Historical Events on Friday, 5th September

05/09/2022

Liz Truss is declared the winner of the UK Conservative Party leadership election, beating Rishi Sunak.

Mary Elizabeth Truss is a British politician who was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party from September to October 2022. On her fiftieth day in office, she stepped down amid a government crisis, making her the shortest-serving prime minister in British history. The member of Parliament (MP) for South West Norfolk from 2010 to 2024, Truss held various Cabinet positions under three prime ministers – David Cameron, Theresa May and Boris Johnson – lastly as foreign secretary from 2021 to 2022.

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At least 93 people die and 25 are missing after a magnitude 6.8 earthquake strikes Sichuan, China.

A Mw 6.7 earthquake struck Luding County in Sichuan province, China on 5 September 2022 at 12:52:19 local time. The epicenter was located 226 km (140 mi) from Chengdu, or 43 km (27 mi) southeast of Kangding. Ninety-three people died and 424 were injured. More than 13,000 homes and other infrastructure were damaged or destroyed. It was the largest earthquake to strike the province since 2017.

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05/09/2021

The President of Guinea, Alpha Condé is captured by armed forces during a coup d'état.

Alpha Condé is a Guinean politician who served as the fourth president of Guinea from 2010 to 2021. He spent decades in opposition to a succession of regimes in Guinea, unsuccessfully running against then-President Lansana Conté in the 1993 and 1998 presidential elections and leading the Rally of the Guinean People (RPG), an opposition party.

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05/09/2012

An accidental explosion at a Turkish Army ammunition store in Afyon, western Turkey kills 25 soldiers and wounds four others.

The 2012 Afyonkarahisar arsenal explosion occurred at 21:15 local time on 5 September 2012 in Afyonkarahisar, Turkey. According to Turkish Armed Forces, 25 servicemen died, four other soldiers and three civilians were injured by the accident.

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05/09/2005

Mandala Airlines Flight 091 crashes after takeoff from Polonia International Airport in Medan, Indonesia, killing 149.

Mandala Airlines Flight 091 (RI091/MDL091) was a scheduled domestic passenger flight from Medan to Jakarta, operated by Mandala Airlines with a Boeing 737-200Adv. On September 5, 2005 at 10:15 a.m. WIB (UTC+7), the aircraft stalled and crashed into a heavily populated residential area seconds after taking off from Polonia International Airport. Of the 117 passengers and crews on board, only 17 survived. An additional 49 civilians on the ground were killed, making a total of 149 fatalities.

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05/09/1996

Hurricane Fran makes landfall near Cape Fear, North Carolina as a Category 3 storm with 115 mph sustained winds. Fran caused over $3 billion in damage and killed 27 people.

Hurricane Fran caused extensive damage in the United States in early September 1996. The sixth named storm, fifth hurricane, and third major hurricane of the 1996 Atlantic hurricane season, Fran developed from a tropical wave near Cape Verde on August 23. Due to nearby Hurricane Edouard, the depression remained disorganized as it tracked westward, though it eventually intensified into Tropical Storm Fran on August 27. While heading west-northwestward, Fran steadily strengthened into a hurricane on August 29, but weakened back to a tropical storm on the following day. On August 31, Fran quickly re-intensified into a hurricane. By September 2, Fran began to parallel the islands of the Bahamas and slowly curved north-northwestward. Early on September 5, Fran peaked as a 120 mph (195 km/h) Category 3 hurricane. Thereafter, Fran weakened slightly, before it made landfall near Cape Fear, North Carolina early on September 6. The storm rapidly weakened inland and was only a tropical depression later that day. Eventually, Fran curved east-northeastward and transitioned into an extratropical cyclone over Ontario early on September 9.

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05/09/1991

The current international treaty defending indigenous peoples, Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention, 1989, comes into force.

The Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention, 1989 is an International Labour Organization Convention, also known as ILO Convention 169, or C169. It is the major binding international convention concerning Indigenous peoples and tribal peoples, and a forerunner of the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

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05/09/1990

Sri Lankan Civil War: Sri Lankan Army soldiers slaughter 158 civilians.

The Sri Lankan civil war was fought in Sri Lanka from 1983 to 2009. Beginning on 23 July 1983, it was an intermittent insurgency against the government by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam led by Velupillai Prabhakaran. The LTTE fought to create an independent Tamil state called Tamil Eelam in the north-east of the island in response to continuous discrimination and violent persecution against Sri Lankan Tamils by the predominantly Sinhalese government of Sri Lanka.

