September 15

is the 258th day of the year (259th in leap years). There are 107 days remaining.

Events

608 - Saint Boniface IV becomes Pope.
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.
1514 - Thomas Wolsey is appointed Archbishop of York.
1556 - Vlissingen ex-emperor Charles V returns to Spain.
1584 - San Lorenzo del Escorial Palace in Madrid is finished.
1590 - Giambattista Catagna is elected as Pope Urban VII.
1644 - Giambattista Pamphilj becomes Pope Innocent X, succeeding Pope Urban VIII.
1656 - England & France sign peace treaty.
1683 - Germantown, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania is founded by 13 immigrant families.
1749 - According to mathematical calculations, Pluto moves outside Neptune's orbit to remain the outermost planet until 1979.
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.
1821 - Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua 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.
1857 - Timothy Alder patents the typesetting machine.
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 Ping Yang.
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 Battle of Britain ends with a Royal Air Force victory over the 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.
1946 - Baseball: The Brooklyn Dodgers are beating the Chicago Cubs, 2-0, in the 5th inning when a swarm of gnats causes the game to be postponed.
1947 - RCA releases the 12AX7 vacuum tube.
1948 - The F-86 Sabre sets the world aircraft speed record at 1080 km/h.
1949 - The television series The Lone Ranger premieres on the ABC.
1950 - Korean War: United States forces land at Incheon, Korea.
1951 - Gentlemen Prefer Blondes closes on Broadway in New York City after 740 performances.
1952 - United Nations gives Eritrea to Ethiopia.
1954 - The U.S. Postal Service issues its 2¢ Thomas Jefferson Liberty Series stamp.
1955 - Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita is published in Paris by Olympia Press.
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.
1964 - The Sun newspaper launches, replacing the Daily Herald.
1966 - The spaceship Gemini XI, with astronauts Pete Conrad and Dick Gordon aboard, returns to earth.
1967 - Former 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.
1969 - Baseball: St. Louis Cardinals pitcher Steve Carlton sets a record by striking out 19 New York Mets in a single game.
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.
1976 - Soyuz 22 carries two cosmonauts into earth orbit for eight days.
1978 - Muhammad Ali beats Leon Spinks for the world heavyweight boxing title.
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.
1982 - The first issue of USA Today is published by Gannett.
1983 - Israeli premier Menachem Begin resigns.
1985 - Willie Nelson's Farm Aid concert begins.
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.
1994 - Muslim fundamentalists kidnap & behead 16 people in Algeria.
1997 - Hastings Wise murders four at the R.E. Phelon Company lawn mower parts manufacturing factory in Aiken, South Carolina. The only possible motive for the murders was Hastings' dismissal from his job eleven weeks earlier.
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.
2001 - Alex Zanardi, driving in a CART race is injured in Germany, resulting in both legs being amputated below the knee.

Births

973 - Al-Biruni, mathematician (d. 1048)
1254 - Marco Polo, Italian explorer (d. 1324)
1580 - Charles Annibal Fabrot, French lawyer (d. 1659)
1613 - François de La Rochefoucauld, French writer (d. 1680)
1649 - Titus Oates, English minister and plotter (d. 1705)
1715 - Jean Baptiste Vaquette de Gribeauval, French artillery specialist (d. 1789)
1789 - James Fenimore Cooper, American novelist (d. 1851)
1828 - Aleksandr Mikhailovich Butlerov, Russian chemist (d. 1886)
1830 - Porfirio Díaz, President of Mexico (d. 1915)
1852 - Edward Bouchet, American physicist (d. 1918)
1857 - William Howard Taft, 27th President of the United States (d. 1930)
1858 - Jenő Hubay, Hungarian violinist (d. 1937)
1860 - Sir Mokshagundam Visvesvarayya, Indian engineer
1867 - Vladimir May-Mayevsky, Russian counter-revolutionary (d. 1920)
1876 - Bruno Walter, German conductor (d. 1962)
1879 - Joseph Lyons, tenth Prime Minister of Australia (d. 1939)
1881 - Ettore Bugatti, Italian automobile engineer and designer (d. 1947)
1883 - Esteban Terradas i Illa, Catalan mathematician, scientist, and engineer (d. 1950)
1887 - Carlos Dávila, President of Chile and Secretary General of the Organization of American States (d. 1955)
1889 - Robert Benchley, American author (d. 1945)
1890 - Agatha Christie, English writer (d. 1976)
1890 - Frank Martin, Swiss composer (d. 1974)
1894 - Jean Renoir, French film director (d. 1979)
1894 - Oskar Klein, Swedish physicist (d. 1977)
1898 - J. Slauerhoff, Dutch poet and novelist (d. 1936)
1901 - Sir Donald Bailey, British engineer (d. 1985)
1903 - Roy Acuff, American musician (d. 1992)
1904 - King Umberto II of Italy (d. 1983)
1907 - Fay Wray, Canadian-born actress (d. 2004)
1908 - Penny Singleton, American actress (d. 2003)
1913 - John N. Mitchell, United States Attorney General and convicted Watergate criminal (d. 1988)
1914 - Adolfo Bioy Casares, Argentine writer (d. 1999)
1922 - Jackie Cooper, American actor and director
1923 - Anton Heiller, Austrian organist (d. 1979)
1924 - Bobby Short, American musician (d. 2005)
1926 - Jean-Pierre Serre, French mathematician
1928 - Cannonball Adderley, American saxophonist and bandleader (d. 1975)
1929 - Eva Burrows, the 13th General of The Salvation Army
1929 - Murray Gell-Mann, American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate
1933 - Henry Darrow, American actor
1933 - Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, Spanish conductor
1937 - Robert Lucas, Jr., American economist, Nobel Prize laureate
1938 - Gaylord Perry, baseball player
1940 - Merlin Olsen, American football player and actor
1941 - Flórián Albert, Hungarian footballer
1946 - Tommy Lee Jones, American actor
1946 - Oliver Stone, American film director
1949 - Joe Barton, American politician
1951 - Johan Neeskens, Dutch football player
1961 - Dan Marino, American football player
1961 - Terry Lamb, Australian rugby league player
1969 - Jim Curtiss, American writer
1971 - Nathan Astle, New Zealand cricket player
1975 - Jamie Stevens, German pop singer
1976 - Paul Thomson, Scottish drummer (Franz Ferdinand)
1977 - Sophie Dahl, British model
1978 - Eidur Gudjohnsen, Icelandic footballer
1979 - Amy Davidson, American actress
1980 - Jolin Tsai, Taiwanese pop singer
1984 - Prince Harry of Wales

