On September 1146
Zangi of the Near East is murdered. The Sultan Nur ad-Din, his son, pursues the conquest of Edessa.
On September 1321
Dante Alighieri dies of malaria just hours after finishing writing Paradiso.
On September 1544
Henry VIII's forces take Boulogne, France.
On September 1773
Russian forces under Aleksandr Suvorov successfully storm a Turkish fort at Hirsov, Turkey.
On September 1791
Louis XVI swears his allegiance to the French constitution.
On September 1812
Napoleon Bonaparte's invasion of Russia reaches its climax as his Grande Armee enters Moscow--only to find the enemy capital deserted and burning, set afire by the few Russians who remained.
On September 1814
Francis Scott Key writes the words to the "Star Spangled Banner" as he waits aboard a British launch in the Chesapeake Bay for the outcome of the British assault on Fort McHenry during the War of 1812.
On September 1847
U.S. forces under Gen. Winfield Scott capture Mexico City, virtually bringing the two-year Mexican War to a close.
On September 1853
The Allies land at Eupatoria on the west coast of Crimea.
On September 1862
At the battles of South Mountain and Crampton's Gap, Maryland Union troops smash into the Confederates as they close in on what will become the Antietam battleground.
On September 1901
Vice President Theodore Roosevelt is sworn in as the 26th President of the United States upon the death of William McKinley, who was shot eight days earlier.
On September 1911
Russian Premier Pyotr Stolypin is mortally wounded in an assassination attempt at the Kiev opera house.
On September 1943
German troops abandon the Salerno front in Italy..
On September 1960
Iraq, Iran, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia form OPEC.
On September 1966
Operation Attleboro, designed as a training exercise for American troops, becomes a month-long struggle against the Viet Cong.
On September 1975
Mother Elizabeth Ann Seton becomes the first native-born American saint in the Roman Catholic Church.
On September 1979
Nur Muhammad Taraki, president and former prime minister of Afghanistan, is assassinated in a coup in which prime minister Hafizullah Amin seizes power.
On September 1982
Gemayel, president-elect of Lebanon, is killed along with 26 others in a bomb blast in Beirut.
On September 1984
Joe Kittinger, a former USAF fighter pilot during the Vietnam War, becomes the first person to pilot a gas balloon solo across the Atlantic Ocean.
On September 1994
Major League Baseball players strike over a salary cap and other proposed changes, forcing the cancellation of the entire postseason and the World Series.
On September 2007
Northern Rock Bank suffers the UK's first bank run in 150 years.
