September 11

On September 16, 1920, at about 12:01 p.m., a powerful bomb concealed on a horse-drawn wagon exploded in front of J.P. Morgan & Co. at 23 Wall Street, killing 38 people, injuring many more, and shattering not just glass but a fragile national calm already frayed by the First Red Scare. The attack was never solved; investigators pointed to Italian anarchists known as Galleanists, but no one was ever convicted. The blast hardened public fear of radicalism and fed an era of aggressive surveillance and deportations that reshaped American law enforcement and civil liberties in the 1920s.

On September 16, 2007, One-Two-Go Flight OG269, a McDonnell Douglas MD-82 (registration HS‑OMG) on a scheduled domestic service to Don Mueang International Airport, attempted to land in heavy monsoon rain at Bangkok. The approach became unstabilized, a late and ineffective decision to go around followed, and the aircraft overran the runway, broke apart and caught fire. Of 130 people on board, 90 died and 40 survived. The accident exposed lapses in crew decision-making and in the airline’s training and safety culture, prompting official recommendations and regulatory action.

On the morning of September 19, 1985, a massive subduction earthquake off the coast of Michoacán sent long, low-frequency waves into the Basin of Mexico. For two or three minutes the city that sat on a reclaimed lakebed swayed, and entire mid-rise blocks in central districts pancaked or tilted. The death toll—officially reported at around 10,000—remains disputed; tens of thousands were injured and hundreds of thousands were affected. The disaster exposed geological and political fault lines, birthed a vast citizen rescue movement, and reshaped Mexico’s approach to seismic risk for decades to come.