Wikipedia:Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/September
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| An archive of historical anniversaries that appeared on the Main Page 2010 day arrangement |
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September 1: Start of the Liturgical year in the Eastern Orthodox Church; Constitution Day in Slovakia; Independence Day in Uzbekistan (1991)
- 1763 – Catherine II of Russia endorsed educator Ivan Betskoy's plans for the Moscow Orphanage (pictured), an ambitious, state-run, experimental Russian Enlightenment project to educate orphans into ideal citizens.
- 1804 – German astronomer Karl Ludwig Harding discovered one of the largest main belt asteroids, naming it Juno after the Roman goddess.
- 1939 – Nazi Germany invaded Poland at Wieluń and Westerplatte, starting World War II in Europe.
- 1951 – Australia, New Zealand and the United States signed a mutual defence pact known as the ANZUS Treaty in San Francisco, agreeing to cooperate on defence matters in the Pacific Ocean area.
- 1983 – Soviet jet interceptors shot down the civilian airliner Korean Air Lines Flight 007 near Sakhalin Island in the North Pacific, killing all 246 passengers and 23 crew on board.
More anniversaries: August 31 – September 1 – September 2
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September 2: National Day in Vietnam (1945); Democracy Day in Tibet (1960); Onam (Malayalees)
- 31 BC – Final War of the Roman Republic: Troops supporting Octavian defeated the forces of Mark Antony and Cleopatra in the naval Battle of Actium on the Ionian Sea near Actium in Greece.
- 1666 – A large fire began on London's Pudding Lane and burned the city for three days (pictured), destroying St Paul's Cathedral and the homes of 70,000 of the city's 80,000 inhabitants.
- 1901 – U.S. Vice President Theodore Roosevelt first uttered the famous phrase "speak softly and carry a big stick" at the Minnesota State Fair, describing his philosophy of negotiating peacefully while simultaneously threatening to use military force.
- 1990 – Transnistria unilaterally declared its independence from what was then the Moldavian SSR of the Soviet Union, but independence has never been recognized by another country or international organization.
- 1998 – Swissair Flight 111, en route from New York City to Geneva, crashed into the Atlantic Ocean, killing all 229 people on board.
More anniversaries: September 1 – September 2 – September 3
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September 3: Ghost Festival in the Chinese calendar (2009); Independence Day in Qatar; Flag Day in Australia; Armed Forces Day in Taiwan
- 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.
- 590 – Gregory I became pope, the first one to come from a monastic background.
- 1260 – Egyptian Mamluks defeated the Mongols at the Battle of Ain Jalut in Palestine.
- 1783 – Great Britain and the United States signed the Treaty of Paris, formally ending the American Revolutionary War.
- 1901 – The National Flag of Australia, a Blue Ensign defaced with the Commonwealth Star and the Southern Cross, flew for the first time atop the Royal Exhibition Building (pictured) in Melbourne.
More anniversaries: September 2 – September 3 – September 4
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September 4: Immigrant's Day in Argentina
- 1260 – Wars of the Guelphs and Ghibellines: The Siena Ghibellines defeated the Florence Guelphs at the Battle of Montaperti outside of Siena, present-day Italy.
- 1886 – After over 25 years of fighting against the United States Army and the armed forces of Mexico, Geronimo (pictured) of the Chiricahua Apache surrendered at Skeleton Canyon in Arizona.
- 1957 – Defying the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Brown v. Board of Education, Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus deployed the Arkansas National Guard to prevent African American students from attending Little Rock's Central High School.
- 1984 – The Progressive Conservative Party led by Brian Mulroney won the largest majority government by total number of seats in Canadian history during the federal election.
- 1998 – Larry Page and Sergey Brin founded the company Google in Menlo Park, California, USA, to promote the web search engine that they developed as a research project while attending Stanford University.
More anniversaries: September 3 – September 4 – September 5
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September 5: Teachers' Day (Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan's Birthday) in India
- 1774 – In response to the British Parliament enacting the Intolerable Acts, representatives from twelve of Britain's North American colonies convened the First Continental Congress at Carpenters' Hall in Philadelphia.
- 1905 – Under the mediation of U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt (pictured), the Russo-Japanese War officially ended with the signing of the Treaty of Portsmouth at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard near Portsmouth, New Hampshire, USA.
- 1914 – World War I: The First Battle of the Marne began with French forces engaging the advancing German army at the Marne River near Paris.
