WikiPedia:Selected anniversaries/September

• 1715 - Louis XIV of France the "Sun King" died after a reign of 72 years, longer than any other French or other major European monarch.
• 1923 - Great Kanto earthquake devastated Tokyo and Yokohama, killing about 100,000 people.
• 1939 - After staging the Attack on Sender Gleiwitz the day before, Nazi Germany attacked Poland at Wielun and Westerplatte , starting World War II.
• 1951 - Australia, New Zealand and the United States signed a mutual defense pact known as the ANZUS Treaty.
• 1983 - The civilian airliner Korean Air Flight 7, carrying 246 passengers and 23 crew, was shot down by Soviet fighters.

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• 31 BC - Forces of Octavian defeated troops under Mark Antony and Cleopatra in the Battle of Actium.
• 1898 - Troops led by Sir Horatio Kitchener defeated Sudanese tribesmen in the Battle of Omdurman, establishing British dominance in northeastern Africa.
• 1945 - The Japanese Instrument of Surrender was signed on the deck of the USS Missouri, formally ending World War II.
• 1963 - CBS Evening News became network television's first half-hour weeknight news broadcast.

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• 301 - San Marino, one of the smallest nations in the world and the world's oldest republic still in existence, was founded by Saint Marinus.
• 1189 - Richard I of England was crowned in Westminster.
• 1783 - Signing of the Treaty of Paris ended the American Revolutionary War.
• 1878 - The passenger steamship Princess Alice sunk in the Thames, over 600 died.
• 1967 - Dagen H in Sweden: traffic changed from driving on the left to driving on the right.
• 1976 - The Viking 2 spacecraft landed on Mars and took the first close-up, color photos of the planet's surface.

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• 476 - Romulus Augustus, the last emperor of the Western Roman Empire, was deposed.
• 1781 - Los Angeles was founded as El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles del Río de Porciúncula by 44 Spanish settlers.
• 1870 - France's Third Republic was declared.
• 1888 - Inventor George Eastman registered the trademark "Kodak".
• 1957 - Little Rock Crisis: The Governor of Arkansas in the US tried to prevent nine African-American students from attending Little Rock Central High School in defiance of the US supreme court orders.

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• 1666 - The Great Fire of London ended after burning for three days.
• 1793 - Reign of Terror began: The French National Convention voted to implement terror measures to repress French Revolutionary activities.
• 1836 - Sam Houston was elected as the first president of the Republic of Texas.
• 1905 - The Treaty of Portsmouth was signed by victor Japan and defeated party Russia, ending the Russo-Japanese War.
• 1972 - Munich Massacre: A Palestinian terrorist group called "Black September" attacked Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympic Games.

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• 1522 - The Victoria, carrying Juan Sebastián Elcano and 17 survivors of Ferdinand Magellan's 265-man expedition, returned to Sanlúcar de Barrameda, Spain, becoming the first ship to circumnavigate the globe.
• 1901 - U.S. President William McKinley was fatally wounded by anarchist Leon Czolgosz at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York.
• 1948 - Juliana became Queen of the Netherlands.
• 1941 - Holocaust: In areas controlled by Nazi Germany, all Jews over the age of 6 were required to wear the Star of David.
• 1991 - The USSR recognized the independence of the Baltic states.

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• 1191 - Saladin was defeated by the Crusaders in the Battle of Arsuf.
• 1818 - Carl III of Sweden was crowned king of Norway.
• 1940 - The Blitz began when Nazi Germany bombs landed on London, the first of 57 consecutive nights of bombing.
• 1986 - Desmond Tutu became the first black to lead the Anglican Church in South Africa.
• 1997 - The first test flight of the F/A-22 Raptor took place.

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• 1331 - Stefan Dušan declared himself King of Serbia
• 1900 - The Galveston Hurricane of 1900 killed about 8,000 people.
• 1923 - Seven United States Navy destroyers ran aground off the California coast in the Honda Point Disaster.
• 1941 - World War II: German forces began the Siege of Leningrad.
• 1978 - Hundreds of demonstrators in Tehran were killed on Black Friday during the Iranian Revolution.

