September

In the last week of September 2022 — September 23–27, 2022 — Russian authorities and their proxies staged plebiscites in parts of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia oblasts that they then used to declare those territories annexed by the Russian Federation on September 30, 2022. Held under military occupation, without independent observers and amid mass displacement and active combat, the votes were widely condemned as illegitimate by the United Nations and most countries. The declarations deepened international isolation of Russia and reshaped the next phase of the war in Ukraine.

On the afternoon of September 19, 2022, a powerful earthquake of roughly magnitude 7.6 struck offshore of Michoacán, Mexico—its epicenter near the municipalities of Coalcomán and Aquila. The quake sent long-period waves across western and central Mexico, tripped national alarms on a day already heavy with memory, prompted tsunami advisories that ultimately produced only minor sea-level changes, and set off days of aftershocks, inspections, and emergency response across affected states.

On September 19, 2021, a fissure opened on the southern slope of the Cumbre Vieja ridge on La Palma, Canary Islands, sending rivers of lava down toward coastal towns, forcing thousands to flee, and reshaping the island’s western flank. Over 85 days the eruption buried villages, created new coastline, and left a landscape and community facing years of recovery.

From 27 September to early November 2020, fighting erupted across Nagorno‑Karabakh and several surrounding Azerbaijani districts. The 44‑day war combined artillery, armored assaults and a new generation of drone warfare. It ended with a Russian‑brokered ceasefire signed on 9 November 2020 and coming into effect on 10 November 2020 (Moscow time), major territorial shifts in Azerbaijan’s favor, the deployment of Russian peacekeepers, and a humanitarian toll that left thousands dead, dozens of towns damaged, and tens of thousands displaced.

On the evening of September 28, 2018, a magnitude-7.5 earthquake struck off Central Sulawesi near the Palu–Koro fault. Within minutes, tsunami waves swept into Palu Bay and neighboring coastlines while large-scale liquefaction and ground flows swallowed entire neighborhoods. More than 4,300 people died, thousands were injured or displaced, and the disaster reshaped scientific understanding and local policy about near‑field tsunamis and ground‑failure risk.

On September 20, 2018, the small passenger ferry MV Nyerere capsized and sank off Ukara Island in Lake Victoria, Mwanza Region, northwestern Tanzania, after passengers and vehicles on board shifted to one side as the ferry neared the landing. Recovery teams later recorded 228 confirmed fatalities and 41 survivors; provisional figures had varied in the chaotic days after the disaster.

On the night of October 1, 2017, a lone gunman opened fire from the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay hotel onto the crowd at the Route 91 Harvest country music festival on the Las Vegas Strip. Fifty-eight concertgoers were killed (not including the shooter) and hundreds were wounded; the attack prompted a large multi‑agency investigation, new federal rules on bump‑stock devices, and years of civil litigation and recovery work.

On September 19, 2017, a magnitude 7.1 intraslab earthquake struck near Raboso, Puebla, rocking Mexico City and surrounding states. Coming on the same day as a nationwide drill and the 32nd anniversary of the 1985 disaster, the quake collapsed buildings, killed 369 people, and exposed failures in construction, inspection, and preparedness that reshaped Mexico’s recovery and policy debates.

On October 1, 2015, the U.S.-flagged cargo vessel SS El Faro lost propulsion and sank east of the Bahamas while en route from Jacksonville, Florida, to San Juan, Puerto Rico. All 33 people aboard were lost. Investigations later reconstructed the ship’s last hours from voyage data recorder recordings and found that the decision to steam into the path of Hurricane Joaquin, combined with maintenance and safety-management failures, led to the disaster.

After days of relentless rain, a steep, rapidly developed hillside in El Cambray II — a suburb just east of Guatemala City — collapsed in the early hours of October 1, 2015. A fast-moving mass of saturated volcanic soils and debris swept through the neighborhood, burying homes and cutting short lives. Rescue teams, neighbors and national responders raced against unstable ground and continuing rain; the disaster exposed how informal development on fragile slopes multiplies natural hazards and forced renewed debate over risk, relocation and urban planning.

On September 24, 2015, during the Hajj pilgrimage in Mina near Mecca, a sudden and deadly crowd crush occurred at an intersection of pedestrian routes leading to the Jamarat area during the stoning-of-the-devil ritual. The incident produced hundreds to thousands of casualties by differing counts, provoked international outcry over transparency and crowd management, and left unresolved questions about responsibility and exact numbers of dead and injured.

On September 27, 2014, Mount Ontake, a beloved pilgrimage and hiking mountain in central Japan, produced a sudden phreatic (steam‑driven) eruption near its summit at about 11:52 a.m. JST. The blast sent ash, rock and gas down the slopes, catching hundreds of climbers by surprise and ultimately killing 63 people. The disaster exposed the limits of volcanic prediction, strained rescue teams working under continuing hazard, and prompted changes in monitoring, warning and mountain‑access policies.