- 1945 – Cold War: Soviet cipher clerk Igor Gouzenko defected to Canada with over 100 documents on Soviet espionage activities and sleeper agents.
- 1972 – The Palestinian militant group Black September took hostage eleven Israeli athletes and coaches at the Olympic Summer Games in Munich, West Germany; all of the hostages were killed less than 24 hours later.
- 1991 – The current international treaty defending indigenous peoples, Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention, 1989, came into force.
More anniversaries: September 4 – September 5 – September 6
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September 6: Father's Day in Australia and New Zealand (2009); Independence Day in Swaziland; Defence Day in Pakistan; Unification Day in Bulgaria
- 394 – Forces of the Eastern Roman Emperor Theodosius I (pictured) defeated Eugenius, the usurper of the Western Roman Empire, at the Battle of the Frigidus near modern-day Vipava, Slovenia.
- 1955 – An overwhelming Turkish mob attacked ethnic Greeks in Istanbul, killing over 13 people, wounding over thirty others, and damaging over 5,000 Greek-owned homes and businesses.
- 1963 – The Krulak Mendenhall mission, led by U.S. Marine Corps Major General Victor Krulak and U.S. Foreign Service Officer Joseph Mendenhall, was launched by the Kennedy administration to assess the progress of the Vietnam War.
- 1970 – Members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine hijacked four jet aircraft en route from Europe to New York City, landing two of them at Dawson's Field in Zerqa, Jordan, and one plane in Beirut, Lebanon. The fourth hijacking was successfully foiled.
- 2000 – The Millennium Summit, a meeting of world leaders to discuss the role of the United Nations in the turn of the 21st century, opened.
More anniversaries: September 5 – September 6 – September 7
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September 7: Labour Day in Canada and Labor Day in the United States (2009); Independence Day in Brazil
- 1191 – Third Crusade: Forces under Richard I of England defeated Ayyubid troops under Saladin in Arsuf, present-day Israel.
- 1812 – Napoleonic Wars: The French Grande Armée forced the Russians to withdraw at the Battle of Borodino.
- 1901 – With Peking occupied by foreign troops from the Eight-Nation Alliance, Qing China was forced to sign the Boxer Protocol, an unequal treaty ending the Boxer Rebellion.
- 1940 – World War II: The German Luftwaffe changed their strategy in the Battle of Britain and began bombing London and other British cities and towns for over 50 consecutive nights.
- 1979 – The cable television network ESPN made its debut, broadcasting and producing sports-related programming 24 hours a day.
- 1986 – Desmond Tutu (pictured) became the first black person to lead the Anglican Church in South Africa.
More anniversaries: September 6 – September 7 – September 8
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September 8: Independence Day in the Republic of Macedonia (1991); Victory Day in Malta; Our Lady of Meritxell Day in Andorra; International Literacy Day
- 1331 – Stefan Uroš IV Dušan (pictured) of the House of Nemanjić was crowned King of Serbia.
- 1504 – David, a marble sculpture by Michelangelo portraying the biblical King David in the nude, was unveiled in Florence, Italy.
- 1514 – Muscovite–Lithuanian Wars: The combined forces of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Kingdom of Poland defeated the larger army of the Grand Duchy of Moscow in Orsha, present-day Belarus.
- 1966 – The American science fiction show Star Trek premiered on the NBC television network, launching a media franchise that has since created a cult phenomenon and has influenced the design of many current technologies.
- 1974 – Watergate scandal: U.S. President Gerald Ford gave recently resigned U.S. President Richard Nixon a full and unconditional, but controversial, pardon for any crimes he committed while in office.
More anniversaries: September 7 – September 8 – September 9
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September 9: Republic Day in North Korea (1948); Independence Day in Tajikistan (1991)
- 9 – Germanic Wars: An alliance of Germanic tribes led by Arminius engaged Roman forces led by Publius Quinctilius Varus at the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest, defeating three of the legions within the next few days.
- 1513 – War of the League of Cambrai: King James IV of Scotland (pictured) was killed at the Battle of Flodden Field in Northumberland while leading an invasion of England.
- 1850 – As part of the Compromise of 1850, California was admitted into the United States as a free state instead of a slave state where slavery was legal.
- 1944 – With the help of the advancing forces of the Soviet Red Army, the Bulgarian government of Konstantin Muraviev was overthrown and replaced with a government of the Fatherland Front.