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05/09/1986

Pan Am Flight 73 from Mumbai, India with 358 people on board is hijacked at Karachi International Airport.

Pan Am Flight 73 was a Pan American World Airways flight from Bombay, India, to New York City, United States, with scheduled stops in Karachi, Pakistan, and Frankfurt, West Germany.

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05/09/1984

STS-41-D: The Space Shuttle Discovery lands after its maiden voyage.

STS-41-D was the 12th flight of NASA's Space Shuttle program, and the maiden flight of Space Shuttle Discovery. It was launched from Kennedy Space Center, Florida, on August 30, 1984, and landed at Edwards Air Force Base, California, on September 5, 1984. Three commercial communications satellites were deployed into orbit during the six-day mission, and a number of scientific experiments were conducted, including a prototype extendable solar array that would eventually form the basis of the main solar arrays on the International Space Station (ISS).

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Western Australia becomes the last Australian state to abolish capital punishment.

Western Australia (WA) is the westernmost state of Australia. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east, and South Australia to the south-east. Western Australia is Australia's largest state, with a land area of 2,527,013 square kilometres (975,685 sq mi), and is also the second-largest subdivision of any country on Earth.

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05/09/1981

The first women arrive at what becomes Greenham Common Women's Peace Camp in the UK.

Greenham Common Women's Peace Camp was a series of protest camps established to protest against nuclear weapons being placed at RAF Greenham Common in Berkshire, England. The camp began on 5 September 1981 after a female activist group, Women for Life on Earth, arrived at Greenham to protest against the government's decision to allow American cruise missiles to be stored there. After realising that the march alone was not going to get them the attention that they needed to have the missiles removed, women began to stay at Greenham to continue their protest. The first blockade of the base occurred in March 1982 with 250 women protesting, during which 34 arrests occurred.

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05/09/1980

The Gotthard Road Tunnel opens in Switzerland as the world's longest highway tunnel at 16.9 kilometres (10.5 mi) stretching from Göschenen to Airolo.

The Gotthard Road Tunnel in Switzerland runs from Göschenen in the canton of Uri at its northern portal, to Airolo in Ticino to the south, and is 16.9 kilometres (10.5 mi) in length below the St Gotthard Pass, a major pass of the Alps. At time of construction, in 1980, it was the longest road tunnel in the world; it is currently the seventh-longest. Although it is a motorway tunnel, part of the A2 from Basel to Chiasso, it consists of only one bidirectional tube with two lanes. With a maximum elevation of 1,175 metres (3,855 ft) at the tunnel's highest point, the A2 motorway has the lowest maximum elevation of any direct north-south road through the Alps.

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05/09/1978

Camp David Accords: Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat begin peace discussions at Camp David, Maryland.

The Camp David Accords were a pair of political agreements signed by Egyptian president Anwar Sadat and Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin on 17 September 1978, following twelve days of secret negotiations at Camp David, the country retreat of the president of the United States in Maryland. The two framework agreements were signed at the White House and were witnessed by President Jimmy Carter. The second of these frameworks led directly to the 1979 Egypt–Israel peace treaty. Due to the agreement, Sadat and Begin received the shared 1978 Nobel Peace Prize. The first framework, which dealt with the Palestinian territories, was written without participation of the Palestinians and was condemned by the United Nations.

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05/09/1977

Voyager Program: NASA launches the Voyager 1 spacecraft.

The Voyager program is an American scientific program that employs two interstellar probes, Voyager 1 and Voyager 2. They were launched in 1977 to take advantage of a favorable planetary alignment to explore the two gas giants Jupiter and Saturn and potentially also the ice giants, Uranus and Neptune—to fly near them while collecting data for transmission back to Earth. After Voyager 1 successfully completed its flyby of Saturn and its moon Titan, it was decided that Voyager 2 would continue on its pre-planned trajectory to fly by Uranus and Neptune.

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05/09/1975

Sacramento, California: Lynette Fromme attempts to assassinate U.S. President Gerald Ford.

Sacramento is the capital city of the U.S. state of California. The county seat of Sacramento County, it is located at the confluence of the Sacramento and American Rivers in the Sacramento Valley. It is the fourth-most populous city in Northern California, sixth-most populous city in the state, and 35th-most populous city in the United States, with a population of 524,943 at the 2020 census. The Sacramento metropolitan area, with 2.46 million residents, is the 27th-largest metropolitan area in the country.