On September 29, 2013, gunmen attacked the Federal Government College in Gujba, Yobe State, northeastern Nigeria. Reported to be Boko Haram, the attackers stormed the campus during assembly, separated and shot students and staff, and burned part of the compound. Contemporary reports placed the death toll at roughly 40–50 people; survivors, families, and local authorities struggled with confusion and loss as rescue teams arrived and communities faced a new wave of fear that would deepen the region’s school crisis.

On September 24, 2013, a powerful earthquake struck near Awaran in southwestern Pakistan’s Balochistan province. The Mw ~7.7 mainshock and a destructive aftershock sequence leveled mud‑brick villages, killed hundreds, and sent remote communities scrambling for shelter and warmth as winter approached. Relief convoys, helicopters and local volunteers raced to reach places where roads had disappeared; the slow work of rebuilding and learning from the rupture would take years.

On September 22, 2013, two suicide bombers struck All Saints Church, an Anglican congregation in Peshawar, Pakistan, killing dozens and wounding many more. The attack, which occurred during a Sunday service, stunned a community already living with the threat of militant violence and reopened urgent questions about the protection of religious minorities in the country.

On September 21, 2013, armed attackers entered the upscale Westgate shopping mall in Nairobi’s Westlands district. Over the next three days the incident became a siege: survivors hid or fled amid gunfire and explosions, Kenyan security forces mounted clearance operations, and the Islamist group al-Shabaab claimed responsibility. Official tallies later placed the death toll at 67 with roughly 175 injured. The attack reshaped Kenyan security practices, public life in Nairobi, and how cities prepare for strikes on soft targets.

On the evening of October 1, 2012 — China’s National Day, a public holiday in Hong Kong — two passenger vessels collided near the approaches to Yung Shue Wan on Lamma Island. The impact and the fire that followed left the larger ferry badly damaged, threw passengers into dark water, and resulted in 39 dead and scores injured. Emergency crews, volunteer boats and hospitals mounted a rapid response; subsequent investigations found failures of watchkeeping and navigation and prompted changes to ferry safety and oversight in Hong Kong.

A shallow, moderate‑to‑strong earthquake of about magnitude 6.9 struck the Sikkim Himalaya on September 18, 2011, tearing slopes loose, severing roads and cutting into the lives of mountain communities. The shaking itself was brief; the landslides and isolation that followed shaped the human cost and the lessons learned.

On the morning of September 29, 2009, a very large earthquake (moment magnitude Mw 8.1) ruptured in the outer-rise seaward of the Tonga Trench. Tsunami waves reached nearby shores within minutes, sweeping away low-lying coastal villages in the independent nation of Samoa, the U.S. territory of American Samoa, and nearby islands. The disaster left 189 people dead, thousands displaced, and prompted changes in warning systems, community preparedness and tsunami science.

On 28 September 2009 a peaceful opposition rally at the Stade du 28 Septembre in Conakry turned into one of the bloodiest episodes in Guinea’s recent history. Security forces opened fire on the crowd, and survivors reported summary killings, mass detentions and widespread sexual violence. International investigators later concluded that at least 157 people were killed and more than a hundred women and girls were raped; the events prompted regional isolation of the junta and long, unfinished demands for justice.

On September 15, 2008, Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York. The shock of a storied investment bank collapsing under mountains of mortgage-related losses and short-term funding strain reverberated through global markets and helped turn an already serious financial downturn into a full-blown crisis.

On September 16, 2007, armed contractors working for the private security firm Blackwater opened fire in Baghdad’s Nisour Square, killing 17 Iraqi civilians and wounding dozens. The shootings — and the long, contentious investigations and trials that followed — exposed gaps in oversight of private military contractors, sparked diplomatic confrontation between Baghdad and Washington, and reshaped how the U.S. government manages armed contractors in conflict zones.

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 September 29, 2006, a scheduled Gol Transportes Aéreos Boeing 737‑800 and an Embraer Legacy 600 business jet collided over the Amazon rainforest near Peixoto de Azevedo, Mato Grosso, Brazil. All 154 people aboard the 737 died; the seven occupants of the Legacy survived. Investigations found a chain of human and system failures — including a loss of transponder altitude reporting, ambiguous communications, and air traffic surveillance shortcomings — that together allowed two aircraft to share the same flight level at cruise altitude.

On September 22, 2006, a Transrapid magnetic‑levitation test train on the Emsland test track near Lathen collided at high speed with a maintenance vehicle standing on the elevated guideway. The crash killed 23 people, injured 11, destroyed the test vehicle, and cast a long shadow over plans for maglev deployment in Germany. Investigators later blamed human and organizational failures and a safety concept that relied too heavily on procedural coordination instead of fail‑safe technical interlocks.

