Today in History, September 27th
On September 27, 1822, Champollion announced he had deciphered the Rosetta Stone. Plus the Tripartite Pact and Silent Spring.
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September 27 is best known for 1822, when Jean-François Champollion announced in Paris that he had cracked the Rosetta Stone and, with it, Egyptian hieroglyphs. The date also saw Germany, Italy and Japan sign the Tripartite Pact in 1940 and Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring published in 1962.
The big story: Champollion cracks the Rosetta Stone (1822)
For centuries, nobody could read ancient Egypt’s hieroglyphs. Then, in July 1799, a large slab of granodiorite turned up in Egypt carrying one text written several ways, including demotic, a quick shorthand form of Egyptian writing, and ancient Greek. Scholars could read the Greek, which made the stone a key, if anyone could figure out how to turn it. A young French linguist named Jean-François Champollion did. On September 14, 1822, the story goes, he rushed into his brother’s office, announced that he had it, and promptly collapsed. He needed five days to recover. On September 27, 1822, he presented his decipherment to the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres in Paris. The message itself turned out to be less thrilling than the code: it was official praise for Ptolemy V, a Macedonian king of Egypt, essentially political advertising carved in stone. But the method opened up thousands of years of Egyptian writing to modern readers.
More events on September 27
| Year | What happened |
|---|---|
| 622 | By a traditional reckoning, the Prophet Muhammad completed his journey, the Hegira, from Mecca to Medina. The move later marked year one of the Muslim calendar. |
| 1066 | William, duke of Normandy, set sail for England, launching the Norman Conquest. |
| 1540 | Pope Paul III approved the Society of Jesus, the Jesuit order founded by Ignatius of Loyola. |
| 1777 | The Continental Congress met in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, making the town the American capital for a single day. |
| 1888 | London’s Central News Agency received the “Dear Boss” letter, signed by a writer calling himself “Jack the Ripper.” |
| 1939 | Warsaw surrendered to German forces, and about 140,000 Polish troops were taken prisoner. |
| 1940 | Germany, Italy and Japan signed the Tripartite Pact, forming the Axis alliance. |
| 1954 | The Tonight Show premiered, then called Tonight!, with Steve Allen as host. |
| 1962 | Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring was published, warning about pesticide damage and helping start the modern U.S. environmental movement. |
| 1996 | The Taliban, led by Mohammad Omar, seized Kabul and declared Afghanistan an Islamic state. |
| 2008 | Astronaut Zhai Zhigang made China’s first spacewalk. |
Born on September 27
- 1601: Louis XIII, king of France who, with Cardinal Richelieu, made France a leading European power, born at Fontainebleau.
- 1840: Thomas Nast, political cartoonist who popularized the modern Santa Claus and the Democratic donkey and Republican elephant, born in Landau, Germany.
- 1972: Gwyneth Paltrow, Oscar-winning actress and founder of the lifestyle brand goop, born in Los Angeles.
Sources
- Rosetta Stone code is cracked, History.com
- This Day in History: September 27, History.com
- On This Day: September 27, Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Louis XIII, Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Thomas Nast, Biography.com
- Gwyneth Paltrow, Encyclopaedia Britannica
