MOMENTS IN TIME

Aug 30, 20120

The History Channel

• On Sept. 13, 1814, Francis Scott Key pens a poem, which is later set to the music of a popular English drinking tune called “To Anacreon in Heaven.” In 1931 the song becomes America’s national anthem, “The Star-Spangled Banner.”

• On Sept. 10, 1897, a 25-year-old London taxi driver named George Smith becomes the first person ever arrested for drunk driving. A true breath test didn’t come along until 1931 with a device called the Drunkometer. It involved a blow-up balloon and a tube filled with a purple fluid (potassium permanganate and sulfuric acid). Alcohol on a person’s breath changed the color of the fluid from purple to yellow; the quicker the change, the drunker the person.

• On Sept. 14, 1927, dancer Isadora Duncan is strangled in Nice, France, when the enormous silk scarf she is wearing gets tangled in the rear hubcaps of her open car. The scarf wound around the axle, tightening around Duncan’s neck and dragging her from the car.

• On Sept. 16, 1940, the first peacetime draft in the history of the United States is imposed. Registration of men between the ages of 21 and 36 began exactly one month later. There were some 20 million eligible young men — 50 percent were rejected in the first year for health reasons or illiteracy.

• On Sept. 12, 1953, Massachusetts Sen. John F. Kennedy, the future 35th president of the United States, marries Jacqueline Bouvier in Newport, R.I. Seven years later, the couple would become the youngest president and first lady in American history.

• On Sept. 15, 1978, boxer Muhammad Ali defeats Leon Spinks at the Louisiana Superdome in New Orleans to win the world heavyweight boxing title for the third time in his career, the first fighter ever to do so. Ali left the sport permanently in 1981.

• On Sept. 11, 1985, Cincinnati Reds player-manager Pete Rose gets the 4,192nd hit of his career, breaking Ty Cobb’s major league record for career hits. Rose was a folk hero in Cincinnati, a homegrown talent known as “Charlie Hustle” for his relentless work ethic.