15 September 2024 (MIA) 
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 Foreign Affairs”, established by law in July, is renamed the Department of State and given a variety of domestic duties. 
1794 – French Revolutionary War Arthur Wellesley (later Duke of Wellington) sees his first combat at the Battle of Boxtel during the Flanders Campaign. 
1812 – The French army under Napoleon reaches the Kremlin in Moscow. 
1816 – HMS Whiting runs aground on the Doom Bar 
1820 – Constitutionalist revolution in Lisbon, Portugal. 
1821 – Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica jointly declare independence from Spain. 
1835 – HMS Beagle, with Charles Darwin aboard, reaches the Galápagos Islands. The ship lands at Chatham or San Cristobal, the easternmost of the archipelago. 
1851 – Saint Joseph’s University is founded in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. 
1862 – American Civil War: Confederate forces capture Harpers Ferry, Virginia (present-day Harpers Ferry, West Virginia) 
1873 – Franco-Prussian War: The last German troops leave France upon completion of payment of indemnity. 
1894 – First Sino-Japanese War: Japan defeats Qing dynasty China in the Battle of Pyongyang. 
1916 – World War I: Tanks are used for the first time in battle, at the Battle of the Somme. 
1918 – World War I: Allied troops break through the Bulgarian defenses on the Macedonian Front. 
1935 – The Nuremberg Laws deprive German Jews of citizenship. 
1935 – Nazi Germany adopts a new national flag bearing the swastika. 
1940 – World War II: The climax of the Battle of Britain, when the Royal Air Force shoots down large numbers of Luftwaffe aircraft. 
1944 – Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill meet in Quebec as part of the Octagon Conference to discuss strategy. 
1944 – Battle of Peleliu begins as the United States Marine Corps’ 1st Marine Division and the United States Army’s 81st Infantry Division hit White and Orange beaches under heavy fire from Japanese infantry and artillery. 
1945 – A hurricane strikes southern Florida and the Bahamas, destroying 366 airplanes and 25 blimps at Naval Air Station Richmond. 
1947 – Typhoon Kathleen hit the Kanto Region in Japan, killing 1,077. 
1948 – The F-86 Sabre sets the world aircraft speed record at 671 miles per hour (1,080 km/h). 
1950 – Korean War: United States forces land at Inchon 
1952 – The United Nations cedes Eritrea to Ethiopia. 
1959 – Nikita Khrushchev becomes the first Soviet leader to visit the United States. 
1961 – Hurricane Carla strikes Texas with winds of 175 miles per hour. 
1962 – The Soviet ship Poltava heads toward Cuba, one of the events that set into motion the Cuban Missile Crisis. 
1963 – 16th Street Baptist Church bombing: Four children killed at an African-American church in Birmingham, Alabama, United States 
1966 – U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson, responding to a sniper attack at the University of Texas at Austin, writes a letter to 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 the Earth’s atmosphere. 
1971 – The first Greenpeace ship sets sail to protest against nuclear testing on Amchitka Island. 
1972 – A Scandinavian Airlines System domestic flight from Gothenburg to Stockholm is hijacked and flown to Malmö Bulltofta Airport. 
1974 – Air Vietnam Flight 706 is hijacked, then crashes while attempting to land with 75 on board. 
1975 – The French department of “Corse” (the entire island of Corsica) is divided into two: Haute-Corse (Upper Corsica) and Corse-du-Sud (Southern Corsica) 
1981 – The Senate Judiciary Committee unanimously approves Sandra Day O’Connor to become the first female justice of the Supreme Court of the United States 
1981 – The John Bull becomes the oldest operable steam locomotive in the world when the Smithsonian Institution operates it under its own power outside Washington, D.C. 
1981 – Vanuatu becomes a member of the United Nations. 
1983 – Israeli premier Menachem Begin resigns. 
2001 – George W. Bush, 43rd President of the United States, 46th Governor of Texas, gives Post 9-11 Weekly Address, foreshadowing an interventionist United States Foreign Policy, leading to the Iraq, and Afghanistan Wars. 
2004 – National Hockey League commissioner Gary Bettman announces lockout of the players’ union and cessation of operations by the NHL head office. 
2008 – Lehman Brothers files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, the largest bankruptcy filing in U.S. history. 
2012 – Muslim protesters shouting anti-American slogans clash with police, injuring 19 people, outside the US embassy in Sydney, Australia. 
2017 – The Parsons Green bombing takes place in London.