Historical Events on Sunday, 14th September

14/09/2022

Death of Queen Elizabeth II: The Queen's coffin is taken from Buckingham Palace, placed on a gun carriage of The King's Troop Royal Horse Artillery and moved in a procession to Westminster Hall for her lying in state over the next four days with the queue of mourners stretching for miles along the River Thames.

Elizabeth II, Queen of the United Kingdom and the other Commonwealth realms, died on 8 September 2022 at Balmoral Castle in Scotland, at the age of 96. Elizabeth's reign of 70 years and 214 days is the longest of any British monarch. She was immediately succeeded by her eldest child, Charles III.

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14/09/2019

Yemen's Houthi rebels claim responsibility for an attack on Saudi Arabian oil facilities.

Yemen, officially the Republic of Yemen, is a country in West Asia. Including the Socotra Archipelago, mainland Yemen is located in southern Arabia; bordering Saudi Arabia to the north, Oman to the northeast, the south-eastern part of the Arabian Sea to the east, the Gulf of Aden to the south, and the Red Sea to the west, sharing maritime borders with Djibouti, Eritrea, Somaliland and Somalia across the Horn of Africa. Covering roughly 455,503 square kilometres, with a coastline of approximately 2,000 kilometres, Yemen is the second largest country on the Arabian Peninsula by area, and the largest by population.

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14/09/2015

The first observation of gravitational waves is made, announced by the LIGO and Virgo collaborations on 11 February 2016.

The first direct observation of gravitational waves was made on 14 September 2015 and was announced by the LIGO and Virgo collaborations on 11 February 2016. Previously, gravitational waves had been inferred only indirectly, via their effect on the timing of pulsars in binary star systems. The waveform, detected by both LIGO observatories, matched the predictions of general relativity for a gravitational wave emanating from the inward spiral and merger of two black holes and the subsequent ringdown of a single, 62 M☉ black hole remnant. The signal was named GW150914. It was also the first observation of a binary black hole merger, demonstrating both the existence of binary stellar-mass black hole systems and the fact that such mergers could occur within the current age of the universe.

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14/09/2008

Aeroflot Flight 821, a Boeing 737-500, crashes into a section of the Trans-Siberian Railway while on approach to Perm International Airport, in Perm, Russia, killing all 88 people on board.

Aeroflot Flight 821 was a scheduled domestic passenger flight operated by Aeroflot-Nord in a service agreement with Aeroflot and as its subsidiary. On 14 September 2008, the Boeing 737-505 operating the flight crashed on approach to Perm International Airport at 5:10 local time (UTC+06). All 82 passengers and six crew members were killed. Among the passengers who were killed was Russian Colonel General Gennady Troshev, an adviser to the President of Russia who had been the commander of the North Caucasus Military District during the Second Chechen War. A section of the Trans-Siberian Railway was damaged by the crash. Flight 821 is the deadliest accident involving a Boeing 737-500, surpassing the 1993 crash of Asiana Airlines Flight 733, and was the second-deadliest aviation accident of 2008, behind Spanair Flight 5022.

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14/09/2007

Prelude to the 2008 financial crisis: Northern Rock bank experiences the first bank run in the United Kingdom in 150 years.

A major worldwide financial crisis centered in the United States took place in 2008. The causes included excessive speculation on property values by both homeowners and financial institutions, leading to the 2000s United States housing bubble. This was exacerbated by predatory lending for subprime mortgages and by deficiencies in regulation. Cash out refinancings had fueled an increase in consumption that could no longer be sustained when home prices declined. The first phase of the crisis was the subprime mortgage crisis, which began in early 2007, as mortgage-backed securities (MBS) tied to U.S. real estate, and a vast web of derivatives linked to those MBS, collapsed in value. A liquidity crisis spread to global institutions by mid-2007 and climaxed with the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers in September 2008, which triggered a stock market crash and bank runs in several countries. The crisis exacerbated the Great Recession, a global recession that began in late-2007, as well as the United States bear market of 2007–2009. It was also a contributor to the 2008–2011 Icelandic financial crisis and the euro area crisis.

