Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/September

September 1: Labour Day in Canada and Labor Day in the United States (2025)

Illuminated Guru Granth Sahib folio

• 1145 – The main altar of Lund Cathedral, then the Catholic cathedral of all the Nordic countries, was dedicated to Saint Lawrence and the Virgin Mary.
• 1604 – The Guru Granth Sahib (folio depicted), the religious text of Sikhism, was installed in the Golden Temple in Amritsar.
• 1859 – A powerful solar flare caused a coronal mass ejection that struck Earth a few hours later, generating the most intense geomagnetic storm ever recorded and causing bright aurorae visible in the middle latitudes.
• 1911 – Construction began on the Saline Valley salt tram, which during its operation was the steepest tram in the United States.
• 1972 – In a match widely publicized as a Cold War confrontation, American chess grandmaster Bobby Fischer became the 11th World Chess Champion with his victory over Soviet Boris Spassky.

September 2:National Day in Vietnam (1945)

Principality of Sealand

• 1789 – The United States Department of the Treasury was founded following financial concerns in the new nation.
• 1792 – French Revolution: Due to an overwhelming fear that foreign armies would attack Paris and prisoners would revolt, revolutionaries began the summary execution of more than a thousand prisoners.
• 1946 – The interim government of India, headed by Jawaharlal Nehru, was formed to assist the transition of India from British rule to independence.
• 1957 – South Vietnamese president Ngô Đình Diệm began an official visit to Australia, the first by a foreign incumbent head of state to the country.
• 1967 – Paddy Roy Bates proclaimed HM Fort Roughs, a former World War II Maunsell Sea Fort in the North Sea off the coast of Suffolk, England, as an independent sovereign state: the Principality of Sealand (pictured).

September 3

Royal Exhibition Building, Melbourne

• 36 BC – The Sicilian revolt against the Second Triumvirate of the Roman Republic ended when the fleet of Sextus Pompey, the rebel leader, was defeated at the Battle of Naulochus.
• 1411 – The Treaty of Selymbria was concluded between the Republic of Venice and the Ottoman prince Musa Çelebi.
• 1901 – At the Royal Exhibition Building (pictured) in Melbourne, the flag of Australia flew for the first time.
• 1987 – While he was abroad, Burundian president Jean-Baptiste Bagaza was deposed in a military coup d'état by Pierre Buyoya.
• 2017 – North Korea conducted its sixth and most powerful nuclear test at Punggye-ri, causing a magnitude-6.3 earthquake.

September 4

Damage from the Canterbury earthquake in Christchurch

• 476 – Germanic leader Odoacer captured Ravenna and deposed Emperor Romulus Augustus, marking the fall of the Western Roman Empire.
• 1800 – French Revolutionary Wars: Facing starvation and a death rate of 100 soldiers per day, the French garrison in Malta surrendered to British forces, ending a two-year siege.
• 1843 – The state wedding of Teresa Cristina of the Two Sicilies and Emperor Pedro II of Brazil took place at the Cathedral of Rio de Janeiro.
• 1977 – The Golden Dragon massacre occurred in Chinatown, San Francisco, leaving five dead and spurring police to end Chinese gang violence in the city.
• 2010 – A magnitude-7.1 earthquake (damage pictured) struck the Canterbury Region of New Zealand, causing two deaths and up to NZ$40 billion in damages.

September 5

Squeaky Fromme

• 1367 – Swa Saw Ke was crowned the ruler of the Kingdom of Ava in Upper Myanmar.
• 1816 – Facing rising discontent in France, Louis XVIII was forced to dissolve the Chambre introuvable, the legislature dominated by Ultra-royalists.
• 1887 – A fire that killed 186 people broke out at the Theatre Royal, Exeter, England.
• 1964 – Hurricane Cleo dissipated after causing 156 deaths, mainly in Haiti, and causing roughly US$187 million in damages across the Caribbean and southeastern United States.
• 1975 – Squeaky Fromme (pictured), a devotee of Charles Manson, attempted to assassinate U.S. president Gerald Ford in Sacramento, California.

September 6: Defence Day in Pakistan (1965)

Hurricane Irma

• 1492 – Christopher Columbus set sail from San Sebastián de La Gomera in the Canary Islands on his first voyage across the Atlantic, discovering the Americas.
• 1566 – Suleiman the Magnificent, the longest-reigning sultan of the Ottoman Empire, died at the age of 71.
• 1970 – Black September: The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine hijacked four airliners, landing two at Dawson's Field in Jordan and one in Cairo, while the last hijacking attempt was foiled near London.
• 2017 – Hurricane Irma (pictured) reached peak intensity near the Caribbean islands of Barbuda, Saint Martin, and Virgin Gorda.
• 2022 – Liz Truss succeeded Boris Johnson as prime minister following the July 2022 United Kingdom government crisis.

