Title: September 15 Content: == Events == === Up to 1900 === * 668 Eastern Roman Emperor Constans II is murdered in his bath. * 1440 Gilles de Rais, one of the earliest-known serial killers, is taken into custody upon an accusation brought against him by the Bishop of Nantes. * 1616 The first non-aristocratic free public school in Europe is opened in Frascati, Italy. * 1762 Seven Years' War: Battle of Signal Hill. * 1776 American Revolutionary War: British forces land at Kip's Bay, during the New York Campaign. * 1789 The United States Department of State is founded, as the Department of Foreign Affairs. * 1812 The French army under Napoleon Bonaparte enters Moscow. * 1812 War of 1812: A second supply train sent to relieve Fort Harrison is ambushed in the Attack of the Narrows. * 1820 Constitutionalist Revolution in Lisbon * 1821 Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua and Costa Rica jointly declare independence from Spain. * 1830 The Liverpool to Manchester railway line opens. On the same day, William Huskisson becomes the first railway fatality after being hit by a locomotive. * 1835 The HMS Beagle arrives in the Galapagos Islands with a young Charles Darwin on board. * 1851 Saint Joseph's University is founded in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. * 1862 American Civil War: Confederate forces capture Harper's Ferry, then in Virginia, now in West Virginia. * 1873 Franco-Prussian War: The last German troops leave France. * 1875 Indianola, Texas, is destroyed by a Hurricane, killing between 150 and 300 people. * 1894 First Sino-Japanese War: Japan defeats China in the Battle of Pyongyang. === 1901 2000 === * 1916 World War I: Tanks are used in battle for the first time, in the Somme, northern France. * 1935 With the Nuremberg Laws, the Nazis strip Jews of German citizenship. * 1935 The Nazis adopt the Swastika flag as the flag of Germany. * 1940 World War II: Climax of the Battle of Britain. * 1942 World War II: United States Navy aircraft carrier USS Wasp is torpedoed at Guadalcanal, present-day Solomon Islands. * 1944 World War II: The Battle of Peleliu (in Palau), between US and Japanese forces, begins. * 1944 World War II: Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt meet in Quebec as part of the Octagon conference to discuss strategy. * 1945 A hurricane in South Florida and the Bahamas destroys 366 planes and 25 blimps at NAS Richmond * 1947 Typhoon Kathleen kills 1,077 people in the Kanto region of Japan. * 1948 The F-86 Sabre sets the world aircraft speed record, at 671 miles per hour (1,080 kilometres per hour). * 1949 Konrad Adenauer becomes the first Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany. * 1950 Korean War: US forces land at Inchon. * 1952 The UN gives Eritrea to Ethiopia. * 1958 A Central Railroad of New Jersey commuter train runs through an open drawbridge at the Newark Bay, killing 58 people. * 1959 Nikita Khrushchev becomes the first Soviet leader to visit the US. * 1961 Hurricane Carla hits Texas. * 1962 Soviet ship Poltava heads towards Cuba, one of the events that lead to the Cuban Missile Crisis. * 1963 "Birmingham Sunday" when a bomb killed 4 black girls in a church in Birmingham, Alabama. * 1966 US President Lyndon B. Johnson, responding to a sniper attack at the University of Texas at Austin, writes a letter to 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 Earth's atmosphere. * 1969 US ice breaker tanker SS Manhattan passes through the Northwest Passage, after four weeks. * 1972 Scandinavian Airlines System domestic flight from Gothenburg to Stockholm, Sweden, is hijacked and flown to Malmo Bulltofta Airport. * 1973 Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden becomes King. * 1975 The French department of Corse, on the island of Corsica, is divided in two, into Haute-Corse and