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14/09/2003

In a referendum, Estonia approves joining the European Union.

A referendum took place on 14 September 2003 to decide whether Estonia should join the European Union (EU). Just over two-thirds of voters voted Yes and Estonia joined the EU on 1 May 2004.

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Bissau-Guinean President Kumba Ialá is ousted from power in a bloodless military coup led by General Veríssimo Correia Seabra.

Kumba Yalá Embaló, also spelled Ialá, was a Bissau-Guinean politician who was president from 17 February 2000 until he was deposed in a bloodless military coup on 14 September 2003. He belonged to the Balanta ethnic group and was President of the Social Renewal Party (PRS). In 2008 he converted to Islam and took the name Mohamed Yalá Embaló. He was the founder of the Party for Social Renewal.

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14/09/2002

Total Linhas Aéreas Flight 5561 crashes near Paranapanema, Brazil, killing both pilots on board.

Total Linhas Aéreas Flight 5561 was a domestic cargo flight from São Paulo, Brazil to Londrina, Brazil that crashed near Paranapanema 47 minutes after take off on 14 September 2002. The crew of the ATR 42 regional turboprop lost control of the aircraft's pitch and were both killed in the accident.

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14/09/2001

Historic National Prayer Service held at Washington National Cathedral for victims of the September 11 attacks. A similar service is held in Canada on Parliament Hill, the largest vigil ever held in the nation's capital.

The Cathedral Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul in the City and Episcopal Diocese of Washington, commonly known as Washington National Cathedral or National Cathedral, is a cathedral of the Episcopal Church. The cathedral is located in Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States. The structure is of Neo-Gothic design closely modeled on English Gothic style of the late fourteenth century. It is the second-largest church building in the United States, and the third-tallest building in Washington, D.C. The cathedral is the seat of both the presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church and the bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington. Over 270,000 people visit the structure annually.

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14/09/2000

Microsoft releases Windows Me.

Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology company headquartered in Redmond, Washington. The company became influential in the rise of personal computers through software like Windows and has since expanded into areas such as Internet services, cloud computing, artificial intelligence, video gaming, and more. A Big Tech company, Microsoft is the largest software company by revenue, one of the most valuable public companies, and one of the most valuable brands globally.

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14/09/1999

Kiribati, Nauru and Tonga join the United Nations.

Kiribati, officially the Republic of Kiribati, is an island country in the Micronesia sub-region of Oceania in the central Pacific Ocean. The state comprises 32 atolls and other islands and one remote raised coral island, Banaba. Its total land area is 811 km2 (313 sq mi) dispersed over 3,441,810 km2 (1,328,890 sq mi) of ocean. The spread of the country's islands, from Banaba in the west to Kiritimati in the east straddles the equator and the 180th meridian. The International Date Line goes around Kiribati and swings far to the east, almost reaching 150°W. This brings Kiribati's easternmost islands, the southern Line Islands south of Hawaii, into the same day as the Gilbert Islands and places them in the most advanced time zone on Earth: UTC+14.

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14/09/1998

Telecommunications companies MCI Communications and WorldCom complete their $37 billion merger to form MCI WorldCom.

MCI Communications Corporation was an American telecommunications company headquartered in Washington, D.C. that was at one point the second-largest long-distance provider in the United States.

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14/09/1997

Eighty-one killed as five bogies of the Ahmedabad–Howrah Express plunge into a river in Bilaspur district of Madhya Pradesh, India.

The 12833 / 12834 Howrah–Ahmedabad Superfast Express is a superfast express train belonging to Indian Railways that runs between Howrah and Ahmedabad Junction in India.

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14/09/1994

The rest of the Major League Baseball season is canceled because of a strike.

Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball league in North America composed of 30 teams, divided equally between the National League (NL) and the American League (AL), with 29 in the United States and 1 in Canada. MLB is one of the major professional sports leagues in the United States and Canada and is considered the premier professional baseball league in the world. Each team plays 162 games per season, with Opening Day held during the last week of March or the first week of April. Six teams in each league then advance to a four-round postseason tournament in October, culminating in the World Series, a best-of-seven championship series between the two league champions first played in 1903. MLB is headquartered in New York City.

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14/09/1993

Lufthansa Flight 2904, an Airbus A320, crashes into an embankment after overshooting the runway at Okęcie International Airport (now Warsaw Chopin Airport), killing two people.

Lufthansa Flight 2904 was an Airbus A320-200 flying from Frankfurt, Germany to Warsaw, Poland that overran the runway at Okęcie International Airport on 14 September 1993.

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14/09/1992

The Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina declares the breakaway Croatian Republic of Herzeg-Bosnia to be illegal.

Bosnia and Herzegovina, often referred to as Bosnia-Herzegovina or simply as Bosnia, is a country in Southeast Europe. Situated on the Balkan Peninsula, it borders Serbia to the east, Montenegro to the southeast, and Croatia to the north and southwest, with a 20-kilometre-long (12-mile) coast on the Adriatic Sea in the south. Bosnia has a moderate continental climate with hot summers and cold, snowy winters. Its geography is largely mountainous, particularly in the central and eastern regions, which are dominated by the Dinaric Alps. Herzegovina, the smaller, southern region, has a Mediterranean climate and is mostly mountainous. Sarajevo is the capital and the largest city.

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14/09/1989

The Standard Gravure shooting where Joseph T. Wesbecker, a 47-year-old pressman, killed eight people and injured 12 people at his former workplace, Standard Gravure, before committing suicide.

The Standard Gravure shooting occurred on September 14, 1989, in Louisville, Kentucky, United States, when Joseph Thomas Wesbecker, a 47-year-old pressman, killed eight people and injured twelve at his former workplace, Standard Gravure, before committing suicide. The shooting is the deadliest workplace shooting in Kentucky's history. The murders resulted in a high-profile lawsuit against Eli Lilly and Company, manufacturers of the antidepressant drug Prozac, which Wesbecker had begun taking during the month prior to his shooting rampage.

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14/09/1985

Penang Bridge, the longest bridge in Malaysia, connecting the island of Penang to the mainland, opens to traffic.

The E36 Penang Bridge is a 13.5-kilometre (8.4-mile) dual carriageway toll bridge and controlled-access highway in the Malaysian state of Penang. It connects Perai on the mainland side of the state with Gelugor on the island, crossing the Penang Strait. The bridge was the first and, until 2014, only road connection between the peninsula and the island. It is the second-longest bridge over water in Malaysia, with a length over water of 8.4 kilometres.

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14/09/1984

Joe Kittinger becomes the first person to fly a gas balloon alone across the Atlantic Ocean.

Joseph William Kittinger II was an American military pilot who was an officer in the United States Air Force. He served from 1950 to 1978 and earned Command Pilot status before retiring with the rank of colonel. He held the world record for the highest skydive—102,800 feet (31.3 km)—from 1960 until 2012.

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14/09/1982

President-elect of Lebanon Bachir Gemayel is assassinated.

Bachir Pierre Gemayel was a Lebanese militia commander who led the Lebanese Forces, the military wing of the Kataeb Party, in the Lebanese Civil War and was elected President of Lebanon in 1982.

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14/09/1979

Afghan leader Nur Muhammad Taraki is assassinated upon the order of Hafizullah Amin, who becomes the new General Secretary of the People's Democratic Party.

This article lists the heads of state of Afghanistan since the foundation of the first modern Afghan state, the Hotak Empire, in 1709.

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14/09/1975

The first American saint, Elizabeth Ann Seton, is canonized by Pope Paul VI.

