September 4 Birthday
On September 4, 1781, forty-four settlers — eleven families, mostly of African and Indigenous descent — established El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles, the Town of Our Lady the Queen of the Angels. The settlement was founded by Governor Felipe de Neve as a way station between Spanish missions. Los Angeles did not become a city until 1850, when California became a state. The original pobladores were predominantly mixed-race — a fact that was suppressed by later historians. Los Angeles is now the second-largest city in the United States. Geronimo, the Apache war leader, surrendered on September 4, 1886, at Skeleton Canyon, Arizona. He had led his band of thirty-six warriors on a year-long campaign, evading 5,000 American and Mexican soldiers. He surrendered to General Nelson Miles. He was sent to Florida as a prisoner of war, then to Alabama, then to Fort Sill, Oklahoma, where he lived for the rest of his life. He was never allowed to return to Arizona. He died in 1909 at seventy-nine. People born on September 4 fall under the zodiac sign of Virgo. The birthstone is Sapphire and the birth flower is Aster. Historical events on September 4 include 1781: Los Angeles founded by Spanish settlers (44 settlers, El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora), 1886: Apache chief Geronimo surrenders to US Army in Arizona, 1957: Arkansas governor blocks nine Black students from Little Rock Central High. Famous people born on September 4 include Richard Wright (1908), Mitzi Gaynor (1931), Wes Bentley (1978).