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05/09/1972

Munich massacre: A Palestinian terrorist group called "Black September" attacks and takes hostage 11 Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympic Games. Two die in the attack and nine are murdered the following day.

The Munich massacre was a terrorist attack during the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, West Germany, carried out by eight members of the Palestinian militant organisation Black September. The militants infiltrated the Olympic Village, killed two members of the Israeli Olympic team, and took nine other Israeli team members hostage. Those hostages were later also killed by the militants during a failed rescue attempt.

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05/09/1970

Vietnam War: Operation Jefferson Glenn begins: The United States 101st Airborne Division and the South Vietnamese 1st Infantry Division initiate a new operation in Thừa Thiên–Huế Province.

The Vietnam War was an armed conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia fought between North Vietnam and South Vietnam and their allies. North Vietnam was supported by the Soviet Union and China, while South Vietnam was supported by the United States and other anti-communist nations. The conflict was the second of the Indochina wars and a proxy war of the Cold War between the Soviet Union and US. The Vietnam War was one of the postcolonial wars of national liberation, a theater in the Cold War, and a civil war, with civil warfare a defining feature from the outset. Direct US military involvement escalated from 1965 until US forces were withdrawn in 1973. The fighting spilled into the Laotian and Cambodian civil wars, which ended with all three countries becoming communist in 1975.

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05/09/1969

Mỹ Lai Massacre: U.S. Army Lieutenant William Calley is charged with six specifications of premeditated murder for the death of 109 Vietnamese civilians in My Lai.

The Mỹ Lai Massacre was a United States war crime committed on 16 March 1968, involving the mass murder of unarmed civilians in Sơn Mỹ village, Quảng Ngãi province, South Vietnam, during the Vietnam War. At least 347 and up to 504 civilians, almost all women, children and elderly men, were murdered by U.S. Army soldiers. Some of the women were gang-raped and their bodies mutilated, and some soldiers mutilated and raped children as young as 12. The incident is the largest confirmed massacre of civilians by U.S. forces in the 20th century.

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05/09/1968

End of the Congress of Carrara, one of the major 20th century anarchist congresses.

The Congress of Carrara, held from 31 August to 5 September 1968, in the eponymous city, is one of the major anarchist congresses of the 20th century. Led by anarchist federations from 31 countries—primarily European—the congress aimed to coordinate anarchists on an international scale and founded the International of Anarchist Federations (IAF), one of the main anarchist organizations to this day.

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05/09/1960

Poet Léopold Sédar Senghor is the first elected President of Senegal.

Léopold Sédar Senghor was a Senegalese politician, cultural theorist and poet who served as the first president of Senegal from 1960 to 1980.

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Muhammad Ali (then known as Cassius Clay) wins the gold medal in the light heavyweight boxing competition at the Olympic Games in Rome.

Muhammad Ali was an American professional boxer and activist. A global cultural icon, widely known by the nickname "the Greatest", he is often regarded as the greatest heavyweight boxer of all time. He held the Ring magazine heavyweight title from 1964 to 1970, was the undisputed champion from 1974 to 1978, and was the WBA and Ring heavyweight champion from 1978 to 1979. In 1999, he was named Sportsman of the Century by Sports Illustrated and the Sports Personality of the Century by the BBC.

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05/09/1957

Cuban Revolution: Fulgencio Batista bombs the revolt in Cienfuegos.

The Cuban Revolution was the military and political movement that overthrew the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista, who had ruled Cuba from 1952 to 1959. The revolution began after the 1952 Cuban coup d'état, in which Batista overthrew the emerging Cuban democracy and consolidated power. Among those who opposed the coup was Fidel Castro, then a young lawyer, who initially tried to challenge the takeover through legal means in the Cuban courts. When these efforts failed, Fidel Castro and his brother Raúl led an armed assault on the Moncada Barracks, a Cuban military post, on 26 July 1953.

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05/09/1954

KLM Flight 633 crashes into the River Shannon in Shannon, County Clare, Ireland, killing 28.

KLM Flight 633 was a passenger flight from Amsterdam to New York City. On 5 September 1954, immediately after takeoff from Shannon Airport, the Super Constellation Triton ditched on a mudbank in the River Shannon. 28 people were killed in the accident. It was caused by an unexpected re-extension of the landing gear, possibly compounded by pilot error.

