tie up, photograph, sexually assault, and strangle before dumping their bodies in the desert. He was put to death in a gas chamber at San Quentin State Prison.
1970: Jimi Hendrix Dies
American guitarist Jimi Hendrix dies at the age of 27 after asphyxiating on his own vomit while intoxicated with barbiturates.
Monika DannemannJimi Hendrix’s girlfriend Monika Dannemann photographed him with the guitar he called Black Beauty on the day before he died.
His girlfriend, Monika Dannemann, found him unresponsive in her London hotel room and later told doctors that he had taken nine sleeping pills, while the recommended dosage was half a pill. The medical examiner found no evidence of suicidal intent, though a poem Hendrix wrote just hours before his death has many convinced otherwise.
1975: Patty Hearst Is Arrested For Armed Robbery
San Mateo County Sheriff’s Office/Wikimedia CommonsPatty Hearst’s booking photo following her arrest in San Francisco.
Newspaper heiress Patty Hearst is captured in her San Francisco apartment and arrested on charges of armed robbery.
Hearst had been kidnapped the previous year by the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA), but she later released a statement that she was joining the SLA of her own free will and was caught by a surveillance camera robbing a San Francisco bank. After going on the run for over a year, she was finally caught and put on trial.