Hurricane Ivan struck the northern Gulf Coast on September 16, 2004, making landfall near Gulf Shores, Alabama as a Category 3 hurricane after a destructive month-long run through the Caribbean. The storm produced catastrophic surge, hurricane-force winds, and a prolific tornado outbreak; it caused 124 deaths overall (54 in the United States) and roughly $26.1 billion (2004 USD) in damage. The event reshaped coastlines, emergency planning, and scientific understanding of powerful tropical cyclones.

On September 26, 2003, a major megathrust quake off the southeastern coast of Hokkaidō sent shock across northern Japan and spawned a tsunami that battered harbors and fishing communities; the disaster killed two people, injured 849, and left port facilities and coastal infrastructure scarred while prompting renewed investment in tsunami science and evacuation planning.

On October 1, 2001, a car bomb exploded outside the Jammu and Kashmir Legislative Assembly complex in Srinagar, killing 38 people and injuring around 60 more. The blast tore through a heavily guarded symbol of state authority in a valley already accustomed to violence, prompting tightened security, investigations that pointed to Pakistan‑based militant networks, and a long, unresolved legacy that fed the region's cycle of fear and politics.

In the weeks after the September 11 attacks, at least one envelope postmarked September 18, 2001, in Trenton, New Jersey, and addressed to American Media Inc. in Boca Raton, Florida, carried a powder later confirmed to contain Bacillus anthracis spores. A handful of tabloid employees were exposed; photo editor Robert K. Stevens developed inhalational anthrax with symptom onset around September 30, was hospitalized in early October, and died after CDC confirmed the diagnosis on October 5, 2001. The mailing launched a national investigation into what became known as Amerithrax, prompted widespread decontamination and policy change, and left lingering scientific and criminal questions.

The Mars Climate Orbiter launched from Cape Canaveral on December 11, 1998, bound to study Martian weather and serve as a communications relay. On September 23, 1999, during the planned Mars orbit insertion maneuver, the spacecraft failed to reestablish contact and was lost. An investigation found the proximate cause to be a units conversion error—thruster performance data supplied in pound‑force seconds were treated as if they were newton‑seconds—compounded by inadequate interface verification and systems‑engineering oversight. The loss reshaped NASA procedures for software verification, contractor interfaces, and unit standardization.

In the pre‑dawn hours of September 21, 1999, a shallow, powerful earthquake with a moment magnitude of about 7.6 struck near Jiji (Chi‑Chi) in central Taiwan. The rupture raced along the Chelungpu Fault, splitting ground, toppling buildings and bridges, and killing 2,415 people. The quake exposed weaknesses in construction and preparedness, reshaped Taiwan’s emergency systems and engineering rules, and left a landscape and a nation changed by the shock.

On 25 September 1998 PauknAir Flight 4101, a British Aerospace 146 regional jet flying from Málaga to the Spanish enclave of Melilla, descended below published approach minima in instrument conditions and struck rising terrain on the slopes of Mount Gurugu short of the runway. All 38 people on board were killed. The accident was later classified as a controlled flight into terrain (CFIT) and prompted renewed emphasis on approach procedures, crew resource management, and terrain‑awareness equipment.

On September 3, 1997, Vietnam Airlines Flight 815 crashed while attempting to land in poor weather near Phnom Penh International Airport in Cambodia. Sixty-five of the 66 people onboard were killed, making it the deadliest aviation disaster in Cambodian history. Only one passenger, a 14-year-old boy from Thailand, survived. The accident was attributed to pilot error amid challenging conditions and inadequate airport technology, leaving a lasting impact on regional aviation safety.

On 22 September 1995, during the intensifying phase of Sri Lanka’s civil war, the Nagerkovil (also spelled Nagarkovil) Hindu College and surrounding civilian areas in the Jaffna Peninsula came under bombardment. Local witnesses and Tamil sources reported an airstrike and shelling that struck a school sheltering civilians, killing and wounding many, including children; government and military spokespeople disputed those accounts. The incident remains a contested and painful episode in the larger pattern of wartime civilian harm in northern Sri Lanka.

On 15 September 1995 Malaysia Airlines Flight 2133, a scheduled domestic service from Kota Kinabalu to Tawau, Sabah, overran the runway at Tawau Airport after touching down long and too fast. The aircraft continued beyond the runway, struck buildings and other objects beyond the perimeter, and suffered catastrophic damage; survivors were rescued and taken to local hospitals while investigators later attributed the accident mainly to an unstabilized approach and the decision to continue the landing rather than executing a go-around.

On September 4, 1995, a 12-year-old girl collecting clams near Camp Hansen in Kin Town, Okinawa, was abducted and sexually assaulted by three U.S. Marines. The crime ignited island-wide outrage, massive protests, and a diplomatic crisis that forced changes in how the United States and Japan handled custody and cooperation in serious criminal cases involving service members. The case left a lasting mark on Okinawan politics and U.S.–Japan base relations.