Elizabeth Ann Bayley Seton was an American Catholic educator, known as a founder of the country's parochial school system. Born in New York and reared as an Episcopalian, she married and had five children with her husband William Seton. She converted to Catholicism in 1805 and established the first Catholic girls' school in the nation in Emmitsburg, Maryland. There she also founded the first American congregation of religious sisters, the Sisters of Charity.

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14/09/1960

The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) is founded.

The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries is an organization enabling the co-operation of leading oil-producing and oil-dependent countries in order to collectively influence the global oil market and maximize profit. It was founded on 14 September 1960 in Baghdad by the first five members: Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela. The organization, which currently comprises 12 member countries, accounted for 38 percent of global oil production in 2022. It is estimated that 79.5 percent of the world's proven oil reserves are located within OPEC nations, with the Middle East alone accounting for 67.2 percent of OPEC's total reserves.

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Congo Crisis: Mobutu Sese Seko seizes power in a military coup, suspending parliament and the constitution.

The Congo Crisis was a period of political upheaval and conflict between 1960 and 1965 in the Republic of the Congo. The crisis began almost immediately after the Congo became independent from Belgium and ended, unofficially, with the entire country under the rule of Joseph-Désiré Mobutu. Constituting a series of civil wars, the Congo Crisis was also a proxy conflict in the Cold War, in which the Soviet Union and the United States supported opposing factions. Around 100,000 people are believed to have been killed during the crisis.

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14/09/1958

The first two German post-war rockets, designed by the German engineer Ernst Mohr, reach the upper atmosphere.

The Mohr Rocket was a sounding rocket developed by Ernst Mohr in Wuppertal, Germany.

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14/09/1954

In a top secret nuclear test, a Soviet Tu-4 bomber drops a 40 kiloton atomic weapon just north of Totskoye village.

The Totskoye nuclear exercise was a military exercise undertaken by the Soviet Army to explore defensive and offensive warfare during nuclear war. The exercise, under the code name "Snowball", involved an aerial detonation of a 40 kt RDS-4 nuclear bomb. The stated goal of the operation was military training for breaking through heavily fortified defensive lines of a military opponent using nuclear weapons. An army of 45,000 soldiers marched through the area around the hypocenter soon after the nuclear blast. The exercise was conducted on September 14, 1954, at 9.33 a.m., under the command of Marshal Georgy Zhukov to the north of Totskoye village in Orenburg Oblast, Russia, in the South Ural Military District. The epicenter of the detonation is marked with a memorial.

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14/09/1948

The Indian Army captures the city of Aurangabad as part of Operation Polo.

The Indian Army (IA) is the land-based branch and largest component of the Indian Armed Forces. The President of India is the Supreme Commander of the Indian Army, and its professional head is the Chief of the Army Staff (COAS). The Indian Army was established on 1 April 1895 alongside the long established presidency armies of the East India Company, which too were absorbed into it in 1903. Some princely states maintained their own armies which formed the Imperial Service Troops which, along with the Indian Army formed the land component of the Armed Forces of the Crown of India, responsible for the defence of the Indian Empire. The Imperial Service Troops were merged into the Indian Army after independence. The units and regiments of the Indian Army have diverse histories and have participated in several battles and campaigns around the world, earning many battle and theatre honours before and after Independence.

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14/09/1944

World War II: Maastricht becomes the first Dutch city to be liberated by allied forces.

Maastricht is a city and a municipality in the southeastern Netherlands. It is the capital and largest city of the province of Limburg. Maastricht is located on both sides of the Meuse, at the point where the river is joined by the Jeker. Mount Saint Peter (Sint-Pietersberg) is largely situated within the city's municipal borders. Maastricht is adjacent to the border with Belgium and is part of the Meuse-Rhine Euroregion, an international metropolis with a population of about 3.9 million, which includes the nearby German and Belgian cities of Aachen, Liège, and Hasselt.

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14/09/1943

World War II: The Wehrmacht starts a three-day retaliatory operation targeting several Greek villages in the region of Viannos, whose death toll would eventually exceed 500 persons.