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05/09/1948

In France, Robert Schuman becomes President of the Council while being Foreign minister; as such, he is the French negotiator of the major treaties of the end of World War II.

Jean-Baptiste Nicolas Robert Schuman was a Luxembourg-born French statesman. Schuman was a Christian democratic political thinker and activist. Twice Prime Minister of France, a reformist Minister of Finance and a Foreign Minister, he was instrumental in building postwar European and trans-Atlantic institutions and was one of the founders of the European Communities, the Council of Europe and NATO. The 1964–1965 academic year at the College of Europe was named in his honour. In 2021, Schuman was declared venerable by Pope Francis in recognition of his acting on Christian principles.

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05/09/1945

Cold War: Igor Gouzenko, a Soviet Union embassy clerk, defects to Canada, exposing Soviet espionage in North America, signalling the beginning of the Cold War.

The Cold War was a period of international geopolitical rivalry between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the capitalist Western Bloc and communist Eastern Bloc. It began in the aftermath of the Second World War and ended with the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. The term cold war is used because there was no direct fighting between the two superpowers, though each supported opposing sides in regional conflicts known as proxy wars. In addition to the struggle for ideological and economic influence and an arms race in both conventional and nuclear weapons, the Cold War was expressed through technological rivalries such as the Space Race, espionage, propaganda campaigns, embargoes, and sports diplomacy.

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Iva Toguri D'Aquino, a Japanese American who broadcast under the name Orphan Annie during World War II, is arrested in Yokohama by U.S. military authorities amid widespread speculation of her being wartime radio propagandist Tokyo Rose.

Iva Ikuko Toguri D'Aquino was an American citizen visiting Japan when World War II began. Unable to return to the United States, she risked her life smuggling food to American service men held in prisoner of war camps.

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05/09/1944

Belgium, Netherlands and Luxembourg constitute Benelux.

Luxembourg, officially the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, is a landlocked country in Western Europe. It is bordered by Belgium to the west and north, Germany to the east, and France to the south and west. Its capital and most populous city, Luxembourg City, is one of the four institutional seats of the European Union and hosts several EU institutions, notably the Court of Justice of the European Union, the highest judicial authority in the EU.

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05/09/1943

World War II: In the Pacific Theater, the 503rd Parachute Infantry Regiment lands and occupies Lae Nadzab Airport, near Lae during the Salamaua–Lae campaign.

The Pacific War, sometimes called the Asia–Pacific War or the Pacific Theater, was the theater of World War II fought between Japan and the Allies in East and Southeast Asia, the Pacific and Indian Oceans, and Oceania. It was geographically the largest theater of the war, including the Pacific Ocean theater, the South West Pacific theater, the Second Sino-Japanese War, and the brief Soviet–Japanese War, and included some of the largest naval battles in history. War between Japan and the Republic of China had begun in 1937, with hostilities dating back to Japan's invasion of Manchuria in 1931, but the Pacific War is more widely accepted to have begun in 1941, when the United States and United Kingdom were brought into the war.

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05/09/1942

World War II: Japanese high command orders withdrawal at Milne Bay, the first major Japanese defeat in land warfare during the Pacific War.

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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05/09/1941

Whole territory of Estonia is occupied by Nazi Germany.

After the German invasion of the Soviet Union, the Baltic states were under military occupation by Nazi Germany from 1941 to 1944. Initially, many Estonians, Latvians, and Lithuanians considered the Germans liberators from the Soviet Union. The Balts hoped for the restoration of independence, but instead, the Germans established a provisional government. During the occupation, the Germans carried out discrimination, mass deportations, and mass killings, generating Baltic resistance movements.

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05/09/1938

Chile: A group of youths affiliated with the fascist National Socialist Movement of Chile are executed after surrendering during a failed coup.

Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in western South America. It is the southernmost country in the world and the closest to Antarctica, extending along a narrow strip of land between the Andes Mountains and the Pacific Ocean. According to the 2024 census, Chile had an enumerated population of 18.5 million. The country covers a territorial area of 756,102 square kilometers (291,933 sq mi), sharing borders with Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, and the Drake Passage to the south. It also administers several Pacific islands, including Juan Fernández, Isla Salas y Gómez, Desventuradas, and Easter Island, and claims about 1,250,000 square kilometers (480,000 sq mi) of Antarctica as the Chilean Antarctic Territory. The capital and largest city is Santiago, and the official and national language is Spanish.

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05/09/1937

Spanish Civil War: Llanes falls to the Nationalists following a one-day siege.