- 2004 – A car bomb exploded outside the Australian embassy in Jakarta, Indonesia, killing at least nine people and injuring over 150 others.
More anniversaries: September 8 – September 9 – September 10
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September 10: National Day in Gibraltar (1967)
- 1798 – At the Battle of St. George's Caye, a small force of British settlers called Baymen defeated an invading force from Mexico who were attempting to claim what is now Belize for Spain.
- 1897 – A peaceful labor demonstration made up of mostly Polish and Slovak anthracite coal miners in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, USA, was fired upon by a sheriff's posse comitatus in the Lattimer Massacre.
- 1898 – In an act of "propaganda of the deed", Italian anarchist Luigi Lucheni fatally stabbed Empress Elisabeth of Austria (pictured) in Geneva, Switzerland.
- 1945 – Mike the Headless Chicken was decapitated in a farm in Colorado; he survived another 18 months as part of sideshows before choking to death in Phoenix, Arizona.
- 1977 – Hamida Djandoubi became the last person to be guillotined in France, the official method of execution in that country. France would later abolish the death penalty in 1981.
- 1990 – Pope John Paul II consecrated the Basilica of Our Lady of Peace in Yamoussoukro, Côte d'Ivoire, one of the largest churches in the world.
More anniversaries: September 9 – September 10 – September 11
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September 11: New Year's Day in the Coptic and the Ethiopian calendars; Patriot Day in the United States; National Day of Catalonia; Teachers' Day in parts of Latin America
- 1297 – First War of Scottish Independence: The Scots defeated English troops at the Battle of Stirling Bridge on the River Forth (pictured) near Stirling.
- 1709 – An allied British-Dutch-Austrian force defeated the French at the Battle of Malplaquet, one of the bloodiest battles of the War of the Spanish Succession.
- 1789 – U.S. Founding Father Alexander Hamilton, co-writer of the Federalist Papers, became the first U.S. Secretary of the Treasury.
- 1857 – At Mountain Meadows, Utah Territory, USA, a local brigade of the Mormon militia led a massacre of about 120 California-bound pioneers from Arkansas.
- 2001 – September 11 attacks: Al-Qaeda terrorists hijacked four passenger airliners, intentionally crashing two of them into the World Trade Center in New York City and one plane into the Pentagon near Washington, D.C. The fourth aircraft crashed in Pennsylvania after its passengers mounted an assault against their hijackers.
More anniversaries: September 10 – September 11 – September 12
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September 12: National Day in Cape Verde
- 1609 – While sailing aboard the Halve Maen, English explorer Henry Hudson began his exploration of the Hudson River, laying the foundation for Dutch colonization of present-day New York.
- 1683 – Great Turkish War: Polish troops led by John III Sobieski (pictured) joined forces with a Habsburg army to defeat the Ottoman Empire at the Battle of Vienna.
- 1848 – Switzerland became a federal state with the adoption of a new constitution.
- 1940 – Four teenagers discovered the Lascaux caves near Montignac, in the Dordogne département of France, containing cave paintings that are estimated to be 16,000 years old.
- 1974 – Emperor Haile Selassie I of Ethiopia, considered to be the religious symbol for God incarnate among the Rastafari movement, was deposed in a coup d'état by the Derg, a military junta.
- 1992 – Aboard Space Shuttle Endeavour, the 50th mission of the Space Shuttle program, American Mae Carol Jemison became the first Black woman in space.
More anniversaries: September 11 – September 12 – September 13
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September 13: First night of Selichot (Ashkenazi Judaism, 2009); National Grandparents' Day (United States, 2009); Feast Day of Saint John Chrysostom (Western Christianity)
- 1759 – Seven Years' War: British forces defeated the French at the Battle of the Plains of Abraham near Quebec City, New France, though General James Wolfe was mortally wounded (pictured).
- 1814 – War of 1812: Fort McHenry was attacked by British forces during the Battle of Baltimore, later inspiring Francis Scott Key to write "The Star-Spangled Banner," which later became the national anthem of the United States.
- 1848 – American railroad worker Phineas Gage survived an accident in which a large iron rod was driven completely through his head and destroyed areas of his brain's frontal lobes.
- 1993 – After rounds of secret negotiations in Norway, PLO leader Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin formally signed the Oslo Peace Accords.