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• 1850 - California was admitted as the thirty-first U.S. state.
• 1942 - Pacific War: A Japanese floatplane dropped an incendiary bomb on Oregon.
• 1945 - Grace Hopper logged a computer failure caused by a moth trapped in a relay; this incident is jokingly referred to as the first computer bug.
• 1971 - The Attica Prison riots broke out at the Attica Correctional Facility in Attica, New York.
• 2001 - Ahmed Shah Massoud, leader of the Northern Alliance, was assassinated in Afghanistan.

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• 1813 - The Battle of Lake Erie was fought between the United States and Great Britain.
• 1823 - Simón Bolívar was named President of Peru.
• 1960 - Mickey Mantle hit what is thought to be the Major League's longest home run an estimated 643 feet.
• 1990 - The Basilica of Our Lady of Peace of Yamoussoukro, the largest church in Africa, was consecrated by Pope John Paul II.
• 2003 - Anna Lindh, the foreign minister of Sweden, was fatally stabbed.

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• 1297 - Scots under William Wallace defeated English troops in the Battle of Stirling Bridge.
• 1922 - The British Mandate of Palestine began.
• 1973 - A military coup in Chile headed by General Augusto Pinochet toppled the elected Socialist government of President Salvador Allende.
• 1992 - Hurricane Iniki hit the the U.S. state of Hawaii, killing six and causing more than US$3 billion dollars of damage.
• 2001 - September 11 Attacks: Three passenger airliners were hijacked to destroy the World Trade Center in New York City and part of The Pentagon in Washington, D.C., and a fourth crashed in Pennsylvania. In total, almost 3,000 people were killed.

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• 1683 - Several European armies joined forces to defeat the Ottoman Empire at the Battle of Vienna
• 1933 - Leó Szilárd, waiting for a red light on Southampton Row in Bloomsbury, conceived of the idea of the nuclear chain reaction
• 1942 - The Laconia incident: RMS Laconia, carrying some 80 civilians and 268 British soldiers, and about 1800 Italian POWs with 160 Polish soldiers on guard, was hit by a torpedo from a U-boat off the coast of West Africa and sank.
• 1977 - South African anti-apartheid activist Steve Biko was killed in police custody.
• 1990 - The Two Plus Four Agreement was signed, paving the way for German re-unification.

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• 533 - Belisarius' legions defeated Gelimer and the Vandals at the Battle of Ad Decimum, beginning the "Reconquest of the West" under Eastern Roman Emperor Justinian I.
• 1759 - General James Wolfe was fatally wounded, but he died happy, knowing that his British forces had defeated the French at the Battle of the Plains of Abraham near Quebec City, New France, a decisive battle in the French and Indian War.
• 1814 - The battle for Fort McHenry outside Baltimore inspired Francis Scott Key to pen The Star-Spangled Banner.
• 1987 - Goiânia accident: A radioactive object was stolen from an abandoned hospital in Goiânia, Brazil, contaminating many people.
• 1993 - After rounds of secret negotiations in Norway, the Oslo Peace Accords were formally signed by PLO leader Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin at a public ceremony in Washington D.C.

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• 786 - Harun al-Rashid became the Abbasid caliph upon the death of his brother al-Hadi.
• 1752 - The British Empire adopted the Gregorian calendar, skipping eleven days (September 2 was followed directly by September 14 this year).
• 1812 - The Russian army set Moscow on fire to prevent Napoleon from capturing the city.
• 1901 - Theodore Roosevelt became President of the United States.
• 1959 - The Soviet probe Luna 2 crashed onto and became the first man-made object to reach the Moon.
• 1960 - The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) was founded by Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Venezuela and Saudi Arabia.