The Spanish Civil War was fought from 1936 to 1939 between the Republicans and the Nationalist rebels. Republicans were loyal to the left-leaning Popular Front government of the Second Spanish Republic and included socialists, anarchists, communists, and separatists, supported by the Soviet Union. The opposing Nationalists were an alliance of fascist Falangists, monarchists, conservatives, and traditionalists, supported by Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy and initially led by a military junta, until General Francisco Franco was appointed supreme leader on 1 October 1936 for what he called the Spanish State. Due to the international political climate at the time, the war was variously viewed as class struggle, religious struggle, or struggle between republican democracy and dictatorship, revolution and counterrevolution, or fascism and communism. The Nationalists won the war in early 1939, and ruled Spain until Franco's death in November 1975.

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05/09/1932

The French Upper Volta is broken apart between Ivory Coast, French Sudan, and Niger.

Upper Volta was a colony of French West Africa established in 1919 in the territory occupied by present-day Burkina Faso. It was formed from territories that had been part of the colonies of Upper Senegal and Niger and the Côte d'Ivoire. The colony was dissolved on 5 September 1932, with parts being administered by the Côte d'Ivoire, French Sudan and the Colony of Niger.

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05/09/1915

The pacifist Zimmerwald Conference begins.

The Zimmerwald Conference, held in Zimmerwald, Switzerland, from September 5 to 8, 1915, was the first of three international conferences convened by anti-militarist socialists in response to the outbreak of World War I and the resulting virtual collapse of the Second International. A total of 42 individuals and 11 organizations participated. Those participating in this and later conferences at Kienthal and Stockholm are known as the Zimmerwald movement. The Zimmerwald Conference began the final unraveling of the coalition within the Second International between revolutionary socialists, known as the "Zimmerwald Left" supporting Vladimir Lenin's line, and reformist socialists.

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05/09/1914

World War I: First Battle of the Marne begins. Northeast of Paris, the French attack and defeat German forces who are advancing on the capital.

World War I, or the First World War, also known as The Great War, was a global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies and the Central Powers. Major areas of conflict included Europe and the Middle East, as well as parts of Africa and the Asia-Pacific. The war saw important developments in weaponry including tanks, aircraft, artillery, machine guns, and chemical weapons. One of the deadliest conflicts in history, it resulted in an estimated 15 to 22 million military and civilian casualties and genocide. The movement of large numbers of people was a major factor in the deadly Spanish flu pandemic.

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05/09/1905

Russo-Japanese War: In New Hampshire, United States, the Treaty of Portsmouth, mediated by U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt, ends the war.

The Russo-Japanese War was fought between the Russian Empire and the Empire of Japan over rival imperial ambitions in Manchuria and the Korean Empire. The major land battles of the war were fought on the Liaodong Peninsula and near Mukden in Southern Manchuria, with naval battles taking place in the Yellow Sea and the Sea of Japan.

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05/09/1887

A fire at the Theatre Royal, Exeter kills 186, making it the UK's deadliest ever building fire.

On 5 September 1887, a fire broke out in the backstage area of the Theatre Royal in Exeter, England, during the production of The Romany Rye. The fire caused panic throughout the theatre, with 186 people dying from a combination of the direct effects of smoke and flame, crushing and trampling, and trauma injuries from falling or jumping from the roof and balconies.

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05/09/1882

The first United States Labor Day parade is held in New York City.

Labor Day is a federal holiday in the United States celebrated on the first Monday of September to honor and recognize the American labor movement and the works and contributions of laborers to the development and achievements in the United States.

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05/09/1877

American Indian Wars: Oglala Sioux chief Crazy Horse is bayoneted by a United States soldier after resisting confinement in a guardhouse at Fort Robinson in Nebraska.

The American Indian Wars, also known as the American Frontier Wars, and the Indian Wars, were initially fought by European colonial empires, the United States, and briefly the Confederate States of America and Republic of Texas against various American Indian tribes in North America. These conflicts occurred from the time of the earliest colonial settlements in the 17th century until the end of the 19th century. The various wars resulted from a wide variety of factors, the most common being the desire of settlers and governments for Indian tribes' lands. The European powers and their colonies enlisted allied Indian tribes to help them conduct warfare against each other's colonial settlements. After the American Revolution, many conflicts were local to specific states or regions and frequently involved disputes over land use; some entailed cycles of violent reprisal.