Corse-du-Sud. * 1981 Vanuatu joins the UN. * 1981 The Senate Judiciary Committee approves Sandra Day O'Connor to become a Justice on the United States Supreme Court, being the first female in such a role. * 1983 Prime Minister of Israel Menachem Begin resigns. * 1990 France announces it will send 4,000 troops to the Persian Gulf. * 1991 Bangladesh becomes a parliamentary democracy. * 1993 Hans-Adam II, Prince of Liechtenstein disbands his country's parliament. * 1994 For the first time, a planet outside the Solar System is discovered. * 1997 New York City's Museum of Jewish Heritage opens. * 2000 The 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney begin. === From 2001 === * 2007 Former world Rally champion Colin McRae dies in a helicopter crash in Lanarkshire, Scotland, along with his son and two family friends. * 2008 Lehman Brothers files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. * 2011 A parliamentary election is held in Denmark, resulting in Helle Thorning-Schmidt becoming Prime Minister on October 3. * 2015 Malcolm Turnbull replaces Tony Abbott as Prime Minister of Australia. * 2015 Aksel V. Johannesen becomes Prime Minister of the Faroe Islands. * 2017 2017 Parsons Green bombing: An explosive device is detonated on a tube train near London's Parsons Green station, injuring 30 people. * 2017 The Cassini space probe's mission is ended, as it is plunged into Saturn's atmosphere. == Births == === Up to 1800 === * 1254 Marco Polo, Italian explorer (d. 1324) * 1533 Catherine of Austria, Queen Consort of Poland and Lithuania (d. 1572) * 1580 Charles Annibal Fabrot, French lawyer (d. 1659) * 1603 Tokugawa Yorifusa, Japanese daimyo (d. 1661) * 1613 François de la Rochefoucauld, French author (d. 1680) * 1649 Titus Oates, English priest (d. 1705) * 1666 Sophia Dorothea of Celle, German princess (d. 1726) * 1675 Vakhtang VI of Kartli, Georgian King (d. 1737) * 1676 Stanislaw Poniatowski, Polish politician (d. 1762) * 1690 Ignazio Prota, Italian composer and music educator (d. 1748) * 1715 Jean-Baptiste Vaquette de Gribeauval, French general and engineer (d. 1789) * 1736 Jean- Silvain Bailly, French politician and astronomer (d. 1793) * 1756 Carl Philipp Moritz, German writer (d. 1793) * 1760 Bogislav Friedrich Emanuel von Tauentzien, Prussian general (d. 1824) * 1761 Cornelio Saavedra, Argentine politician (d. 1829) * 1765 Bocage, Portuguese poet (d. 1805) * 1787 Guillaume-Henri Dufour, Swiss humanist, general, politician, mapmaker and engineer (d. 1875) * 1789 James Fenimore Cooper, American writer (d. 1851) * 1800 Paul-Frederick, Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin (d. 1842) === 1801 1900 === * 1808 John Hutton Balfour, Scottish botanist (d. 1884) * 1811 Charles de Mornay, French politician (d. 1865) * 1814 Ferdinand von Arnim, German architect (d. 1866) * 1815 Halfdan Kjerulf, Norwegian composer (d. 1868) * 1825 Iwakura Tomomi, Japanese statesman (d. 1883) * 1828 Alexander Butlerov, Russian chemist (d. 1886) * 1830 Porfirio Díaz, President of Mexico (d. 1915) * 1834 Heinrich von Treitschke, German historian and publicist (d. 1896) * 1852 Edward Bouchet, American physicist (d. 1918) * 1857 William Howard Taft, 27th President of the United States (d. 1930) * 1858 Charles de Foucauld, French monk (d. 1916) * 1860 Visvesvaraya, Indian engineer, scholar and politician (d. 1962) * 1863 Horatio Parker, American composer (d. 1919) * 1875 Henry D. Hatfield, American politician, 14th Governor of West Virginia (d. 1962) * 1876 Bruno Walter, German conductor (d. 1962) * 1876 Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay, Bengali writer (d. 1938) * 1877 Jakob Ehrlich, Austrian politician and Zionist (d. 1938) * 1877 Yente Serdatzky, Lithuanian-American author and playwright (d. 1962) * 1879 Joseph Lyons, 10th Prime Minister of Australia (d. 1939) * 