The Wehrmacht were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the Heer (army), the Kriegsmarine (navy) and the Luftwaffe. The designation "Wehrmacht" replaced the previously used term Reichswehr and was the manifestation of the Nazi regime's efforts to rearm Germany to a greater extent than the Treaty of Versailles permitted.

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14/09/1940

Ip massacre: The Hungarian Army, supported by local Hungarians, kill 158 Romanian civilians in Ip, Sălaj, a village in Northern Transylvania, an act of ethnic cleansing.

The Ip massacre was the mass killing of around 150 ethnic Romanians by the Royal Hungarian Army on 14 September 1940, in Ipp,, Northern Transylvania, and in nearby locations and surrounding areas. After two Hungarian soldiers died in an accidental explosion in Ip, rumors spread that they had been killed by Romanians, and the killings were committed in response.

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14/09/1939

World War II: The Estonian military boards the Polish submarine ORP Orzeł in Tallinn, sparking a diplomatic incident that the Soviet Union will later use to justify the annexation of Estonia.

World War II, or the Second World War, was a global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies and the Axis powers. Nearly all of the world's countries participated. Tanks and aircraft played major roles, the latter enabling the strategic bombing of cities and delivery of the only nuclear weapons used in war. World War II was the deadliest conflict in history, causing the death of 60 to 75 million people. Millions died as a result of massacres, starvation, disease, and genocides, including the Holocaust. After the Allied victory, Germany, Austria, Japan, and Korea were occupied, and German and Japanese leaders were tried for war crimes.

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14/09/1936

Raoul Villain, who assassinated the French Socialist Jean Jaurès, is himself killed by Spanish Republicans in Ibiza.

Raoul Villain was a French nationalist. He is primarily remembered for his assassination of the French socialist leader Jean Jaurès on 31 July 1914, in Paris. Villain was acquitted by a jury of peers in 1919 and later fled to the Balearic island of Ibiza, where he was killed during the first stages of the Spanish Civil War.

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14/09/1917

The Russian Empire is formally replaced by the Russian Republic.

The Russian Empire was the final period of the Russian monarchy, spanning most of northern Eurasia from its establishment in November 1721 until the proclamation of the Russian Republic in September 1917. At its height in the late 19th century, it covered about 22,800,000 km2 (8,800,000 sq mi), roughly one-sixth of the world's landmass, making it the third-largest empire in history, behind only the British and Mongol empires. It also colonized Alaska between 1799 and 1867. The empire's 1897 census, the only one it conducted, found a population of 125.6 million with considerable ethnic, linguistic, religious, and socioeconomic diversity.

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14/09/1914

HMAS AE1, the Royal Australian Navy's first submarine, is lost at sea with all hands near East New Britain, Papua New Guinea.

HMAS AE1 was an E-class submarine of the Royal Australian Navy (RAN). She was the first submarine to serve in the RAN, and sank with all hands near what is now East New Britain, Papua New Guinea, on 14 September 1914, after less than seven months in service. Search missions attempting to locate the wreck began in 1976. The submarine was found during the 13th search mission near the Duke of York Islands in December 2017.

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14/09/1911

Russian Premier Pyotr Stolypin is shot by Dmitry Bogrov while attending a performance of Rimsky-Korsakov's The Tale of Tsar Saltan at the Kiev Opera House, in the presence of Tsar Nicholas II.

Pyotr Arkadyevich Stolypin was a Russian statesman who served as the third prime minister and the interior minister of the Russian Empire from 1906 until his assassination in 1911. Known as the greatest reformer of Russian society and economy, he initiated reforms that caused unprecedented growth of the Russian state, which was halted by his assassination.

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14/09/1901

U.S. president William McKinley dies after being mortally wounded on September 6 by anarchist Leon Czolgosz and is succeeded by Vice President Theodore Roosevelt.