On the night of September 28, 1994, the ro‑ro ferry MS Estonia foundered in international waters southeast of Utö, Finland, after a failure of its bow visor allowed seawater to flood the vehicle deck. Of the 989 people aboard, 137 survived and 852 died. The disaster exposed fatal vulnerabilities in roll‑on/roll‑off ferry design, prompted a multinational investigation and sweeping safety changes, and left questions and grief that persist decades later.

In the pre-dawn hours of September 22, 1993, Amtrak Train No. 1, the Sunset Limited, plunged off a single-track railroad bridge near Mobile, Alabama after a towboat pushed barges into the bridge earlier that night. The impact laterally displaced two spans without tripping track circuits; signals showed clear, the train crossed at line speed, and 47 people were killed while more than 100 were injured. The disaster exposed a cascade of vulnerabilities between maritime navigation, bridge protection, and rail signaling that reshaped safety thinking afterward.

In mid–late September 1993, during the final week of the Battle of Sukhumi in Abkhazia, civilian aircraft attempting evacuations and relief flights were fired on in the contested airspace and at the city’s airport. As the siege tightened and land corridors closed, small passenger and transport planes became lifelines for tens of thousands of trapped civilians — and, in several documented incidents, targets. The attacks contributed to civilian deaths, halted evacuations, and left questions about responsibility that remain contested decades later.

On September 30, 1993, a magnitude 6.2 earthquake struck near Killari in Maharashtra, India, devastating dozens of rural villages and killing nearly 10,000 people. It remains one of the deadliest intraplate earthquakes in Indian history and fundamentally changed national approaches to disaster response, building safety, and seismic awareness.

A tragic mid-air collision near Tehran, involving a commercial Iran Air Tours plane and an Iranian Air Force fighter jet, revealed critical gaps in air traffic management.

On September 28, 1992, Pakistan International Airlines Flight 268, an Airbus A300-200 (registration AP-ADT), struck the Mullagori Hills west of Kathmandu while on approach to Tribhuvan International Airport. All 167 people on board were killed. The accident was attributed to controlled flight into terrain after the aircraft descended below published safe approach altitudes; investigation findings led to renewed emphasis on crew resource management, approach discipline, and terrain‑awareness systems.

On September 16, 1992, a storm broke over Threadneedle Street. After months of pressure, the British government abandoned its attempt to keep the pound at a fixed parity inside the European Exchange Rate Mechanism. A chaotic day of heavy selling, frantic intervention in foreign-exchange markets and emergency interest-rate announcements ended with sterling allowed to float — a decision that would cost the Treasury billions, ruin political reputations and reshape Britain’s monetary policy for years to come.

On September 19, 1989, a McDonnell Douglas DC‑10 operating Union de Transports Aériens Flight 772 broke apart over the Ténéré region of the Sahara after a bomb detonated in the aircraft’s forward baggage hold. All 170 people aboard were killed. A decade of forensic work, international investigation, and courtroom battles followed, culminating in convictions in absentia and later state compensation tied to Libya.

Operation Pawan was the Indian Peace Keeping Force’s major combat campaign to seize control of the Jaffna Peninsula and disarm the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) after the Indo–Sri Lanka Accord. Indian forces moved into northern Sri Lanka in July–October 1987; the named Jaffna offensive most sources date to October 1987. The campaign began as a peace‑enforcement mission and quickly became prolonged urban and counter‑insurgency warfare with heavy costs for soldiers and civilians and lasting political consequences in both countries.

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.

In the pre-dawn hours of September 11, 1984, a Tupolev Tu‑154 operating as Aeroflot Flight 3352 landed at Omsk Tsentralny Airport and collided with heavy runway maintenance vehicles that were working on the active strip. The impact tore the airliner apart and ignited a deadly fire; investigators later blamed a chain of human and procedural failures — a cleared runway that was not actually clear, night‑shift fatigue in air traffic control, inadequate lighting and radio contact for ground crews, and systemic weaknesses in how airport maintenance was authorized and supervised.

On September 20, 1984, a vehicle-borne bomb exploded in the vicinity of the United States diplomatic compound in Beirut, Lebanon, during the long and chaotic years of the Lebanese Civil War. The blast shattered buildings, killed and injured civilians and local staff, and reinforced the grim lesson that U.S. diplomatic facilities in Lebanon had become explicit targets for Iran‑backed militant networks operating under names such as the "Islamic Jihad Organization."

Between September 16 and 18, 1982, Phalangist militia fighters entered the Sabra and Shatila Palestinian refugee camps and the adjacent Shatila neighborhood in southern Beirut. Over several days, civilians were rounded up and killed while Israeli forces controlled the surrounding area. International inquiries later found the militias directly responsible and placed indirect responsibility on Israel for failing to prevent the slaughter; exact casualty numbers remain disputed.

The Iran–Iraq War began on September 22, 1980, when Iraqi forces launched a broad invasion across the Iran–Iraq frontier, striking into Khuzestan province and along the Shatt al‑Arab waterway. What started as a calculated, short war to seize territory and exploit revolutionary Iran’s weakness became eight years of trench fighting, tanker attacks in the Gulf, chemical warfare, and enormous human and economic cost.

On September 25, 1978, Pacific Southwest Airlines Flight 182, a Boeing 727 approaching San Diego’s Lindbergh Field, collided with a Cessna 172 training aircraft over the North Park neighborhood. The jet plunged into a residential street, killing all aboard both planes and seven people on the ground. The disaster and the NTSB investigation that followed exposed the limits of “see‑and‑avoid” separation in busy terminal airspace and helped push the industry toward airborne collision‑avoidance systems.

On the evening of September 16, 1978, a shallow, powerful earthquake struck near the city of Tabas in eastern Iran (today part of South Khorasan Province), collapsing whole neighborhoods of unreinforced masonry and adobe across a broad, sparsely populated region. Estimates place the mainshock near magnitude 7.4 and the death toll in the tens of thousands. The devastation exposed vulnerabilities in building practices and emergency response, and the event remains a seminal case in Iran’s modern seismic history.

On September 5, 1977, in Cologne, West German industrialist Hanns Martin Schleyer was abducted by a Red Army Faction commando. The ambush left his driver and three police bodyguards dead. Weeks of hostage negotiations, a linked international hijacking of Lufthansa Flight 181 and the contested deaths of imprisoned RAF leaders culminated in Schleyer’s execution; his body was found on October 19, 1977. The episode became the defining climax of the "German Autumn," reshaping West German politics, security policy, and public memory.

On 27 September 1977, Japan Air Lines Flight 715 struck terrain while on approach to Sultan Abdul Aziz Shah Airport at Subang, near Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The jet descended below published safe altitudes in reduced visibility, colliding short of the runway; the wreck was destroyed and the accident resulted in multiple fatalities and injuries. Investigators later attributed the accident to controlled flight into terrain and highlighted crew procedural and situational‑awareness failures that echoed through aviation safety reforms in subsequent years.

On September 19, 1976, Turkish Airlines Flight 452 struck rising terrain near Isparta in southwestern Turkey during its approach in instrument conditions. The aircraft was destroyed and everyone aboard was killed. Investigators concluded the accident was a controlled flight into terrain amid limited navigational guidance and poor visibility — a tragedy that fed a wider industry reckoning with CFIT risks in the 1970s.

In late September 1974—commonly dated to September 24, 1974—soldiers operating under martial law descended on the coastal barangay of Malisbong in Palimbang, Sultan Kudarat, Mindanao. Survivors say hundreds to over a thousand men were rounded up, separated from women and children, and many executed; reports also allege widespread sexual violence. Decades of testimony, human-rights inquiries, and community memorials have established that a large-scale massacre and grave abuses occurred, even as exact casualty figures and full legal accountability remain contested and unresolved.

On September 15, 1974, Air Vietnam Flight 706, a Boeing 727 on a scheduled domestic service, was hijacked in flight and crashed near Phan Rang in Ninh Thuận province, South Vietnam. All 75 people aboard were killed. Contemporary accounts link the hijacking to the loss of control of the aircraft, but precise in‑cabin details remain disputed and incomplete.

During the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, eight members of the Palestinian militant group Black September took eleven Israeli athletes hostage, leading to a tense, day-long standoff and a failed rescue attempt that ended in the deaths of all hostages, a police officer, and five of the terrorists. The world watched in horror as a hopeful celebration of peace was turned into a scene of tragedy, fundamentally transforming global security protocols and the Olympic movement itself.

On September 4, 1971, Alaska Airlines Flight 1866, a Boeing 727-100 on a routine multi-leg service in Southeast Alaska, struck Duke Mountain during its instrument approach to Juneau, killing all 111 people aboard. The wreckage and the ensuing National Transportation Safety Board investigation pointed to crew navigational error and descent below the prescribed safe altitude in rugged terrain. The accident reshaped how airlines and regulators thought about approaches, training, and terrain safety in mountainous regions.

On September 15, 1963, a bomb exploded at 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, killing four young African American girls and injuring scores of worshipers. The church was a central meeting place for the local civil-rights movement; the attack reverberated nationally, helping to build momentum for the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and, after decades of cold leads, producing criminal convictions of Ku Klux Klan members years later.

On September 4, 1963, minutes after takeoff from Zürich‑Kloten Airport, Swissair Flight 306—a Convair CV‑990 Coronado—was forced to turn back when smoke and fire were detected in the aft fuselage. The fire spread rapidly, incapacitating the crew and overwhelming the aircraft; the Convair crashed near Dürrenäsch while attempting to return to Zurich, killing all 80 people on board. The accident prompted urgent scrutiny of in‑flight fire risks and contributed to later improvements in materials, detection, and procedures.

On September 18, 1961, United Nations Secretary‑General Dag Hammarskjöld died when his plane crashed on approach to Ndola Airport in then Northern Rhodesia. Traveling into the heart of the Congo Crisis to broker a cease‑fire and secure the release of hostages, he and 15 others were killed. The wreckage, conflicting eyewitness accounts of a second aircraft, and decades of partial records have left the cause of the crash disputed and the event a lasting mystery in international affairs.

Typhoon Nancy — dubbed the “Queen of the Western Pacific” by contemporary media — formed in early September 1961 and intensified rapidly over the warm western North Pacific. Reconnaissance aircraft and surface reports in mid‑September described an unusually compact, violent storm that struck the Ryukyu Islands, including Okinawa, and later brushed southern and central Japan around September 13–15, 1961. Nancy left a trail of damaged towns, disrupted shipping and fisheries, and a human toll recorded variably in period accounts; it also became a case study in the limits of mid‑20th‑century intensity measurement and in the slow evolution of Japan’s disaster preparedness.

On September 29, 1959, Braniff Airways Flight 542, a Lockheed L‑188 Electra turboprop, broke apart in flight over rural east Texas near Buffalo. All 29 people on board were killed. The catastrophe prompted a federal investigation that pieced together a sequence of sudden structural failures and, over time, helped the industry identify a complex aeroelastic problem — a propeller/engine “whirl” that could couple with the wing and tear airliners apart. The accident accelerated design fixes, inspections, and research that changed how new aircraft were monitored in service.

On September 15, 1958, a Central Railroad of New Jersey commuter train ran onto a vertical-lift span at Newark Bay that had been raised for maritime traffic. Several cars plunged into the water; official tallies list 48 dead and many injured. Investigators concluded the disaster resulted from a breakdown of protective systems — human errors combined with inadequate interlocking and signaling — and the crash helped push railroads and regulators toward stronger fail‑safe protections for movable bridges.

In early September 1957, nine African American teenagers — later known as the Little Rock Nine — attempted to enter Little Rock Central High School in Arkansas after a local school board agreed to comply with the Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education decision. Their attempt sparked violent crowds, a showdown between Governor Orval Faubus and the federal government, and President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s decision to federalize the Arkansas National Guard and send the 101st Airborne to enforce desegregation. The crisis exposed the limits of local resistance, reshaped federal enforcement of civil rights, and left a lasting mark on the community and the nation.

On the night of September 21, 1957, the four‑masted barque Pamir — a 1905 steel windjammer carrying grain and a complement that included cadets — foundered in a severe North Atlantic storm several hundred nautical miles west‑northwest of the Azores. Of the roughly 86 people aboard, six survived; the rest were lost. The sinking shocked the maritime world and hastened scrutiny of the last era of commercial sail.

On September 16, 1953, American Airlines Flight 723, a Convair 240 on approach to Albany Municipal Airport (Colonie), New York, descended below the published minimums in poor weather and struck terrain short of the runway. The aircraft was destroyed by impact and fire; all 28 people on board were killed.

In October 1950, during a wave of anti‑communist purges that swept through reclaimed territory after the Incheon landing, dozens of civilians from Goyang and nearby villages were detained and taken to Geumjeong Cave. There they were executed and their bodies hidden. For decades the killings were unacknowledged; only in the 2000s did truth‑seeking bodies, exhumations, and local memorials begin to name victims and pull the event into South Korea’s public memory.

In the pre-dawn hours of September 17, 1949, the Canadian Pacific liner SS Noronic, tied up at Pier 9 in Toronto Harbour, erupted into a fast-moving blaze that would consume the ship’s varnished interiors and claim 118 lives. What began as a small ignition in a passenger area became one of Canada’s worst peacetime maritime disasters and forced a rethinking of shipboard fire safety across the Great Lakes.

On September 27, 1944, formations of the U.S. Eighth Air Force launched a deep daylight raid against the industrial city of Kassel, Germany, aiming to cripple tank production and rail movement. The mission struck vital factories and marshalling yards but ran into concentrated German flak and fighter attacks when parts of the bomber stream became separated. The raid inflicted heavy damage on the target and inflicted costly losses on the attacking force—an episode that shaped escort tactics and the wartime calculus of strategic daylight bombing.

Beginning on September 19, 1944, U.S. forces entered the ancient Hürtgen Forest east of the Belgian–German border. What followed was months of grinding, close-quarter fighting in mud and cold as American infantry struggled to clear ridges, villages, and observation points while German defenders used the trees, bunkers, and minefields to bleed them slowly. The fighting stretched into winter and is remembered as one of the bloodiest, most contested forest battles on the Western Front.