1881 Ettore Bugatti, Italian automobile engineer and designer (d. 1947) * 1883 Esteban Teradas i Illa, Spanish mathematician and engineer (d. 1950) * 1886 Paul Lévy, French mathematician (d. 1971) * 1887 Carlos Dávila, President of Chile (d. 1955) * 1888 Antonio Ascari, Italian racing driver (d. 1925) * 1889 Robert Benchley, American writer (d. 1945) * 1890 Agatha Christie, English writer (d. 1976) * 1894 Jean Renoir, French movie director (d. 1979) * 1895 Magda Lupescu, consort of King Carol II of Romania (d. 1977) === 1901 1925 === * 1903 Roy Acuff, American Country musician (d. 1992) * 1903 Yisrael Kristal, Polish-born Israeli supercentenarian and Holocaust survivor (d. 2017) * 1904 King Umberto II of Italy (d. 1983) * 1905 Pat O'Callaghan, Irish hammer thrower (d. 1991) * 1907 Alfred Delp, German Jesuit and Resistance activist (d. 1945) * 1907 Fay Wray, Canadian-American actress (d. 2004) * 1908 Misko Kranjec, Slovenian writer (d. 1983) * 1909 C. N. Annadurai, Indian politician, 7th Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu (d. 1969) * 1911 Karsten Solheim, Norwegian-American golf entrepreneur (d. 2000) * 1911 Luther Terry, 9th Surgeon General of the United States (d. 1985) * 1913 John N. Mitchell, United States Attorney General (d. 1988) * 1913 Johannes Steinhoff, German military officer (d. 1994) * 1914 Adolfo Bioy Casares, Argentine writer (d. 1999) * 1914 Jens Otto Krag, Prime Minister of Denmark (d. 1978) * 1915 Helmut Schön, German footballer and manager (d. 1996) * 1916 Margaret Lockwood, English actress (d. 1990) * 1918 Margot Loyola, Chilean musician and singer (d. 2015) * 1919 Nelson Gidding, American screenwriter (d. 2004) * 1919 Fausto Coppi, Italian cyclist (d. 1960) * 1922 Jackie Cooper, American actor (d. 2011) * 1922 Bob Anderson, British fencer and sword fight choreographer (d. 2012) * 1922 Mary Soames, Baroness Soames, daughter of Winston Churchill (d. 2014) * 1924 György Lázár, 50th Prime Minister of Hungary (d. 2014) * 1925 Carlo Rambaldi, Italian special effects artist (d. 2012) * 1925 Helle Virkner, Danish actress (d. 2009) === 1926 1950 === * 1926 Jean-Pierre Serre, French mathematician * 1926 Shohei Imamura, Japanese movie director (d. 2006) * 1926 Ed Derwinski, American politician (d. 2012) * 1927 Val Holten, Australian cricketer (d. 2015) * 1927 Norm Crosby, American comedian and actor * 1928 Cannonball Adderley, American jazz musician (d. 1975) * 1929 Murray Gell-Mann, American physicist (d. 2019) * 1929 Mümtaz Soysal, Turkish politician and lawyer (d. 2019) * 1929 Eva Burrows, 13th General of the Salvation Army (d. 2015) * 1930 Merab Mamardashvili, Georgian philosopher (d. 1990) * 1933 Henry Darrow, American actor * 1933 Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, Spanish composer and conductor (d. 2014) * 1935 Patriarch Dinkha IV of the Assyrian Church of the East (d. 2015) * 1936 Ashley Cooper, Australian tennis player * 1937 Robert Lucas, Jr., American economist * 1937 Fernando de la Rúa, former President of Argentina (d. 2019) * 1938 Gaylord Perry, American baseball player * 1940 Merlin Olsen, American football player and actor (d. 2010) * 1941 Flórián Albert, Hungarian footballer (d. 2011) * 1941 Signe Toly Anderson, American singer (d. 2016) * 1941 Yuriy Norshteyn, Russian animator, director and screenwriter * 1941 Viktor Zubkov, former Prime Minister of Russia * 1941 Miroslaw Hermaszewski, Polish cosmonaut * 1942 Wen Jiabao, former Premier of the People's Republic of China * 1942 Emmerson Mnangagwa, 3rd President of Zimbabwe * 1942 Lee Dorman, American bass player (d. 2012) * 1944 Graham Taylor, English footballer and manager (d. 2017) * 1944 Mauro Piacenza, Italian cardinal * 1945 Hans-Gert Pöttering, German politician * 1945 Carmen Maura, Spanish actress * 1945 Jessye Norman, American singer (d. 2019) * 1945 Ron