September 7

The last thylacine

• 1652 – Chinese peasants on Formosa (now Taiwan) began a rebellion against Dutch rule which was suppressed four days later.
• 1778 – Anglo-French War: Having established an alliance with the United States, France invaded the Caribbean island of Dominica and captured its British fort.
• 1936 – The last thylacine (pictured) died in captivity in Hobart Zoo, Australia.
• 1940 – Second World War: The Luftwaffe changed their strategy in the Battle of Britain and began bombing London and other cities and towns.
• 2010 – A Chinese fishing trawler operating in disputed waters collided with Japan Coast Guard patrol boats near the Senkaku Islands, sparking a major diplomatic dispute between the two countries.

September 8: Victory Day in Malta

Queen Elizabeth II in 1959

• 617 – Li Yuan defeated a Sui army at the Battle of Huoyi, opening the path to his capture of the Chinese imperial capital Chang'an and the eventual establishment of the Tang dynasty.
• 1565 – St. Augustine, Florida, the oldest continuously occupied settlement of European origin in the contiguous United States, was founded by Spanish admiral Pedro Menéndez de Avilés.
• 1831 – William IV and Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen were crowned King and Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.
• 1966 – The science fiction show Star Trek made its American premiere with "The Man Trap", launching a media franchise that has since created a cult phenomenon and has influenced the design of many current technologies.
• 2022 – Queen Elizabeth II (pictured) died at Balmoral Castle in Scotland; her eldest son Charles III acceded to the throne as King of the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth realms.

September 9

John Lennon

• AD 9 – Germanic Wars: An alliance of Germanic tribes led by Arminius engaged Roman forces at the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest, defeating three legions within a few days.
• 1141 – Yelü Dashi, the Liao general who founded the Qara Khitai, defeated Seljuq and Kara-Khanid forces at the Battle of Qatwan, near Samarkand in present-day Uzbekistan.
• 1796 – French Revolutionary Wars: A naval engagement between French and British fleets off the coast of Sumatra ended inconclusively.
• 1954 – A magnitude-6.7 earthquake struck near Chlef, killing over 1,200 people and forcing the Algerian government to implement comprehensive reforms in building codes.
• 1971 – Imagine, the second solo album by John Lennon (pictured), was released.

September 10

Portland Vase

• 1724 – Johann Sebastian Bach led the first performance of Jesu, der du meine Seele, BWV 78, a chorale cantata based on a passion hymn by Johann Rist.
• 1779 – American Revolutionary War: Captain William Pickles of the Continental Navy boarded and captured the British sloop HMS West Florida at the Battle of Lake Pontchartrain.
• 1845 – John Doubleday completed a "masterly" restoration of the Portland Vase (pictured), which had been smashed into hundreds of pieces seven months prior.
• 1974 – After centuries of Portuguese rule, the country of Guinea-Bissau was formally recognized as independent.
• 2000 – British forces freed soldiers and civilians who had been held captive by the militant group the West Side Boys, contributing to the end of the Sierra Leone Civil War.

September 11: National Day of Catalonia

Alexander Hamilton

• 1297 – First War of Scottish Independence: Scottish forces under Andrew Moray and William Wallace defeated English troops at the Battle of Stirling Bridge on the River Forth.
• 1789 – Alexander Hamilton (pictured), co-writer of The Federalist Papers, became the first U.S. Secretary of the Treasury.
• 1978 – British medical photographer Janet Parker became the last recorded person to die from smallpox, leading to a debate on whether the virus should be preserved.
• 1995 – Mir EO-19, the first expedition to the Russian space station Mir launched on an American Space Shuttle, returned to Earth after approximately 75 days in space.

September 12

Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Robert Browning

• 379 – Yax Nuun Ahiin I took the throne as the ruler (ajaw) of the Mayan city of Tikal.
• 1846 – The English poets Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Browning (both pictured) married in secret to avoid their disapproving families before moving to Italy.
• 1933 – Hungarian-American physicist Leo Szilard conceived of the idea of the nuclear chain reaction while waiting for a traffic light in Bloomsbury, London.
• 1948 – The People's Liberation Army launched the Liaoshen campaign, the first of the three major military campaigns during the late stage of the Chinese Civil War.
• 1995 – Hurricane Ismael formed off the southwest coast of Mexico; it went on to kill over a hundred people in the country.

