Historical EventsToday: 21 September

Events

• 454 - Roman Emperor Valentinian III assassinates Aëtius in his own throne room.


• 1217 - The Estonian tribal leader Lembitu of Lehola was killed in a battle against Teutonic Knights.


• 1745 - Battle of Prestonpans: A Hanoverian army under the command of Sir John Cope is defeated, in ten minutes, by the Jacobite forces of Prince Charles Edward Stuart


• 1765 - Antoine de Beauterne announces he had killed the Beast of Gévaudan, but was later proved wrong by more attacks.


• 1780 - American Revolutionary War: Benedict Arnold gives the British the plans to West Point.


• 1792 - The French National Convention votes to abolish the monarchy.


• 1827 - According to Joseph Smith, Jr., the angel Moroni gave him a record of gold plates, one-third of which Joseph translated into The Book of Mormon.


• 1860 - In the Second Opium War, an Anglo-French force defeats Chinese troops at the Battle of Baliqiao.


• 1896 - British force under Horatio Kitchener takes Dongola in the Sudan.


• 1897 - The "Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus" letter is published in the New York Sun.


• 1898 - Empress Dowager Cixi seizes power and ends the Hundred Days' Reform in China.


• 1921 - Oppau explosion, a storage silo at a fertilizer producing plant exploded in Oppau, Germany, 500—600 killed.


• 1934 - Superpower Muroto Typhoon hit in western Honshū, Japan, Japanese government confirmed 3,036 killed. Mainly destroy temple, schools, and other buildings at Osaka.


• 1937 - J. R. R. Tolkien's The Hobbit is published.


• 1938 - The Great Hurricane of 1938 makes landfall on Long Island in New York. The death toll is estimated at 500-700 people.


• 1939 - Romanian Prime Minister Armand Calinescu is assassinated by ultranationalist members of the Iron Guard.


• 1942 - On Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur, Nazis sent over 1.000 Jews of Pidhaytsi (west Ukraine) to Belzec extermination camp.


• 1942 - On the end of Yom Kippur, the Germans ordered Konstantynów Jews (Poland) to permanently evacuate Konstantynów and move to the Ghetto - established in Biała Podlaska, meant to assemble Jews from nearby 7 towns among them: Konstantynów, Janów Podlaski, Rossosz, Terespol, and 3 more.


• 1942 - In Dunaivtsi, Ukraine, Nazis murder 2588 Jews.


• 1942 - The B-29 Superfortress makes its maiden flight.


• 1950 - George Marshall sworn in as the 3rd Secretary of Defense of United States.


• 1961 - Maiden flight of the CH-47 Chinook transportation helicopter.


• 1964 - Malta becomes independent from the United Kingdom.


• 1964 - The North American XB-70 Valkyrie, the world's first Mach 3 bomber, made its maiden flight from Palmdale, California.


• 1965 - Singapore admitted as a part of the United Nations.


• 1970 - The Cleveland Browns beat the New York Jets at Cleveland Municipal Stadium 31-20 on the first edition of Monday Night Football.


• 1970 - New York Times starts first modern op-ed page.


• 1972 - Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos signs Proclamation No. 1081 placing the entire country under martial law.


• 1976 - Orlando Letelier is assassinated in Washington, D.C. He was a member of the Chilean socialist government of Salvador Allende, overthrown in 1973 by Augusto Pinochet.


• 1979 - Two RAF Hawker Siddeley Harrier jump-jets from RAF Wittering collide over the UK. Both pilots ejected safely. One of the jets broke up in midair and fell harmlessly into a field but the other dropped onto the centre of Wisbech in Cambridgeshire, destroying two houses and a bungalow. Several people were injured in the accident and three people were killed.


• 1981 - Belize is granted full independence from the United Kingdom.


• 1981 - Sandra Day O'Connor is unanimously approved by the U.S. Senate as the first female supreme court justice.


• 1989 - Hurricane Hugo makes landfall in the U.S. state of South Carolina.


• 1991 - Armenia is granted independence from Soviet Union.


• 1993 - Russian President Boris Yeltsin suspends parliament and scraps the then-functioning constitution, thus triggering the Russian constitutional crisis of 1993.


• 1995 - The Hindu milk miracle occurs, in which statues of the Hindu God Ganesh began drinking milk when spoonfuls were placed near their mouths.


• 1999 - Chi-Chi earthquake occurs in central Taiwan, leaving about 2,400 people dead.


• 2001 - Deep Space 1 flies within 2,200 km of Comet Borrelly.


• 2001 - AZF chemical plant explodes in Toulouse, France, killing 29 people


• 2001 - University of Roorkee, becomes India's 7th Indian Institute of Technology, rechristened as IIT Roorkee


• 2003 - Galileo mission terminated by sending the probe into Jupiter's atmosphere, where it is crushed by the pressure at the lower altitudes.


• 2004 - The Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) People's War and the Maoist Communist Centre of India merge to form the Communist Party of India (Maoist).


• 2004 - Construction of the Burj Dubai starts.