William McKinley was the 25th president of the United States, serving from 1897 until his assassination in 1901. A member of the Republican Party, he led a realignment that made Republicans largely dominant in the industrial states and nationwide for decades. McKinley successfully led the U.S. in the Spanish–American War and oversaw a period of American expansionism, with the annexations of Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Guam, the Philippines, and American Samoa.

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14/09/1862

American Civil War: The Battle of South Mountain, part of the Maryland Campaign, is fought.

The American Civil War was a civil war in the United States between the Union and the Confederacy, which was formed in 1861 by states that had seceded from the Union to preserve slavery in the United States, which they saw as threatened because of the election of Abraham Lincoln and the growing abolitionist movement in the North. The war lasted a little over four years, ending with Union victory, the dissolution of the Confederacy and the abolition of slavery, freeing four million African Americans.

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14/09/1846

Jang Bahadur and his brothers massacre about 40 members of the Nepalese palace court.

Jung Bahadur Rana,, was the Prime Minister of Nepal and the 1st maharaja of Lamjung and Kaski. He was born Bir Narsingh Kunwar (1817–1877). His mother, Ganesh Kumari, was the daughter of Kaji Nain Singh Thapa, the brother of Mukhtiyar Bhimsen Thapa from the prominent Thapa dynasty of Chhetri clan. During his lifetime, Jung Bahadur eliminated factional fighting at court, removed his family's rivals such as the Pandes and Basnyats, introduced innovations in the bureaucracy and judiciary, and made efforts to modernize Nepal. He is considered a significant figure in Nepalese history. Some modern historians blame Jung Bahadur for initiating a dark period in Nepalese history marked by an oppressive dictatorship that lasted 104 years, while others attribute this period to his nephews, the Shumsher Ranas. Rana's rule is often associated with tyranny, debauchery, economic exploitation, and religious persecution.

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14/09/1829

The Ottoman Empire signs the Treaty of Adrianople with Russia, thus ending the Russo-Turkish War.

The Ottoman Empire, historically also known as the Turkish Empire, was a state that spanned much of Southeast Europe, West Asia, and North Africa from the 14th century to the early 20th century, centered in modern-day Turkey. It also controlled parts of southeastern Central Europe between the early 16th and early 18th centuries.

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14/09/1814

Battle of Baltimore: The poem Defence of Fort McHenry is written by Francis Scott Key. The poem is later used as the lyrics of The Star-Spangled Banner.

The Battle of Baltimore took place between British and American forces on September 12–14, 1814, during the War of 1812. Defending American forces repulsed sea and land invasions off the busy major port city of Baltimore, Maryland, by British forces preventing the United States' third largest city at the time from falling to British forces and ending the British Chesapeake campaign.

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14/09/1812

Napoleonic Wars: The French Grande Armée enters Moscow. The Fire of Moscow begins as soon as Russian troops leave the city.

The Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815) were a global series of conflicts fought by a fluctuating array of European coalitions against the French First Republic (1803–1804) under the First Consul followed by the First French Empire (1804–1815) under the Emperor of the French, Napoleon I. The wars originated in political forces arising from the French Revolution (1789–1799) and from the French Revolutionary Wars (1792–1802) and produced a period of French domination over Continental Europe. The wars are categorised as seven conflicts, five named after the coalitions that fought Napoleon, plus two named for their respective theatres: the War of the Third Coalition, War of the Fourth Coalition, War of the Fifth Coalition, War of the Sixth Coalition, War of the Seventh Coalition, the Peninsular War, and the French invasion of Russia.

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14/09/1808

Finnish War: Russians defeat the Swedes at the Battle of Oravais.

The Finnish War was fought between the Kingdom of Sweden and the Russian Empire from 21 February 1808 to 17 September 1809 as part of the Napoleonic Wars. As a result of the war, the eastern third of Sweden was established as the autonomous Grand Duchy of Finland within the Russian Empire. Other notable effects were the Swedish parliament's adoption of a new constitution and the establishment of the House of Bernadotte, the new Swedish royal house, in 1818.