September 13

Model of the Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus

• 509 BC – According to Roman tradition, the Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus (depicted), the most important temple in ancient Rome, was dedicated.
• 1567 – The siege of Inabayama Castle, the final battle in Oda Nobunaga's campaign to conquer Mino Province, began; it culminated in a decisive victory for Nobunaga.
• 1919 – The Boston police strike ended after four days of rule by the state militia, the deaths of nine people, and accusations that striking officers were "agents of Lenin".
• 2005 – A software bug caused a simulated pandemic in the online video game World of Warcraft, serving as a model for epidemiologists to understand how human interaction influences disease outbreaks.

September 14

HMAS AE1

• AD 81 – Domitian, the last Flavian emperor of Rome, was confirmed by the Senate to succeed his brother Titus.
• 919 – Viking activity in the British Isles: A coalition of native Irish, led by Niall Glúndub, failed in their attempt to drive the Vikings of the Uí Ímair from Ireland.
• 1863 – American Civil War: The Little Rock campaign ended with the Union Army capturing Little Rock, Arkansas.
• 1914 – HMAS AE1 (pictured), the Royal Australian Navy's first submarine, was lost at sea; its wreck was not found until 2017.
• 1989 – Typhoon Sarah dissipated after causing extensive damage along an erratic path across the Western Pacific, killing 71 in Taiwan, the Philippines, and the Gotō Islands.

September 15: Battle of Britain Day in the United Kingdom (1940)

1831 illustration of the L&M Railway

• 1462 – The Ottoman conquest of Lesbos ended upon the surrender of commander Niccolò Gattilusio; the conquering Mehmed II executed 300 Italian soldiers by chopping them in half, claiming he was fulfilling a promise to "spare their heads".
• 1830 – The Liverpool and Manchester Railway (L&M) (depicted), the first locomotive-hauled railway to connect two major cities, opened with the Duke of Wellington in attendance.
• 1954 – The scene in The Seven Year Itch of Marilyn Monroe standing in a white dress over a subway grate was filmed by Billy Wilder.
• 2013 – The Belarusian serial killer Ivan Kulesh murdered two saleswomen in Lida.

September 16

Western terminus of the Northern Xinjiang railway

• 681 – At the Third Council of Constantinople, Pope Honorius I was posthumously excommunicated, with his support for monothelitism deemed to be heretical.
• 1844 – Felix Mendelssohn completed the score of his Violin Concerto, his final concerto.
• 1979 – Eight people escaped from East Germany to West Germany in a home-made hot air balloon.
• 1990 – Construction of the Northern Xinjiang railway (terminus pictured) was completed between Ürümqi South and Alashankou, linking the railway lines of China and Kazakhstan and adding a sizeable portion to the Eurasian Land Bridge.

September 17: Constitution Day in the United States

• 1176 – Byzantine–Seljuk wars: At the Battle of Myriokephalon in Phrygia, the Seljuq Turks prevented Byzantine forces from taking the interior of Anatolia.
• 1630 – Puritan settlers from England founded the city of Boston in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, naming it after Boston, Lincolnshire, the origin of several prominent colonists.
• 1939 – World War II: The Soviet Union invaded Poland from the east, sixteen days after Nazi Germany's attack on the country from the west.
• 1985 – Four years after AIDS was first identified in the United States, Ronald Reagan publicly acknowledged AIDS (video featured) for the first time.
• 2011 – Adbusters, a Canadian anti-consumerist publication, organized a protest against corporate influence on democracy at Zuccotti Park in New York City that became known as Occupy Wall Street.

September 18

Interior of the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden

• AD 96 – Nerva, the first of the "Five Good Emperors" of ancient Rome, came to power following the assassination of his predecessor Domitian.
• 1809 – The second Theatre Royal, Covent Garden (interior pictured), opened in London after the original was destroyed by fire.
• 1875 – The Indianola hurricane dissipated over Mississippi after killing around eight hundred people in Texas.
• 1961 – An aircraft crashed near Ndola in Northern Rhodesia, resulting in the deaths of 16 people, including United Nations secretary-general Dag Hammarskjöld.
• 1981 – While posing as an aristocrat, Belgian serial killer Nestor Pirotte murdered an antiques dealer in Brussels, for which crime he was sentenced to death.