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• 1835 - Aboard the HMS Beagle, Charles Darwin reached the Galápagos Islands, where he began to develop his theories of evolution.
• 1916 - Tanks, the "secret weapons" of the British Army during World War I, were first used in combat at the Battle of the Somme.
• 1935 - Nazi Germany adopted the Nuremberg Laws, which deprived German Jews of citizenship, and a new national flag with the Swastika.
• 1950 - Incheon Landing: United States forces landed at Incheon, Korea.
• 1952 - United Nations gave Eritrea to Ethiopia.

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• 1597 - Twelve ships of the Korean navy led by Admiral Yi Sun-sin sank 31 of 133 enemy ships and defeated a Japanese invasion.
• 1941 - Reza Pahlavi the Shah of Persia was forced to resign in favor of his son, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.
• 1963 - Malaya, Singapore, North Borneo and Sarawak merged to form Malaysia.
• 1982 - The Phalange, a Lebanese militia, carried out a massacre in the Palestinian refugee camp of Sabra and Shatila.
• 1992 - Black Wednesday: The British Pound Sterling was forced out of the European Exchange Rate Mechanism and suffered a major devaluation.

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• 1787 - The text of the United States Constitution was finalized in Philadelphia.
• 1809 - The Treaty of Fredrikshamn concluded the Finnish War between Russia and Sweden, and Finland became an autonomous Grand Duchy under Czar Alexander I.
• 1894 - Japanese and Chinese navies clashed at Battle of Yalu River, the largest naval engagement of the First Sino-Japanese War.
• 1976 - The first Space Shuttle, Enterprise, was unveiled by NASA.
• 1978 - The Camp David Accords were signed by Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin.

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• 96 - Nerva became Roman Emperor, ending the Flavian dynasty, and the era of the Five Good Emperors began.
• 1850 - The United States Congress passed the Fugitive Slave Act.
• 1851 - New York Times began publishing.
• 1895 - Daniel David Palmer made the first chiropractic adjustment.
• 1931 - The Mukden Incident: A section of a Japanese-built railroad was allegedly destroyed by Chinese terrorists, providing an excuse for the Japanese annexation of Manchuria.

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• 1356 - Hundred Years' War: Despite a shortage of arrows, English and Welsh forces led by Edward the Black Prince decisively won the Battle of Poitiers and took King Jean II of France as captive back to England.
• 1692 - Giles Corey, who had refused to enter a plea, was pressed to his death during the Salem witch trials.
• 1893 - Women's suffrage: Women in New Zealand gained the right to vote, as the country became the first to introduce universal suffrage.
• 1982 - ":-)" and ":-(" were first proposed by Scott Fahlman for use as emoticons .
• 1995 - The Unabomber's Manifesto was published in The Washington Post and The New York Times, almost three months after it was submitted.

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• 451 - Attila, king of the Huns, invaded Gaul, but was defeated by Aetius with the help of Roman Foederati in the Battle of Chalons.
• 1378 - Papal Schism: Unhappy with the behavior of Pope Urban VI, a group of cardinals elected a rival papacy in Antipope Clement VII, throwing the Church into a turmoil.
• 1854 - The Crimean War began with a Franco-British victory over Russian forces at the Battle of Alma.
• 1946 - The first Cannes Film Festival began. Eleven films shared the Palme d'Or that year.
• 1973 - Billie Jean King thrashed Bobby Riggs in straight sets before 30,492 spectators at the Astrodome in Houston, Texas in an internationally televised tennis match dubbed as the "Battle of the Sexes".

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• 454 - Roman Emperor Valentinian III killed Aetius in his own throne room.
• 1792 - French Revolution: The National Convention voted to abolish the monarchy, and the First Republic was proclaimed.
• 1898 - The Hundred Days' Reform in China was abruptly terminated when Empress Dowager Cixi forced the reform-minded Guangxu Emperor into seclusion and took over the government as regent.
• 1937 - J. R. R. Tolkien's The Hobbit, a prequel to The Lord of the Rings, was first published, with many black-and-white drawings by Tolkien himself.
• 2003 - After 14 years of flight time and 8 years of service in the Jovian system, Galileo spacecraft's mission was terminated by sending the probe into Jupiter's atmosphere.