Shelton, American screenwriter, director and movie producer * 1945 Muqrin bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, Saudi prince * 1946 Ola Brunkert, Swedish musician (d. 2008) * 1946 Tommy Lee Jones, American actor * 1946 Oliver Stone, American movie director * 1946 Mike Procter, South African cricketer, coach and referee * 1947 Viggo Jensen, Danish footballer and manager * 1949 Joe Barton, American politician * 1950 Mirza Masroor Ahmad, Islamic spiritual leader === 1951 1975 === * 1951 Johan Neeskens, Dutch footballer * 1952 Richard Brodeur, Canadian ice hockey player * 1954 Hrant Dink, Turkish-Armenian newspaper editor (d. 2007) * 1954 Nava Semel, Israeli author and playwright (d. 2017) * 1955 Bruce Reitherman, American movie maker * 1955 Abdul Qadir, Pakistani cricketer (d. 2019) * 1955 Renzo Rosso, Italian fashion designer * 1955 Brendan O'Carroll, Irish actor * 1956 Maggie Reilly, Scottish singer * 1958 Dr. Know, American guitarist * 1959 Mark Kirk, American politician * 1960 Katsuyoshi Shinto, Japanese footballer * 1961 Dan Marino, American football player * 1961 Colin McFarlane, English voice actor * 1962 Rebecca Miller, American actress, director and writer * 1964 Robert Fico, former Prime Minister of Slovakia * 1966 Sherman Douglas, American basketball player * 1967 Huw Bunford, Welsh guitarist and songwriter (Super Furry Animals) * 1969 Revaz Arveladze, Georgian footballer * 1970 Svetlana Zakharova, Russian long-distance runner * 1971 Josh Charles, American actor * 1972 Jimmy Carr, British comedian * 1972 Queen Letizia of Spain * 1973 Daniel Westling, Swedish royal * 1973 Julie Cox, British actress * 1973 Alyn Smith, Scottish politician * 1974 Murat Yakin, Swiss footballer === From 1976 === * 1976 Paul Thomson, Scottish musician * 1977 Angela Aki, Japanese singer- songwriter * 1977 Sophie Dahl, British model * 1977 Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Nigerian writer * 1977 Tom Hardy, English actor, screenwriter and producer * 1977 René Haselbacher, Austrian cyclist * 1977 Jason Terry, American basketball player * 1978 Eidur Gudjohnsen, Icelandic footballer * 1978 Kew Jaliens, Dutch footballer * 1979 Patrick Marleau, Canadian ice hockey player * 1979 Carlos Ruiz, Guatemalan footballer * 1979 Amy Davidson, American actress * 1980 Mike Dunleavy, Jr., American basketball player * 1980 Jolin Tsai, Taiwanese singer * 1981 Miyavi, Japanese composer, singer and guitarist * 1983 Ashleigh McIvor, Canadian freestyle skier * 1983 Tomas Sivok, Czech footballer * 1983 Santeri Palin, Finnish writer * 1984 Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, British royal * 1986 Heidi Montag, American television personality and singer * 1986 Anan Anwar, Thai singer and actor * 1986 Peter Wilson, English sport shooter and Olympic gold medalist * 1986 Poppy Delevingne, English model * 1987 Clare Maguire, English singer-songwriter * 1988 Chelsea Kane, American actress and singer * 1988 Kate Mansi, American actress * 1990 Gwyneth Keyworth, Welsh actress * 1996 Jake Cherry, American actor * 1996 Nao Furuhata, Japanese idol and singer * 1999 Nana Owada, Japanese idol singer and actress == Deaths == === Up to 1900 === * 668 Constans II, Emperor (b. 630) * 921 Saint Ludmila of Bohemia, Bohemian martyr (b. 860) * 1134 Alfonso the Battler, King of Aragon and Navarra (b. 1073) * 1231 Louis I, Duke of Bavaria (b. 1173) * 1326 Dmitry of Tver (b. 1299) * 1352 Ewostatewos, Ethiopian monk and religious leader (b. 1273) * 1750 Charles Theodore Pachelbel, German composer (b. 1690) * 1794 Abraham Clark, Signer of the Declaration of Independence (b. 1725) * 1803 Gian Francesco Albani, Italian cardinal (b. 1719) * 1805 Christopher Gadsden, American soldier and statesman (b. 1724) * 1830 William Huskisson, English politician, first rail fatality (b. 1770) * 1835 Sarah Knox Taylor, wife of Jefferson Davis (b. 1814) * 1841 Alessandro Rolla, Italian violinist and composer (b. 1757) * 1842 Pierre Baillot, French violinist and composer (b. 1771) * 1842 Francisco Morazan, President of Central America (b. 1792) * 1859 Isambard Kingdom Brunel, British engineer (b. 1806) * 1864 John Hanning Speke, British explorer (b. 1827) * 1875 Duchenne de Boulogne, French psychologist (b. 1806) * 1883 Joseph Plateau, Belgian physicist (b. 1801) * 1885 Jumbo, African elephant (b. 1861) * 1891 John Steell, Scottish sculptor (b. 1804) * 1893 Thomas Hawksley, English engineer (b. 1807) === 1901 2000 === * 1926 Rudolf Christoph Eucken, German writer (b. 1846) * 1930 Milton Sills, American actor (b. 1882) * 1938 Thomas Wolfe, American writer (b. 1900) * 1940 William B. Bankhead, American politician (b. 1874) * 1945 André Tardieu, French statesman (b. 1876) * 1945 Anton Webern, Austrian composer and conductor (b. 1883) * 1972 Geoffrey Fisher, Archbishop of Canterbury (b. 1887) * 1972 Asgeir Asgeirsson, second President of Iceland (b. 1894) * 1973 King Gustav VI Adolf of Sweden, King of Sweden (b. 1882) * 1973 Victor Jara, Chilean musician (b. 1932) * 1975 Pavel Sukhoi, Russian aircraft designer (b. 1895) * 1978 Willy Messerschmidt, German aircraft designer (b. 1898) * 1979 Tommy Leonetti, American singer-songwriter and actor (b. 1929) * 1981 Harold Bennett, English actor (b. 1899) * 1985 Cootie Williams, American trumpeter (b. 1910) * 1989 Robert Penn Warren, American writer (b. 1905) * 1995 Gunnar Nordahl, Swedish footballer (b. 1921) * 1998 Luke Rasminsky, Canadian economist (b. 1908) === From 2001 === * 2001 June Salter, Australian actress (b. 1932) * 2004 Johnny Ramone, American guitarist (The Ramones) (b. 1948) * 2005 Sidney Luft, American director (b. 1915) * 2006 Oriana Fallaci, Italian journalist and writer (b. 1929) * 2007 Colin McRae, Scottish rally driver (b. 1968) * 2008 Richard Wright, English musician (Pink Floyd) (b. 1943) * 2009 Timothy Bateson, English actor (b. 1926) * 2014 Post Bahadur Bogati, Nepalese politician (b. 1953) * 2014 Yitzhak Hofi, Israeli general (b. 1927) * 2014 Eugene I. Gordon, American physicist (b. 1930) * 2014 John Anderson, Jr., American politician, Governor of Kansas (b. 1917) * 2014 Jackie Cain, American jazz singer (b. 1928) * 2014 Jeremy Ball, Australian actor and politician (b. 1969) * 2015 Meir Pa'il, Israeli politician and military historian (b. 1926) * 2015 Bernard Van De Kerckhove, Belgian racing driver (b. 1941) * 2015 Mihai Volontir, Moldovan actor (b. 1934) * 2015 Harry J. Lipkin, Israeli nuclear physicist (b. 1921) * 2017 María Cristina Arango Vega, First Lady of Colombia (b. 1928) * 2017 Violet Brown, Jamaican supercentenarian (b. 1900) * 2017 Dwijen Sharma, Bangladeshi naturalist and science writer (b. 1929) * 2017 Harry Dean Stanton, American actor (b. 1926) * 2017 Albert Speer Jr., German architect (b. 1934) * 2018 Kirin Kiki, Japanese actress (b. 1943) * 2018 Dudley Sutton, English actor (b. 1933) * 2018 José Manuel de la Sota, Argentine politician (b. 1949) * 2018 Victor Veselago, Soviet-Russian physicist (b. 1929) * 2018 Fritz Wintersteller, Austrian mountaineer (b. 1927) * 2018 Zhu Xu, Chinese actor (b. 1930) * 2019 Chadlia Caid Essebsi, First Lady of Tunisia (b. 1936) * 2019 Lol Mahamat Choua, 4th President of Chad (b. 1939) * 2019 Roberto Leal, Portuguese-Brazilian singer- songwriter (b. 1951) * 2019 Phyllis Newman, American actress and singer (b. 1933) * 2019 Ric Ocasek, American singer, songwriter and record producer (b. 1944) * 2019 Mike Stefanik, American racing driver (b. 1958) == Observances == * Battle of Britain Day (United Kingdom) * Grito de Dolores (Mexico) * Independence Day (Guatemala, El Salvador, Costa Rica, Honduras, Nicaragua) * International Day of Democracy * Engineers' Day (India) Category:Days of the year