September 15 :: Historical Events

Events

• 668 - Eastern Roman Emperor Constans II is assassinated in his bath at Syracuse, Italy.


• 921 - Saint Ludmila is murdered at the command of her daughter-in-law at Tetin.


• 1556 - Vlissingen ex-emperor Charles V returns to Spain.


• 1584 - San Lorenzo del Escorial Palace in Madrid is finished.


• 1600 - Battle of Sekigahara


• 1616 - The first non-aristocratic, free public school in Europe is opened in Frascati, Italy.


• 1683 - Germantown, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania is founded by 13 immigrant families.


• 1762 - Battle of Signal Hill


• 1776 - American Revolutionary War: British land at Kip's Bay during the New York Campaign.


• 1789 - The United States Department of State is established (formerly known as Department of Foreign Affairs).


• 1812 - The French army under Napoleon reaches the Kremlin in Moscow.


• 1820 - Constitutionalist revolution in Lisbon, Portugal; (see Portugal's crises of the Nineteenth Century.


• 1821 - Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica jointly declare independence from Spain.


• 1830 - The Liverpool to Manchester railway line opens (see also deaths, below).


• 1831 - The locomotive John Bull operates for the first time in New Jersey on the Camden and Amboy Railroad.


• 1835 - The HMS Beagle, with Charles Darwin aboard, reaches the Galápagos Islands.


• 1851 - Saint Joseph's University is founded in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.


• 1862 - American Civil War: Confederate forces capture Harpers Ferry, Virginia.


• 1873 - Franco-Prussian War: The last German troops leave France upon completion of payment of indemnity.


• 1883 - The Bombay Natural History Society is founded in Bombay (now Mumbai), India.


• 1894 - First Sino-Japanese War: Japan defeats China in the Battle of Pyongyang.


• 1914 - World War I: The Battle of Aisne begins between Germany and France.


• 1916 - World War I: Tanks are used for the first time in battle, at the Battle of the Somme.


• 1928 - Sir Alexander Fleming notices a bacteria-killing mold growing in his laboratory, discovering what later became known as penicillin.


• 1928 - Tich Freeman becomes the only bowler to take 300 wickets in an English cricket season.


• 1931 - In Scotland, the two-day Invergordon Mutiny against Royal Navy pay cuts begins.


• 1935 - Nuremberg Laws deprive German Jews of citizenship.


• 1935 - Nazi Germany adopts a new national flag with the swastika.


• 1940 - World War II: The climax of the Battle of Britain, when the Royal Air Force shoot down large numbers of Luftwaffe.


• 1941 - The U.S. Attorney General rules that the Neutrality Act is not violated when U.S. ships carry war materiel to British territories, opening the door for the Lend-Lease Act.


• 1942 - World War II: The U.S. aircraft carrier USS Wasp is torpedoed at Guadalcanal.


• 1944 - Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill meet in Quebec as part of the Octagon Conference to discuss strategy.


• 1945 - A hurricane in southern Florida and the Bahamas destroys 366 planes and 25 blimps at NAS Richmond.


• 1947 - The U.S. Air Force is separated from the US Army to become a separate branch.


• 1947 - RCA releases the 12AX7 vacuum tube.


• 1948 - The F-86 Sabre sets the world aircraft speed record at 671 mph (1080 km/h).


• 1950 - Korean War: United States forces land at Incheon, Korea.


• 1952 - United Nations gives Eritrea to Ethiopia.


• 1957 - West Germany holds its third parliamentary election. Konrad Adenauer remains chancellor.


• 1958 - A Central Railroad of New Jersey commuter train runs through an open drawbridge at the Newark Bay, killing 58.


• 1959 - Nikita Khrushchev becomes the first Soviet leader to visit the United States.


• 1961 - Hurricane Carla strikes Texas with winds of 175 miles per hour.


• 1962 - The Soviet ship Poltava heads toward Cuba, one of the events that sets into motion the Cuban Missile Crisis.


• 1963 - The 16th Street Baptist Church bombing kills four children at an African-American church in Birmingham, Alabama, United States.


• 1966 - U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson, responding to a sniper attack at the University of Texas at Austin, writes a letter to the United States Congress urging the enactment of gun control legislation.


• 1968 - The Soviet Zond 5 spaceship is launched, becoming the first spacecraft to fly around the Moon and re-enter the Earth's atmosphere.


• 1972 - A magnitude 4.5 earthquake shakes Northern Illinois.


• 1972 - An SAS domestic flight from Gothenburg to Stockholm was hijacked and flown to Malmö-Bulltofta Airport.


• 1974 - Air Vietnam flight 727 is hijacked, then crashes while attempting to land with 75 on board.


• 1975 - The French department of Corse (the entire island of Corsica) is divided into two: Haute-Corse and Corse-du-Sud.


• 1981 - The United States Senate Judiciary Committee unanimously approves Sandra Day O'Connor to become the first female justice on the United States Supreme Court.


• 1981 - The John Bull becomes the oldest operable steam locomotive in the world when the Smithsonian Institution operates it under its own power outside Washington, DC.


• 1981 - Vanuatu becomes a member of the United Nations.


• 1983 - Israeli premier Menachem Begin resigns.


• 1987 - U.S. Secretary of State George Shultz and Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze sign a treaty to establish centers to reduce the risk of nuclear war.


• 1989 - The U.S. Congress recognizes Terry Anderson's continued captivity in Beirut.


• 1990 - France announces it will send 4,000 troops to the Persian Gulf


• 1993 - Liechtenstein Prince Hans-Adam II disbands parliament


• 1997 - Google was founded.


• 1998 - WorldCom and MCI Communications finish their landmark merger, forming MCI WorldCom which would later be renamed WorldCom and become the largest bankruptcy in United States history.


• 2004 - NHL commissioner Gary Bettman announced a lockout of the players union and cessation of operations by the NHL head office.