Yesterday in History

(I missed them, but they're too important to let go...)

9/12/2006 was the 323rd anniversary of the Battle of Vienna, in which the Polish King Jan III Sobieski led the Holy League forces in victory over the Ottoman army, which had beseiged Vienna that July. (The battle actually began on 9/11/1683, a fact which has been noted by numerous commentators in the wake of the events of 9/11/2001.)

It was on yesterday's date in 1933 that Hungarian physicist Leó Szilárd, waiting for a red light in
Bloomsbury, England, conceived of the idea of the nuclear chain reaction.