1066 – William the Conqueror and his army set sail from the mouth of the River Somme, beginning the Norman conquest of England.
1331 – The Battle of Płowce between the Kingdom of Poland and the Teutonic Order is fought.
1422 – After the brief Gollub War the Teutonic Knights sign the Treaty of Melno with the Kingdom of Poland and Grand Duchy of Lithuania
1529 – The Siege of Vienna begins when Suleiman I attacks the city.
1540 – The Society of Jesus (Jesuits) receives its charter from Pope Paul III.
1590 – Pope Urban VII dies 13 days after being chosen as the Pope, making his reign the shortest papacy in history.
1605 – The armies of Sweden are defeated by the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth in the Battle of Kircholm.
1669 – The Venetians surrender the fortress of Candia to the Ottomans, thus ending the 21-year-long Siege of Candia.
1777 – Lancaster, Pennsylvania is the capital of the United States, for one day.
1854 – The steamship SS Arctic sinks with 300 people on board. This marks the first great disaster in the Atlantic Ocean.
1875 – The merchant sailing ship Ellen Southard is wrecked in a storm at Liverpool.
1905 – The physics journal Annalen der Physik received Albert Einstein’s paper, “Does the Inertia of a Body Depend Upon Its Energy Content?”, introducing the equation E=mc².
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1916 – Iyasu V is proclaimed deposed as ruler of Ethiopia in a palace coup in favor of his aunt Zewditu.
1922 – King Constantine I of Greece abdicates his throne in favor of his eldest son, George II.
1928 – The Republic of China is recognized by the United States.
1938 – Ocean liner Queen Elizabeth launched in Glasgow.
1940 – World War II: The Tripartite Pact is signed in Berlin by Germany, Japan and Italy.
1941 – The SS Patrick Henry is launched becoming the first of more than 2,700 Liberty ships.
1942 – Last day of the September Matanikau action on Guadalcanal as United States Marine Corps troops barely escape after being surrounded by Japanese forces near the Matanikau River.
1944 – The Kassel Mission results in the largest loss by a USAAF group on any mission in World War II.
1956 – USAF Captain Milburn G. Apt becomes the first man to exceed Mach 3 while flying the Bell X-2. Shortly thereafter, the craft goes out of control and Captain Apt is killed.
1961 – Sierra Leone joins the United Nations.
1962 – The Yemen Arab Republic is established.
1964 – The British TSR-2 aircraft XR219 makes its maiden flight from Boscombe Down in Wiltshire.
1983 – Richard Stallman announces the GNU project to develop a free Unix-like operating system.
1988 – National League for Democracy is formed by Aung San Suu Kyi and various others to help fight against dictatorship in Myanmar.
1993 – The Sukhumi massacre takes place in Abkhazia.
1996 – In Afghanistan, the Taliban capture the capital city Kabul after driving out President Burhanuddin Rabbani and executing former leader Mohammad Najibullah.
1996 – The Julie N., a tanker ship, spills thousands of gallons of oil after crashing into the Million Dollar Bridge in Portland, Maine .
1997 – Communications are suddenly lost with the Mars Pathfinder space probe.
2002 – Timor-Leste joins the United Nations.
2003 – SMART-1 satellite is launched.
2007 – NASA launches the Dawn probe.
2008 – CNSA astronaut Zhai Zhigang becomes the first Chinese person to perform a spacewalk while flying on Shenzhou 7.