On September 18, 1944, the Japanese transport Jun'yō Maru was torpedoed off the west coast of Sumatra while carrying thousands of Allied prisoners of war and Javanese forced labourers. The overcrowded, unmarked "hell ship" foundered quickly; historians estimate roughly 5,000–5,620 people died, making it one of the deadliest single-ship losses of life in World War II.

On September 26, 1944, Allied aircraft struck the walled city and republic of San Marino during the Italian Campaign, hitting buildings in the medieval capital and nearby settlements. The attack killed dozens of civilians and wounded many more, shattering the republic’s long-cherished neutrality and leaving a legacy of contested intelligence and painful memory.

On September 18, 1943, the Italian passenger–cargo ship MS Sinfra, pressed into Axis service to move prisoners after Italy’s armistice, was attacked by Allied aircraft in the Saronic Gulf near Piraeus. Many of the ship’s human cargo — principally interned Italian servicemen held below decks — could not escape when fire and explosions swept the vessel. Contemporary reports and later research place the death toll from the sinking anywhere from several hundred to the low thousands; exact figures remain contested. The loss became part of the wider, painful history of Italian military internees after the September 1943 armistice.

In the early hours of October 1–2, 1942, the Japanese merchant ship Lisbon Maru, carrying about 1,816 British and Commonwealth prisoners taken after the fall of Hong Kong, was torpedoed off the Zhejiang coast near the Zhoushan archipelago. The vessel sank after night attacks by the U.S. submarine USS Grouper; overcrowded, locked holds and confused rescue efforts left roughly 842 POWs dead and hundreds more returned to captivity. The episode stands as one of the worst maritime losses of Allied prisoners in the Pacific War and a stark example of the danger of unmarked POW transports in contested waters.

On September 15, 1942, while steaming east of the Solomon Islands to support the Guadalcanal campaign, the fleet carrier USS Wasp (CV‑7) was struck by a spread of torpedoes fired from Japanese submarine I‑19. Multiple hits ignited catastrophic fires fed by aviation fuel and ordnance, forcing the abandonment of the ship and leaving a lasting imprint on American carrier operations during the Pacific War.

In the days after Kyiv fell to German forces, Nazi orders summoned Jews to assemble under the pretext of “resettlement.” On 29–30 September 1941, men, women and children were marched to the Babi Yar ravine on the outskirts of the city and shot in systematic groups. Soviet investigators later recorded 33,771 Jews killed in those two days; in the years that followed the ravine became the site of repeated executions and later attempts to destroy the evidence. The crime at Babi Yar remains one of the largest single massacres of Jews in Nazi‑occupied Europe.

On September 7, 1940, nearly 1,000 German bombers launched the first major air raid against London, marking the dramatic beginning of the Blitz - a sustained bombing campaign by Nazi Germany that targeted Britain’s cities and civilians for months. The violence changed the face of London overnight and left scars, visible and invisible, for generations.

On September 17, 1939, the Red Army crossed the eastern border of the Second Polish Republic — moving into territories that are now western Ukraine, western Belarus and parts of Lithuania — announcing it would “restore order” after what Soviet authorities described as the collapse of the Polish state. The advance followed the secret division of Eastern Europe in the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact and coincided with a German invasion from the west, opening a painful chapter of occupation, mass arrests, deportations and political reordering whose consequences echoed through the war and into the Cold War era.

In the predawn hours of September 21, 1938, a fast-moving, powerful hurricane struck the south shore of Long Island and ripped north through Long Island Sound into coastal Connecticut, Rhode Island and southeastern Massachusetts. Known as the Great New England Hurricane or the "Long Island Express," it arrived with little warning, produced catastrophic storm surge and hurricane-force winds, killed at least 682 people in the United States, and reshaped how the region understood coastal risk.

On September 15, 1935, at the annual Nazi Party Rally in Nuremberg, the German government announced two statutes — the Reich Citizenship Law and the Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honour — that turned racial ideology into everyday law. Published in the Reichsgesetzblatt the following day, these measures redefined who counted as a citizen, criminalized intimate relationships across enforced racial lines, and set in motion administrative systems that made exclusion, dispossession, and later mass persecution legally routinized.

In the early hours of 22 September 1934 an underground explosion at Gresford Colliery, on the eastern outskirts of Wrexham, ripped through the mine and killed 266 men. The blast exposed the lethal mix of methane and coal dust, strained the limits of rescue technology, and left a community with dozens of bodies never recovered. The official inquiry identified probable mechanisms but not a single agreed cause; the disaster reshaped debates about mine safety and left an enduring local memory.

The Muroto Typhoon struck the southeastern tip of Shikoku on September 21, 1934, then tracked northeast across western Japan. A compact but ferocious storm brought extreme winds and a powerful storm surge that concentrated destruction on narrow coasts and shallow bays. Official tallies list about 3,066 dead or missing and roughly 13,000 injured; thousands of homes, ports, and fishing fleets were destroyed, and recovery reshaped Japan’s approach to coastal protection and meteorology.

