MNN - Mother Nature Network

Sept. 23, 1942: Hard-charging Brig. Gen. Leslie Groves is put in charge of the Manhattan Project, the U.S. effort to build a nuclear weapon. Groves’ major public accomplishments up to this point had been the building and management of the 1937-38 New York World’s Fair and the Pentagon in 1941.

 

Sept. 23, 1979: 200,000 people attend the “No Nukes” rally at New York’s Battery Park. Jackson Browne, Bruce Springsteen, James Taylor, Carly Simon, Tom Petty, Bonnie Raitt, and Crosby, Stills and Nash perform. John Hall, lead singer for the band Orleans, leads the ensemble in a song called “Power.” In 2006, Hall (at right) is elected to Congress, but loses his seat in 2010. 

 

Sept. 23, 1988: The feature film "Gorillas in the Mist" is released in the U.S. Sigourney Weaver plays primate researcher Dian Fossey, whose groundbreaking, courageous, tempestuous work on studying and protecting mountain gorillas ultimately results in her brutal murder. Weaver continues to serve as honorary chair of the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund.