September 15



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)

Days of the year