A powerful Atlantic hurricane struck Puerto Rico on September 13, 1928 — Saint Philip’s Day — and then carved a path through the Bahamas to make landfall on Florida’s east coast on September 16–17, 1928. The storm wrecked crops, towns, and lives, but its deadliest legacy was the flood from Lake Okeechobee that overwhelmed low-lying settlements and killed thousands. The catastrophe exposed weaknesses in warning systems, racial and economic inequalities in relief, and ultimately drove federal flood-control work that reshaped the lake decades later.

On the night of September 18, 1926, a powerful hurricane crossed the Miami and Miami Beach area, bringing a storm surge and hurricane‑force winds that flattened newly built neighborhoods, killed hundreds, and shattered the Florida land boom. The storm’s immediate chaos — broken seawalls, fires, and isolation from downed lines — gave way to a longer reckoning: massive insurance losses, halted development, and slow changes in building practice and storm awareness.

A devastating earthquake hit the Kantō region of Japan on September 1, 1923, causing widespread destruction and loss of life.

On 21 September 1921, two fertilizer silos at the BASF plant in Oppau, Germany, detonated after workers used small explosive charges to break up caked material. The blast demolished much of the village, killed 561 people, and injured roughly 1,000 more; it later became a seminal case in chemical safety and the handling of ammonium‑nitrate–containing fertilizers.

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.

Beginning on 28 September 1918, Allied forces — prominently including re‑engaged Belgian units alongside British and French formations — launched a coordinated offensive in the Ypres salient and across West Flanders. Part of the larger Hundred Days Offensive that had broken German initiative in August, the action pushed German lines back toward the River Lys, freed towns and villages long under occupation, and helped fracture the German defensive position in northern Belgium.

On September 23, 1918, in the closing days of the Sinai and Palestine Campaign, mounted brigades of the British Empire — notably Indian princely-state cavalry units — swept into Haifa, overrunning Ottoman guns that commanded the bay and seizing the port. The rapid, daring action helped deny evacuation by sea and turned Haifa into an immediate supply and medical gateway for the Allied advance northward.

On the morning of September 25, 1915, French Fourth and Fifth Armies launched a major offensive across the Champagne plain against German 3rd and 4th Armies. Intended as a coordinated autumn push alongside operations in Artois, the attack produced local penetrations but no strategic breakthrough. Over weeks of grinding assaults, artillery duels and counterattacks, the campaign inflicted heavy casualties on both sides and helped reshape artillery and infantry tactics in the years that followed.

On the morning of 22 September 1914, the German submarine U‑9, commanded by Kapitänleutnant Otto Weddigen, torpedoed and sank three British Cressy‑class armored cruisers — HMS Aboukir, HMS Hogue and HMS Cressy — in the Broad Fourteens of the southern North Sea. The three ships went down within about an hour, with roughly 1,400–1,500 sailors killed and several hundred rescued. The event exposed the deadly reach of the submarine and forced lasting changes in Royal Navy practice.

On the morning of September 25, 1911, the pre-dreadnought battleship Liberté exploded at the Toulon naval basin. The blast — almost certainly caused by the spontaneous ignition of degraded Poudre B propellant in a forward magazine — destroyed the ship’s bow, killed and wounded hundreds, damaged nearby vessels and dockworks, and forced the French Navy to confront the hidden dangers of early smokeless powders.

In the early hours of October 1, 1910, an explosive device ripped through the Los Angeles Times building at Broadway and First Street, destroying the paper’s printing plant, killing 21 people—mostly night-shift employees—and injuring many more. The attack, traced to members of the International Association of Bridge and Structural Iron Workers and exposed by a private detective-led manhunt, reshaped public opinion about militant labor tactics and hardened anti-union campaigns across the nation.

In mid–September 1906 a powerful tropical cyclone struck the Pearl River Delta. On September 18–19 the storm battered Hong Kong Island, Kowloon and the surrounding waters, tearing apart wooden waterfront settlements and wrecking fleets of fishing junks and sampans. Contemporary reports described heavy loss of life and widespread damage, but precise casualty and economic figures remain uncertain because many losses occurred among small, dispersed fishing communities and unregistered craft.

On September 28, 1901, Filipino guerrillas and townspeople in the coastal village of Balangiga, Samar, launched a surprise attack on Company C of the U.S. 9th Infantry. Nearly half the garrison was killed in a violent, close-quarters action that shocked the American public and provoked a brutal reprisal campaign across Samar led by Brig. Gen. Jacob H. Smith. The episode became a study in guerrilla warfare, occupation policy, and the long shadow of memory — including the removal and eventual return of church bells taken as trophies.