- 2007 – The United Nations General Assembly adopted the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, setting out the individual and collective rights of indigenous peoples, as well as their rights to culture, identity, language, employment, health, education and other issues.
More anniversaries: September 12 – September 13 – September 14
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- 786 – Harun al-Rashid became the Abbasid caliph upon the death of his brother al-Hadi.
- 1752 – In adopting the Gregorian calendar under the terms of the Calendar (New Style) Act 1750, the British Empire skipped eleven days (September 2 was followed directly by September 14).
- 1812 – The French invasion of Russia: Following the Battle of Borodino seven days earlier, Napoleon and his Grande Armée captured Moscow, only to find the city deserted and burning (pictured).
- 1901 – Theodore Roosevelt became President of the United States at age 42, the youngest person ever to do so, eight days after William McKinley was fatally wounded in Buffalo, New York.
- 1960 – At a conference held in Baghdad, the governments of Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Venezuela founded OPEC to help unify and coordinate their petroleum policies.
More anniversaries: September 13 – September 14 – September 15
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September 15: Prinsjesdag in Netherlands (2009); Independence Day for Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and El Salvador; Battle of Britain Day in the United Kingdom
- 1830 – During the opening of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway (pictured), British Member of Parliament William Huskisson was struck and killed by the locomotive engine Rocket.
- 1831 – The John Bull, currently the oldest operable steam locomotive in the world, ran for the first time in New Jersey on the Camden and Amboy Railroad.
- 1835 – During the second voyage of HMS Beagle, Charles Darwin reached the Galápagos Islands, where he further developed his theories of evolution.
- 1935 – Nazi Germany enacted the Nuremberg Laws, which deprived German Jews of citizenship, and adopted a new national flag emblazoned with a swastika.
- 2008 – The financial crisis of 2007–2010: The global financial-services firm Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy while holding over US$600 billion in assets, the largest such filing in U.S. history.
More anniversaries: September 14 – September 15 – September 16
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September 16: Dieciséis de septiembre in Mexico; Hari Malaysia in Malaysia; Independence Day in Papua New Guinea
- 1701 – Prince James Francis Edward Stuart (pictured), more commonly referred to as the "Old Pretender", became the Jacobite claimant of the thrones of England and Scotland.
- 1776 – American Revolutionary War: On hearing the British troops sounding their bugles as if it were a fox hunt, the Americans held their ground and achieved a victory at the Battle of Harlem Heights in present-day New York City.
- 1963 – Malaya, Singapore, North Borneo (present-day Sabah), and Sarawak merged to form Malaysia.
- 1982 – A Lebanese militia under the direct command of Elie Hobeika carried out a massacre in the Palestinian refugee camp of Sabra and Shatila, killing at least 700 civilians.
- 1987 – The Montreal Protocol, an international treaty designed to protect the ozone layer by phasing out the production of a number of substances believed to be responsible for ozone depletion, opened for signature.
More anniversaries: September 15 – September 16 – September 17
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September 17: Constitution Day in the United States.
- 1176 – Byzantine–Seljuk wars: The Seljuk Turks prevented the Byzantines from taking the interior of Anatolia at the Battle of Myriokephalon in Phrygia.
- 1787 – The text of the United States Constitution was finalized at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia.
- 1859 – Disgruntled with the legal and political structures of the United States, Joshua Norton distributed letters to various newspapers in San Francisco, proclaiming himself Emperor Norton.
- 1894 – The Imperial Japanese Navy defeated the Beiyang Fleet of Qing China in the Battle of the Yalu River at the mouth of the Yalu River in Korea Bay, the largest naval engagement of the First Sino-Japanese War.
- 1939 – World War II: The Soviet Union invaded Poland from the east, sixteen days after Nazi Germany's attack on that country from the west.
- 1978 – President Anwar Al Sadat of Egypt and Prime Minister Menachem Begin of Israel (pictured with U.S. President Jimmy Carter) signed the Camp David Accords after twelve days of secret negotiations at Camp David.
More anniversaries: September 16 – September 17 – September 18
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September 18: Rosh Hashanah (Jewish New Year) begins at sunset (2009, 5770 AM); International Day of Quds (Iran, 2009); National Day in Chile
- 96 – Following the assassination of Roman Emperor Domitian, the Roman Senate appointed Nerva (bust pictured), the first of the Five Good Emperors, to succeed him.
