275 – In Rome, (after the assassination of Aurelian), the Senate proclaims Marcus Claudius Tacitus Emperor.
762 – Led by Muhammad al-Nafs al-Zakiyya, the Hasanid branch of the Alids begins the Alid Revolt against the Abbasid Caliphate.
1066 – The Battle of Stamford Bridge marks the end of the Viking invasions of England.
1237 – England and Scotland sign the Treaty of York, establishing the location of their common border.
1396 – Ottoman Emperor Bayezid I defeats a Christian army at the Battle of Nicopolis.
1513 – Spanish explorer Vasco Núñez de Balboa reaches what would become known as the Pacific Ocean.
1555 – The Peace of Augsburg is signed in Augsburg by Charles V and the princes of the Schmalkaldic League.
1690 – Publick Occurrences Both Forreign and Domestick, the first newspaper to appear in the Americas, is published for the first and only time.
1775 – American Revolutionary War: Ethan Allen surrenders to British forces after attempting to capture Montreal during the Battle of Longue-Pointe. Benedict Arnold and his expeditionary company set off from Fort Western, bound for Quebec City.
1789 – The United States Congress passes twelve amendments to the United States Constitution: The Congressional Apportionment Amendment (which was never ratified), the Congressional Compensation Amendment, and the ten that are known as the Bill of Rights.
1846 – U.S. forces led by Zachary Taylor capture the Mexican city of Monterrey.
1868 – The Imperial Russian steam frigate Alexander Nevsky is shipwrecked off Jutland while carrying Grand Duke Alexei of Russia.
1890 – The United States Congress establishes Sequoia National Park.
1906 – In the presence of the king and before a great crowd, Leonardo Torres y Quevedo successfully demonstrates the invention of the Telekino in the port of Bilbao, guiding a boat from the shore, in what is considered the birth of the remote control.
1911 – An explosion of badly degraded propellant charges on board the French battleship Liberté detonates the forward ammunition magazines and destroys the ship.
1915 – World War I: The Second Battle of Champagne begins.
1926 – The international Convention to Suppress the Slave Trade and Slavery is first signed.
1929 – Jimmy Doolittle performs the first blind flight from Mitchel Field proving that full instrument flying from take off to landing is possible.
1937 – Second Sino-Japanese War: The Chinese Eighth Route Army gains a minor, but morale-boosting victory in the Battle of Pingxingguan.
1942 – World War II: Swiss Police instruction dictates that “Under current practice … refugees on the grounds of race alone are not political refugees”, effectively denying entry to Jews trying to flee occupied Europe during the Holocaust.
1944 – World War II: Surviving elements of the British 1st Airborne Division withdraw from Arnhem in the Netherlands, thus ending the Battle of Arnhem and Operation Market Garden.
1955 – The Royal Jordanian Air Force is founded.
1956 – TAT-1, the first submarine transatlantic telephone cable system, is inaugurated.
1957 – Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, is integrated by the use of United States Army troops.
1959 – Solomon Bandaranaike, Prime Minister of Sri Lanka is mortally wounded by a Buddhist monk, Talduwe Somarama, and dies the next day.
1962 – The People’s Democratic Republic of Algeria is formally proclaimed. Ferhat Abbas is elected President of the provisional government.
1962 – The North Yemen Civil War begins when Abdullah al-Sallal dethrones the newly crowned Imam al-Badr and declares Yemen a republic under his presidency.
1963 – Lord Denning releases the UK government’s official report on the Profumo Affair.
1964 – The Mozambican War of Independence against Portugal begins.
1969 – The charter establishing the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation is signed.
1970 – Ceasefire between Jordan and the Fedayeen ends fighting triggered by four hijackings on September 6 and 9.
1974 – The first ulnar collateral ligament replacement surgery (Tommy John surgery) performed, on baseball player Tommy John.
1977 – About 4,200 people take part in the first running of the Chicago Marathon.
1978 – PSA Flight 182, a Boeing 727, collides in mid-air with a Cessna 172 and crashes in San Diego, killing 144 people.
1981 – Belize joins the United Nations.
1983 – Maze Prison escape: Thirty-eight republican prisoners, armed with six handguns, hijack a prison meals lorry and smash their way out of the Maze prison. It is the largest prison escape since World War II and in British history.
1992 – NASA launches the Mars Observer, a $511 million probe to Mars, in the first U.S. mission to the planet in 17 years. Eleven months later, the probe would fail