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14/09/1791

The Papal States lose Avignon to Revolutionary France.

The Papal States, officially the State of the Church, were a conglomeration of territories on the Italian peninsula under the direct sovereign rule of the pope from 756 to 1870. They were among the major states of Italy from the 8th century until the unification of Italy, which took place between 1859 and 1870, culminating in their demise.

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14/09/1782

American Revolutionary War: Review of the French troops under General Rochambeau by General George Washington at Verplanck's Point, New York.

The American Revolutionary War, also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, was the armed conflict that comprised the final eight years of the broader American Revolution, in which American Patriot forces organized as the Continental Army and commanded by George Washington defeated the British Army. The conflict was fought in North America, the Caribbean, and the Atlantic Ocean. The war's outcome seemed uncertain for most of the war, but Washington and the Continental Army's decisive victory in the Siege of Yorktown in 1781 led King George III and the Kingdom of Great Britain to negotiate an end to the war. In 1783, in the Treaty of Paris, the British monarchy acknowledged the independence of the Thirteen Colonies, leading to the establishment of the United States as an independent and sovereign nation.

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14/09/1763

Seneca warriors defeat British forces at the Battle of Devil's Hole during Pontiac's War.

The Seneca are a group of Indigenous Iroquoian-speaking people who historically lived south of Lake Ontario, one of the five Great Lakes in North America. Their nation was the farthest to the west within the Six Nations or Iroquois League (Haudenosaunee) in New York before the American Revolution. For this reason, they are called "The Keepers of the Western Door".

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14/09/1752

The British Empire adopts the Gregorian calendar, skipping eleven days (the previous day was September 2).

The adoption of the Gregorian Calendar has taken place in the history of most cultures and societies around the world, marking a change from one of various traditional dating systems to the contemporary system – the Gregorian Calendar – which is widely used around the world today. Some polities adopted the new calendar in 1582, others not before the early twentieth century, and others at various dates between. A few have yet to do so, but except for these, the Gregorian Calendar is now the universal civil calendar, yet old style calendars remain in use in religious or traditional contexts. During – and for some time after – the transition between systems, it has been common to use the terms "Old Style" and "New Style" in dating to indicate which calendar was used to reckon them.

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14/09/1741

George Frideric Handel completes his oratorio Messiah.

George Frideric Handel was a German-British Baroque composer well-known for his operas, oratorios, anthems, concerti grossi, and organ concerti.

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14/09/1723

Grand Master António Manoel de Vilhena lays down the first stone of Fort Manoel in Malta.

António Manoel de Vilhena was a Portuguese nobleman who was the 66th Prince and Grand Master of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem from 19 June 1722 to his death in 1736. Unlike a number of the other Grand Masters, he was benevolent and popular with the Maltese people. Vilhena is mostly remembered for the founding of Floriana, the construction of Fort Manoel and the Manoel Theatre, and the renovation of the city of Mdina.

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14/09/1685

Morean War: the Battle of Kalamata ends in a Venetian victory over the forces of the Ottoman Empire under the Kapudan Pasha.

The Morean war, also known as the Sixth Ottoman–Venetian War, was fought between 1684–1699 as part of the wider conflict known as the "Great Turkish War", between the Republic of Venice and the Ottoman Empire. Military operations ranged from Dalmatia to the Aegean Sea, but the war's major campaign was the Venetian conquest of the Morea (Peloponnese) peninsula in southern Greece.

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14/09/1682

Bishop Gore School, one of the oldest schools in Wales, is founded.

The Bishop Gore School is a secondary school in Swansea in Wales, founded on 14 September 1682 by Hugh Gore (1613–1691), Bishop of Waterford and Lismore. It is situated in Sketty, close to Singleton Park and Swansea University. In December 2013 the school was ranked in the second highest of five bands by the Welsh Government, based on performance in exams, value added performance, disadvantaged pupils' performance, and attendance.