- 324 – Constantine the Great decisively defeated Licinius in the Battle of Chrysopolis, establishing Constantine's sole control over the Roman Empire, and ultimately leading to the conversion of the whole empire to Christianity.
- 1809 – The second theatre of the Royal Opera House in London opened after a fire destroyed the original theatre one year earlier.
- 1931 – The Mukden Incident: A section of the Japanese-built South Manchuria Railway was destroyed, providing an excuse for the Japanese to blame the act on Chinese dissidents, and thus giving a pretext for the Japanese occupation of Manchuria.
- 1998 – The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), a non-profit organization that manages the assignment of domain names and IP addresses in the Internet, was established.
More anniversaries: September 17 – September 18 – September 19
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September 19: First day of Rosh Hashanah (Jewish New Year) (2009, 5770 AM); Eid ul-Fitr begins at sunset (Islam, 2009); Oktoberfest begins in Munich (2009); Independence Day in Saint Kitts and Nevis; Armed Forces Day in Chile; International Talk Like a Pirate Day
- 1356 – Hundred Years' War: English forces led by Edward the Black Prince decisively won the Battle of Poitiers and captured King Jean II of France.
- 1796 – George Washington's Farewell Address was published in many American newspapers, warning citizens, among others, about the dangers of political factionalism and to avoid permanent alliances with other foreign powers.
- 1893 – New Zealand became the first country to introduce universal suffrage, following the women's suffrage movement led by Kate Sheppard.
- 1944 – Finland and the Soviet Union signed the Moscow Armistice to end the Continuation War.
- 1985 – An 8.1 ML earthquake struck Mexico City, killing at least nine thousand people and leaving up to 100,000 homeless.
- 1995 – The Manifesto of "Unabomber" Ted Kaczynski (police sketch pictured) was published in The Washington Post and The New York Times, almost three months after it was submitted.
More anniversaries: September 18 – September 19 – September 20
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September 20: Eid ul-Fitr ends at sunset (Islam, 2009); Feast Day of the Korean Martyrs (Roman Catholic Church)
- 1378 – Papal Schism: Unhappy with Pope Urban VI (pictured), a group of cardinals started a rival papacy with the election of Antipope Clement VII, throwing the Roman Catholic Church into turmoil.
- 1854 – The Crimean War began with a Franco-British victory over Russian forces at the Battle of Alma near the River Alma in Crimea.
- 1870 – The Bersaglieri entered Rome, ending the temporal power of the Pope and completing the unification of Italy.
- 1946 – The first Cannes Film Festival opened in Cannes, France, with eleven films eventually sharing the Palme d'Or award, then known as the Grand Prize of the Festival, that year.
- 1979 – Jean-Bédel Bokassa, ruler of the Central African Republic, was ousted in a coup d'état backed by the French government.
- 2001 – During a televised address to a joint session of the United States Congress, U.S. President George W. Bush declared a "war on terror" against Al-Qaeda and other global terrorist groups.
More anniversaries: September 19 – September 20 – September 21
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September 21: Fast of Gedalia (Judaism, 2009); Respect for the Aged Day (Japan, 2009); International Day of Peace and Peace One Day; Independence Day in Malta (1964), Belize (1981) and Armenia (1991)
- 1792 – French Revolution: The National Convention voted to abolish the monarchy, and proclaimed the First Republic.
- 1898 – The Hundred Days' Reform in China was abruptly terminated when Empress Dowager Cixi (pictured) forced the reform-minded Guangxu Emperor into seclusion and took over the government as regent.
- 1937 – J. R. R. Tolkien's The Hobbit, a predecessor to The Lord of the Rings, was first published.
- 1939 – Romanian Prime Minister Armand Călinescu was assassinated in Bucharest by pro-Nazi members of the Iron Guard.
- 1999 – A 7.6 Mw earthquake struck Jiji, Nantou County, Taiwan, killing 2,416 people, injuring over 11,000 others and causing about NT$300 billion in damage.
More anniversaries: September 20 – September 21 – September 22
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September 22: September Equinox (21:18 UTC, 2009); Independence Day in Bulgaria (1908) and Mali (1960); Car-Free Day in Europe and Canada; OneWebDay
- 1792 – The epoch of the French Republican Calendar occurred, marking the first full day of the newly proclaimed French First Republic.