Deaths

1500 - John Morton, Archbishop of Canterbury
1596 - Leonhard Rauwolf, German physician and botanist (b. 1535)
1613 - Thomas Overbury, English writer (murdered) (b. 1581)
1643 - Richard Boyle, 1st Earl of Cork, Irish politician (b. 1566)
1649 - John Floyd, English Jesuit preacher (b. 1572)
1700 - André Le Nôtre, French landscape architect (b. 1613)
1701 - Edmé Boursault, French writer (b. 1638)
1707 - George Stepney, English poet and diplomat (b. 1663)
1712 - Sidney Godolphin, 1st Earl of Godolphin, English politician
1750 - Charles Theodore Pachelbel, German composer (b. 1690)
1794 - Abraham Clark, American signer of the Declaration of Independence (b. 1725)
1803 - Gian Francesco Albani, Italian Catholic cardinal (b. 1719)
1830 - William Huskisson, first rail fatality
1842 - Pierre Baillot, French violinist and composer (b. 1771)
1859 - Isambard Kingdom Brunel, British engineer (b. 1806)
1864 - John Hanning Speke, British explorer (b. 1827)
1883 - Joseph Plateau, Belgian physicist (b. 1801)
1885 - Jumbo, P. T. Barnum's circus elephant (hit by a train)
1893 - Thomas Hawksley, English civil engineer (b. 1807)
1921 - Roman Ungern von Sternberg, Russian counter-revolutionary (b. 1886)
1926 - Rudolf Christoph Eucken, German writer, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1846)
1930 - Milton Sills, American actor (b. 1882)
1945 - André Tardieu, Prime Minister of France (b. 1876)
1945 - Anton Webern, Austrian composer (shot) (b. 1883)
1965 - Steve Brown, American musician (b. 1890)
1972 - Geoffrey Fisher, Archbishop of Canterbury (b. 1887)
1973 - King Gustav VI Adolf of Sweden (b. 1882)
1978 - Willy Messerschmitt, German aircraft designer and manufacturer (b. 1898)
1980 - Bill Evans, American jazz pianist (b. 1929)
1987 - Steven Tuomi, Murder victim of Jeffery Dahmer (b. 1963)
1989 - Robert Penn Warren, American writer (b. 1905)
2003 - Jack Brymer, English clarinetist (b. 1915)
2003 - Josef Hirsal, Czech novelist (b. 1920)
2004 - Johnny Ramone, American guitarist (The Ramones) (prostate cancer) (b. 1948)
2004 - Walter Stewart, Canadian journalist (b. 1931)

Holidays and observances

In Slovakia - Holyday of the Seven sorrows of Virgin Maria
In ancient Greece, the second day of the Eleusinian Mysteries, when the priests of Demeter declared the public start of the rites.
Independence Day from Spain (1821) for Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua, celebrated everywhere with marches from schoolchildren.
RC Saints - Feast day of Our Lady of Sorrows.
Also see September 15 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics).
The United Kingdom - the British commemorate the Battle of Britain on the day of the last massive Luftwaffe attack in 1940.
Japan - Respect for the Aged Day before 2003; beginning in 2003, Respect for the Aged Day is held on the third Monday of September.
Bulgaria - The first day of school.

External links

BBC: On This Day

September 14 · September 16 · August 15 · October 15 · more historical anniversaries

Gourt Home::Gourt :: September 15

Events

Births

Deaths

Holidays and observances

External links