September 19: International Talk Like a Pirate Day

Statue of Our Lady of La Salette

• 1692 – Salem witch trials: Giles Corey was crushed to death for refusing to enter a plea to charges of witchcraft, reportedly asking the sheriff for "more weight" during his execution.
• 1846 – Near La Salette-Fallavaux in southeastern France, shepherd children Mélanie Calvat and Maximin Giraud reported a Marian apparition, now known as Our Lady of La Salette (statue pictured).
• 1940 – World War II: Polish resistance leader Witold Pilecki allowed himself to be captured by German forces and sent to Auschwitz to gather intelligence.
• 1970 – The first Glastonbury Festival was held at Michael Eavis's farm in Glastonbury, England.
• 1995 – Industrial Society and Its Future, the manifesto of American domestic terrorist Ted Kaczynski, was published in The Washington Post almost three months after it was submitted.

September 20

Great Buddha of Kamakura

• 1498 – A tsunami caused by the Meiō earthquake washed away the building housing the statue of the Great Buddha (pictured) at Kōtoku-in in Kamakura, Japan; the statue has since stood in the open air.
• 1792 – The French Army achieved its first major victory of the War of the First Coalition at the Battle of Valmy.
• 1967 – L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of Scientology, announced the story of Xenu in a taped lecture sent to all Scientologists.
• 1997 – Hurricane Erika, the strongest and longest-lasting hurricane of the 1997 Atlantic hurricane season, dissipated after causing flooding and power outages throughout Puerto Rico.

September 21: International Day of Peace

The Great Fire of New York

• 1170 – Norman invasion of Ireland: English and Irish forces conquered Dublin, forcing Ascall mac Ragnaill, the last Norse–Gaelic king of Dublin, into exile.
• 1776 – American Revolutionary War: The Great Fire of New York (depicted) broke out during the British occupation of New York City, destroying up to 1,000 buildings.
• 1918 – World War I: The Battle of Nazareth ended with the British Empire victorious over the Ottomans.
• 1958 – The first section of Interstate 80 in Iowa opened in the Des Moines metropolitan area.
• 2001 – Several British Muslim youths in Peterborough, England, murdered 17-year-old Ross Parker, leading to debate over whether the British media failed to cover racially motivated crimes with white victims.

September 22

François Duvalier

• 1236 – Livonian Crusade: The Livonian Brothers of the Sword were soundly defeated by pagan Samogitian and Semigallian troops at the Battle of Saule.
• 1789 – The office of United States Postmaster General was formally established.
• 1957 – François Duvalier (pictured), nicknamed Papa Doc, was elected President of Haiti as a populist before consolidating power and ruling as a dictator for the rest of his life.
• 2003 – Dolphin, the first emulator for the GameCube that could run commercial video games, was released.
• 2013 – Insurgency in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa: All Saints Church in Peshawar, Pakistan, was attacked by two suicide bombers who killed 127 people.

September 23: Celebrate Bisexuality Day

Concordat of Worms

• 1122 – Pope Callixtus II and Holy Roman emperor Henry V agreed the Concordat of Worms (pictured), ending the Investiture Controversy.
• 1642 – First English Civil War: The Battle of Powick Bridge, the first engagement between the primary field armies of the Royalists and the Parliamentarians, ended in a Royalist victory.
• 1884 – The French steamship Arctique ran aground on the northern coast of Cape Virgenes in Argentina; gold was discovered during the rescue effort, triggering the Tierra del Fuego gold rush.
• 1920 – The Louisiana hurricane dissipated over Kansas after forcing around 4,500 people to evacuate and causing $1.45 million in damages.
• 2010 – Teresa Lewis became the first woman to be executed by the U.S. state of Virginia since 1912, and the first woman in the state to be executed by lethal injection.

September 24: Heritage Day in South Africa; Independence Day in Guinea-Bissau (1973)

Norodom Sihanouk

• 1645 – English Civil War: Royalists commanded by King Charles I suffered a significant defeat at the Battle of Rowton Heath.
• 1869 – Jay Gould, James Fisk, and other speculators plotted but failed to control the United States gold market, causing prices to plummet.
• 1890 – Wilford Woodruff, the president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, wrote the first draft of a manifesto that officially disavowed the future practice of plural marriage.
• 1941 – Operation Barbarossa: A Wehrmacht training event known as the Mogilev Conference began, marking an increase in violence against Jews and other civilians in the areas under General Max von Schenckendorff's command.
• 1993 – Norodom Sihanouk (pictured) became King of Cambodia with the restoration of the monarchy after a 23-year interregnum.