- 1827 – According to his own record of his early life, Latter Day Saint movement founder Joseph Smith, Jr. obtained the golden plates, a set of engraved plates that he said was his source material for the Book of Mormon.
- 1862 – Slavery in the United States: President Abraham Lincoln (pictured) issued the Emancipation Proclamation, declaring the freedom of all slaves in Confederate territory by January 1, 1863.
- 1869 – Das Rheingold, the first of four operas in Der Ring des Nibelungen by German composer Richard Wagner, was first performed in Munich.
- 1979 – The Vela Incident: An American Vela satellite detected an unidentified flash of light, thought to be a nuclear weapons test.
More anniversaries: September 21 – September 22 – September 23
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September 23: Celebrate Bisexuality Day; National Day in Saudi Arabia (1932)
- 1459 – Yorkist forces led by Richard Neville defeated Lancastrian troops at the Battle of Blore Heath in Staffordshire, England, the first major battle of the Wars of the Roses.
- 1803 – Maratha troops were beaten by British forces at the Battle of Assaye, one of the decisive battles of the Second Anglo-Maratha War.
- 1846 – Using mathematical predictions by French mathematician Urbain Le Verrier, German astronomer Johann Gottfried Galle became the first person to observe Neptune and recognise it as a hitherto unknown planet (pictured).
- 1868 – Ramón Emeterio Betances led the Grito de Lares, a revolt against Spanish rule in Puerto Rico.
- 1952 – In one of the first political uses of television to appeal directly to the populace, Republican vice presidential candidate Richard Nixon delivered the "Checkers speech", denying he received illegal campaign contributions.
More anniversaries: September 22 – September 23 – September 24
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September 24: Independence Day in Guinea-Bissau (1973); Republic Day in Trinidad and Tobago (1976); Heritage Day in South Africa
- 622 – Muhammad and his followers completed their Hijra from Mecca to Medina to escape religious persecution.
- 1180 – The Byzantine Empire was weakened by the death of Emperor Manuel I Komnenos.
- 1789 – The First United States Congress passed the Judiciary Act of 1789, establishing the U.S. federal judiciary and setting the number of Supreme Court Justices.
- 1841 – The Sultan of Brunei granted Sarawak to British adventurer James Brooke.
- 1877 – The Imperial Japanese Army commanded by Kawamura Sumiyoshi defeated Saigō Takamori and the Satsuma clan samurai at the Battle of Shiroyama in Kagoshima, the decisive engagement of the Satsuma Rebellion.
- 1903 – Alfred Deakin became the second Prime Minister of Australia, succeeding Edmund Barton (pictured) who left office to become a founding justice of the High Court of Australia.
More anniversaries: September 23 – September 24 – September 25
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September 25: Feast Day of Sergius of Radonezh (Eastern Orthodox Church)
- 1066 – Harold Godwinson of England defeated Harald Hardråde of Norway in Yorkshire at the Battle of Stamford Bridge, marking the end of Viking invasion of England.
- 1396 – Ottoman wars in Europe: Ottoman forces under Bayezid I defeated a Christian alliance led by Sigismund of Hungary in the Battle of Nicopolis near present-day Nikopol, Bulgaria.
- 1513 – Conquistador Vasco Núñez de Balboa (pictured), upon a peak in present-day Darién, Panama, became the first European known to have seen the Pacific Ocean from the New World, naming it Mar del Sur, or South Sea, a few days later.
- 1944 – World War II: British troops began their withdrawal from the Battle of Arnhem in the Netherlands, ending the Allies' Operation Market Garden in defeat.
- 1983 – In one of the largest prison escapes in British history, 38 Provisional Irish Republican Army prisoners hijacked a prison meals lorry and smashed their way out of HM Prison Maze in County Antrim, Northern Ireland.
- 1996 – The last Magdalene Asylum, an institution to rehabilitate so-called "fallen" women, in Ireland was closed.
More anniversaries: September 24 – September 25 – September 26
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September 26: Dominion Day in New Zealand (1907); European Day of Languages
- 1580 – The Golden Hind (replica pictured) sailed into Plymouth, England, as explorer Francis Drake completed his circumnavigation of the globe.
- 1789 – For his presidential administration, George Washington appointed Thomas Jefferson as the first U.S. Secretary of State, John Jay as the first U.S. Chief Justice, Samuel Osgood as the first U.S. Postmaster General, and Edmund Randolph as the first U.S. Attorney General.
