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.
1821 – Mexico gains its independence from Spain.
1822 – Jean-François Champollion announces that he has deciphered the Rosetta Stone.
1825 – The world's first public railway to use steam locomotives, the Stockton and Darlington Railway, is ceremonially opened.
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; the United States Congress subsequently awards 27 gold Lifesaving Medals to the lifeboat men who went to rescue her crew.
1903 – Wreck of the Old 97, a train crash made famous by the song of the same name.
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.
1908 – The first production of the Ford Model T automobile was built at the Ford Piquette Avenue Plant in Detroit, Michigan.
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.
1930 – Bobby Jones wins the U.S. Amateur Championship to complete the Grand Slam of golf. The old structure of the grand slam was the U.S. Open, British Open, U.S. Amateur, and British Amateur.
1937 – Bali tiger declared extinct.
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.
1949 – The first Plenary Session of the National People's Congress approves the design of the Flag of the People's Republic of China.
1954 – The nationwide debut of Tonight Starring Steve Allen (The Tonight Show) hosted by Steve Allen on NBC.
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.
1959 – Nearly 5,000 people die on the main Japanese island of Honshū as the result of a typhoon.
1961 – Sierra Leone joins the United Nations.
1962 – The Yemen Arab Republic is established.
1962 – Rachel Carson's book Silent Spring is published, inspiring an environmental movement and the creation of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
1964 – The British TSR-2 aircraft XR219 makes its maiden flight from Boscombe Down in Wiltshire.
1968 – The stage musical Hair opens at the Shaftesbury Theatre in London, where it played 1,998 performances until its closure was forced by the roof collapsing in July 1973.
1975 – The last use of capital punishment in Spain sees the executions of five members of militant organisations, sparking worldwide protests against the Spanish government and the withdrawal of numerous ambassadors.
1977 – A U.S. Navy McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II crashes into a residential neighborhood in Yokohama, Japan, killing two children on the ground and injuring seven other people.
1979 – The United States Department of Education receives final approval from the U.S. Congress to become the 13th US Cabinet agency.
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 – Tanker ship Julie N. 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.
1998 – The Google internet search engine retrospectively claims this as its birthday.
2000 – The first Olympic Gold Medal ever for taekwondo was won by Greek athlete Michail Mouroutsos in men's -58 kg division in Sydney.
2001 – Zug massacre: In Zug, Switzerland, Friedrich Leibacher shoots 18 citizens, killing 14 and then himself.
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.
2012 – A mass shooting takes place at Accent Signage Systems, in Minneapolis, killing 6 people, including the gunman who committed suicide, and wounding 2 others.
2015 – A total lunar eclipse takes place during a supermoon visible across much of the world.