September 25

Kaweah Gap, Sequoia National Park

• 844 – Viking expansion: A Viking fleet arrived near Seville, then part of the Emirate of Córdoba, and began a raid of the city that was eventually repelled by Muslim defenders.
• 1790 – Peking opera was born with the introduction of Hui opera to Beijing by the "Four Great Anhui Troupes" in honour of the Qianlong Emperor's 80th birthday.
• 1890 – Sequoia National Park (pictured) was established to conserve giant sequoia trees in an area affected by logging in the southern Sierra Nevada in California.
• 1983 – In one of the largest prison escapes in British history, 38 Provisional Irish Republican Army prisoners hijacked a meals lorry and broke out of HM Prison Maze in County Antrim, Northern Ireland.

September 26

Replica of the Golden Hind

• 46 BC – Julius Caesar dedicated the Temple of Venus Genetrix in Rome to Venus, the mythical ancestor of his family.
• 1580 – English explorer Francis Drake's galleon the Golden Hind (replica pictured) sailed into Plymouth, completing his circumnavigation of the globe.
• 1928 – The Nationalist government of China adopted Gwoyeu Romatzyh as the official system for the romanization of Mandarin Chinese.
• 1983 – Cold War: Soviet lieutenant colonel Stanislav Petrov averted a potential nuclear war by identifying as a false alarm signals that appeared to indicate an impending U.S. missile attack.
• 2010 – Scottish aid worker Linda Norgrove and three Afghan colleagues were kidnapped by members of the Taliban in Kunar Province, Afghanistan.

September 27: Meskel (Orthodox Tewahedo)

Rosetta Stone

• 1822 – In a letter to the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres in Paris, Jean-François Champollion announced his initial successes in deciphering Egyptian hieroglyphs on the Rosetta Stone (pictured).
• 1851 – The British East India Company inaugurated the Horsburgh Lighthouse on the rocky outcrop of Pedra Branca, Singapore, which later became the subject of a territorial dispute.
• 1917 – The Broadhurst Theatre opened in New York City with a performance of Misalliance by George Bernard Shaw.
• 1975 – Two members of ETA political-military and three members of the Revolutionary Antifascist Patriotic Front, sentenced to death for murder, became the last people to be executed in Spain.
• 1983 – American software developer Richard Stallman announced plans for the Unix-like operating system GNU, the first free software developed by the GNU Project.

September 28

Alexander Fleming

• 48 BC – Pompey was killed by Lucius Septimius at Pelusium in Egypt.
• 1066 – William the Conqueror and his fleet of around 600 ships landed at Pevensey, Sussex, beginning the Norman conquest of England.
• 1901 – Philippine–American War: Filipino guerrillas killed more than forty American soldiers in a surprise attack on the town of Balangiga on the island of Samar.
• 1928 – Scottish biologist and pharmacologist Alexander Fleming (pictured) discovered penicillin when he noticed a bacteria-killing mould growing in his laboratory.
• 1975 – An attempted robbery of Spaghetti House, a restaurant in Knightsbridge, London, turned into a six-day hostage situation.

September 29: Michaelmas (Western Christianity)

Willie Mays

• 1724 – J. S. Bach led the first performance of Herr Gott, dich loben alle wir, BWV 130, based on Paul Eber's hymn in twelve stanzas, for the feast of archangel Michael.
• 1918 – World War I: The Battle of St Quentin Canal took place, which led to the British Fourth Army making the first breach of the German defensive Hindenburg Line.
• 1954 – Willie Mays (pictured) of the New York Giants made The Catch, one of the most famous defensive plays in the history of Major League Baseball.
• 1964 – Mafalda, a popular comic strip by Quino, was first published in newspapers in Argentina.
• 2004 – Archaeologists and volunteers began excavation of the remains of Fort Tanjong Katong in Singapore.

September 30: National Day for Truth and Reconciliation in Canada

Times Square Theater

• 1139 – A violent earthquake struck the Caucasus near Ganja, killing up to an estimated 300,000 people.
• 1791 – Mozart conducted the premiere of his last opera, The Magic Flute, in Vienna.
• 1920 – Times Square Theater (pictured) opened on Broadway with a production of The Mirage, a play written by its owner, Edgar Selwyn.
• 1939 – NBC broadcast the first televised American football game, between the Fordham Rams and the Waynesburg Yellow Jackets.
• 2000 – Twelve-year-old Muhammad al-Durrah was shot dead in the Gaza Strip; the Israel Defense Forces initially accepted responsibility but retracted it five years later.