- 1907 – Newfoundland and New Zealand became dominions within the British Empire.
- 1969 – Abbey Road, the final album recorded by The Beatles before publicly announcing their breakup, was released.
- 1983 – Soviet Lieutenant Colonel Stanislav Petrov averted a possible worldwide nuclear war by deliberately certifying what otherwise appeared to be an impending attack by the United States as a false alarm.
More anniversaries: September 25 – September 26 – September 27
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September 27: Yom Kippur begins at sunset (Judaism, 2009); Meskel in Ethiopia and Eritrea; World Tourism Day
- 1777 – American Revolutionary War: Lancaster, Pennsylvania became the capital of the United States for one day as members of the Continental Congress fled Philadelphia, which had been captured by the British.
- 1825 – Locomotion No. 1 hauled the first train on opening day of the Stockton and Darlington Railway, one of the first railways to use steam locomotives and carry passengers.
- 1905 – The physics journal Annalen der Physik published Albert Einstein's fourth Annus Mirabilis paper "Does the Inertia of a Body Depend Upon Its Energy Content?", which introduced the equation E=mc².
- 1908 – The first production of the Ford Model T automobile (pictured) was built at the Piquette Plant in Detroit.
- 1937 – The Bali Tiger, a small subspecies of tiger found solely on the small Indonesian island of Bali, was officially declared extinct.
- 1940 – World War II: Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and the Empire of Japan signed the Tripartite Pact in Berlin, officially forming a military alliance known as the Axis powers.
More anniversaries: September 26 – September 27 – September 28
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September 28: Vijayadashami (India and Nepal, 2009); Yom Kippur ends at sunset (Judaism, 2009); St. Wenceslas Day in the Czech Republic; Teacher's Day in Taiwan
- 1066 – William the Conqueror and his fleet of around 600 ships landed at Pevensey, Sussex, beginning the Norman conquest of England.
- 1542 – Portuguese explorer Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo, the first European to travel along the coast of California, landed on what is now the City of San Diego.
- 1928 – Scottish biologist and pharmacologist Alexander Fleming (pictured) noticed a bacteria-killing mold growing in his laboratory, discovering what became known as penicillin.
- 1978 – Pope John Paul I died only 33 days after his papal election due to an apparent myocardial infarction, an event that has spawned a variety of murder conspiracy theories.
- 1995 – Over 30 mercenaries led by Bob Denard landed on the Comoros in an attempted coup, his fourth one on the African island nation since 1975.
More anniversaries: September 27 – September 28 – September 29
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- 1829 – The Metropolitan Police (flag pictured) of Greater London, originally headquartered in Great Scotland Yard, Westminster, was founded.
- 1885 – The Blackpool tramway, one of the first practical electric tramways in the world, opened in Blackpool, Lancashire, England.
- 1938 – At a conference in Munich, Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, and French Prime Minister Édouard Daladier reached a settlement, signing it at about 1:30 am the next day, stipulating that Czechoslovakia must cede the Sudetenland to Germany.
- 1941 – The Holocaust: German Nazis aided by their collaborators began the Babi Yar massacre in Kiev, Ukraine, killing over 30,000 Jewish civilians in two days and thousands more in the months that followed.
- 1954 – Twelve countries signed a convention establishing the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), currently the world's largest particle physics laboratory.
More anniversaries: September 28 – September 29 – September 30
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September 30: Independence Day in Botswana (1966)
- 1399 – Henry Bolingbroke, Duke of Lancaster, deposed Richard II to become Henry IV of England, merging the Duchy of Lancaster with the crown.
- 1744 – War of the Austrian Succession: The armies of France and Spain won a pyrrhic victory over the Kingdom of Sardinia at the Battle of Madonna dell'Olmo near Cuneo, Italy.
- 1791 – The Magic Flute, one of the last operas composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, premiered at Theater auf der Wieden in Vienna, Austria.
- 1939 – World War II: General Władysław Sikorski (pictured) became Prime Minister of the Polish government-in-exile.
- 1955 – Film actor James Dean suffered fatal injuries in a head-on car accident near Cholame, California, USA.
- 2005 – The Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten published controversial editorial cartoons depicting Muhammad, sparking protests across the Muslim world by many who viewed them as Islamophobic and blasphemous.
More anniversaries: September 29 – September 30 – October 1
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