September 16

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.

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.

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 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.

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.