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• 1862 - The Emancipation Proclamation was issued by the Lincoln administration.
• 1869 - Richard Wagner's opera Das Rheingold debuted in Munich.
• 1961 - Peace Corps was founded. Within two years, over 7,300 Peace Corps volunteers were serving in 44 countries.
• 1980 - Iraq launched an invasion of Iran, starting the Iran-Iraq War.
• 1989 - Famed American composer Irving Berlin died in his sleep at age 101.

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• 1459 - The Battle of Blore Heath, the first major battle of the Wars of the Roses, was fought at Blore Heath, in Staffordshire, England. At least 3,000 men died.
• 1846 - Neptune, the eighth planet from the sun, was discovered by French astronomer Urbain Jean Joseph Le Verrier, British astronomer John Couch Adams and German astronomer Johann Gottfried Galle.
• 1932 - Hejaz and Nejd were unified and became the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, with Abdul Aziz bin Abdul Rahman ibn Faisal Al Saud as the first monarch and Riyadh as the capital city.

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• 1664 - In the Second Anglo-Dutch War, the Netherlands surrendered to England a fortified settlement in the New Netherland colony known as New Amsterdam, which would eventually become New York City.
• 1841 - Sultan of Brunei granted Sarawak to British adventurer James Brooke, who subsequently became the Rajah.
• 1869 - "Black Friday": Gold prices plummeted as a group of speculators, headed by Jay Gould and James Fisk, plotted but failed to control the market.
• 1948 - Soichiro Honda founded the Honda Motor Co., Ltd. and began manufacturing motorcycles.

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• 1066 - King Harold Godwinson of England and his army defeated a Norwegian army under King Harald Hardråde at the Battle of Stamford Bridge outside the city of York, marking the end of Viking invasions from Scandinavia.
• 1890 - As envisioned by John Muir, the Yosemite National Park in California was established.
• 1955 - The Royal Jordanian Air Force was founded.
• 1962 - The People's Democratic Republic of Algeria was formally proclaimed, and Ferhat Abbas was elected the President of the provisional government.
• 1996 - The last Magdalen Asylum in Ireland was closed.

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• 1687 - The Parthenon in Athens was partially destroyed during an armed conflict between Venetian and Ottoman forces.
• 1907 - New Zealand became a dominion within the British Empire.
• 1957 - West Side Story, a musical written by Arthur Laurents, Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim, and produced and directed by Jerome Robbins, made its debut on Broadway.
• 1983 - Lieutenant Colonel Stanislav Petrov of the Soviet Union averted a worldwide nuclear war.

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• 1540 - Pope Paul III gave the final approval to the formation of the Society of Jesus by St. Ignatius of Loyola.
• 1940 - The Tripartite Pact was signed in Berlin by the major Axis Powers — Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and the Empire of Japan.
• 1983 - Richard Stallman announced the GNU project to develop a free Unix-like operating system.
• 1996 - The Taliban drove President Burhanuddin Rabbani out of the Afghan capital of Kabul, executed former President Mohammad Najibullah, and established the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.

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• 1066 - William the Conqueror and his invasion fleet of around 600 ships and an army of 7000 reached England and landed at Pevensey, Sussex.
• 1542 - Portuguese explorer Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo, the first European to travel the California coast, landed on what is now San Diego.
• 1820 - The tomato was publicly proved safe when Robert Johnson ate a bushel of tomatoes outside a courthouse in Salem, New Jersey.
• 1994 - The M/S Estonia, a ferry commuting between Tallinn, Estonia and Stockholm, Sweden, sank. 852 people drowned or were frozen to death in the cold water in one of the worst maritime accidents on the Baltic Sea.

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