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14/09/1402

Battle of Homildon Hill: An invading Scottish army under Murdoch Stewart, Duke of Albany and Archibald, Earl Douglas is decimated by a contingent of 500 English archers under the command of George, Earl of March and Henry Percy, 1st Earl of Northumberland.

The Battle of Holmedon Hill or Battle of Homildon Hill was a conflict between English and Scottish armies on 14 September 1402 in Northumberland, England. The battle was recounted in William Shakespeare's Henry IV, Part 1. Although Humbleton Hill is the modern name of the site, over the centuries it has been variously named Homildon, Hameldun, Holmedon, and Homilheugh.

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14/09/1226

The first recorded instance of the Catholic practice of perpetual Eucharistic adoration formally begins in Avignon, France.

The Catholic Church, commonly called the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with an estimated 1.28 to 1.41 billion baptized members worldwide as of 2026. It consists of 24 autonomous churches—the Latin Church and 23 Eastern Catholic Churches—organized into nearly 3,500 dioceses and eparchies governed by bishops. Throughout history, the church has had a large role in the development of Western civilization. Catholic communities are present worldwide through missions, immigration, and conversions. The majority of Catholics live in the Global South, reflecting rapid demographic growth in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, as well as secularization in parts of Europe and North America.

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14/09/1180

Genpei War: In the Battle of Ishibashiyama in Japan, the new military commander of the Minamoto clan, Minamoto no Yoritomo, is routed by Ōba Kagechika of the Taira clan.

The Genpei War was a national civil war between the Taira and Minamoto clans during the late Heian period of Japan. It resulted in the downfall of the Taira and the establishment of the Kamakura shogunate under Minamoto no Yoritomo, who appointed himself as Shōgun in 1192, governing Japan as a military dictator from the eastern city of Kamakura.

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14/09/1115

Roger of Salerno's Crusader army defeats a numerically superior Seljuk army in the battle of Sarmin

Roger of Salerno was regent of the Principality of Antioch from 1112 to 1119. He was the son of Richard of the Principate and the nephew of Tancred, Prince of Galilee, both participants on the First Crusade. He became regent of Antioch when Tancred died in 1112; the actual prince, Bohemond II, was still a child. Like Tancred, Roger was almost constantly at war with the nearby Muslim states such as Aleppo. In 1114 there was an earthquake that destroyed many of the fortifications of the principality, and Roger took great care to rebuild them, especially those near the frontier.

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14/09/0919

Battle of Islandbridge: High King Niall Glúndub is killed while leading an Irish coalition against the Vikings of Uí Ímair, led by King Sitric Cáech.

The Battle of Islandbridge, also called the Battle of Áth Cliath, took place on 14 September 919, between a coalition of native Irish, led by Niall Glúndub, overking of the Northern Uí Néill and High King of Ireland, and the Dublin-based Vikings of the Uí Ímair, led by Sitric Cáech. It was one in a series of battles initiated by the native Irish to attempt to drive the Vikings of the Uí Ímair from Ireland. The battle was a decisive victory for Sitric Cáech and the Uí Ímair, with Niall Glúndub and five other Irish kings dying in the battle.

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14/09/0786

"Night of the three Caliphs": Harun al-Rashid becomes the Abbasid caliph upon the death of his brother al-Hadi. Birth of Harun's son al-Ma'mun.

Abū Jaʿfar Hārūn ibn Muḥammad ar-Rashīd, or simply Hārūn ibn al-Mahdī, famously known as Hārūn al-Rashīd, was the fifth Abbasid caliph of the Abbasid Caliphate, reigning from September 786 until his death in March 809. His reign is traditionally regarded to be the beginning of the Islamic Golden Age. His epithet al-Rashid translates to "the Just", "the Upright", or "the Rightly-Guided".

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14/09/0081

Domitian became Emperor of the Roman Empire upon the death of his brother Titus.

A.D. 81 (LXXXI) was a common year starting on Monday of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Silva and Pollio. The denomination A.D. 81 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years.

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