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05/09/1862

American Civil War: The Army of Northern Virginia crosses the Potomac River at White's Ford in the Maryland Campaign.

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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05/09/1839

The United Kingdom declares war on the Qing dynasty of China.

The First Opium War, also known as the Anglo-Chinese War, was a series of military engagements fought between the British Empire and the Chinese Qing dynasty between 1839 and 1842. The immediate issue was the Chinese enforcement of their ban on the opium trade by seizing private opium stocks from mainly British merchants at Guangzhou and threatening to impose the death penalty for future offenders. Despite the opium ban, the British government supported the merchants' demand for compensation for seized goods, and insisted on the principles of free trade and equal diplomatic recognition with China.

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05/09/1836

Sam Houston is elected as the first president of the Republic of Texas.

Samuel Houston was an American general and statesman who played a prominent role in the Texas Revolution. He served as the first and third president of the Republic of Texas and was one of the first two individuals to represent Texas in the United States Senate. He also served as the sixth governor of Tennessee and the seventh governor of Texas. Houston is the only individual to be elected governor of two different US states.

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05/09/1816

Louis XVIII of France has to dissolve the Chambre introuvable ("Unobtainable Chamber").

Louis XVIII, known as the Desired, was King of France from 1814 to 1824, except for a brief interruption during the Hundred Days in 1815. Before his reign, he spent 23 years in exile from France beginning in 1791, during the French Revolution and the First French Empire.

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05/09/1812

War of 1812: The Siege of Fort Wayne begins when Chief Winamac's forces attack two soldiers returning from the fort's outhouses.

The War of 1812 was fought by the United States and its allies against the United Kingdom and its allies in North America. It began when the United States declared war on Britain on 18 June 1812. Although peace terms were agreed upon in the December 1814 Treaty of Ghent, the war did not officially end until the peace treaty was ratified by the United States Congress on 17 February 1815.

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05/09/1798

Conscription is made mandatory in France by the Jourdan law.

Conscription, also known as the draft in American English, is the practice in which the compulsory enlistment in a national service, mainly a military service, is enforced by law. Conscription dates back to antiquity and it continues in some countries to the present day under various names. The modern system of near-universal national conscription for young men dates to the French Revolution in the 1790s, where it became the basis of a very large and powerful military. Most European nations later copied the system in peacetime, so that men at a certain age would serve 1 to 8 years on active duty and then transfer to the reserve force. In the early 2000s, Norway and Sweden became the first nations to conscript women on the same legal terms as men. In 2025, Denmark ruled to implement a similar system.

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05/09/1793

French Revolution: The French National Convention initiates the Reign of Terror.

The French Revolution was a period of political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the Coup of 18 Brumaire on 9 November 1799. Many of the revolution's ideas are considered fundamental principles of liberal democracy, and its values remain central to modern French political discourse. It was caused by a combination of social, political, and economic factors which the existing regime proved unable to manage.

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05/09/1791

Olympe de Gouges writes the Declaration of the Rights of Woman and of the Female Citizen.

Olympe de Gouges was a French playwright and political activist. She is best known for her Declaration of the Rights of Woman and of the Female Citizen and other writings on women's rights and abolitionism.

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05/09/1781

Battle of the Chesapeake in the American Revolutionary War: The British Navy is repelled by the French Navy, contributing to the British surrender at Yorktown.

The Battle of the Chesapeake, also known as the Battle of the Virginia Capes or simply the Battle of the Capes, was a crucial naval battle in the American Revolutionary War that took place near the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay on 5 September 1781. The combatants were a British fleet led by Rear Admiral Sir Thomas Graves and a French fleet led by Rear Admiral François Joseph Paul, the Comte de Grasse. The battle was strategically decisive, in that it prevented the Royal Navy from reinforcing or evacuating the besieged forces of Lieutenant General Lord Cornwallis at Yorktown, Virginia. The French were able to achieve control of the sea lanes against the British and provided the Franco-American army with siege artillery and French reinforcements. These proved decisive in the Siege of Yorktown, effectively securing independence for the Thirteen Colonies.

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05/09/1774

First Continental Congress assembles in Philadelphia.

The First Continental Congress was a meeting of delegates of twelve of the Thirteen Colonies held from September 5 to October 26, 1774, at Carpenters' Hall in Philadelphia at the beginning of the American Revolution. The meeting was organized by the delegates just after the British Navy implemented a blockade of Boston Harbor and the Parliament of Great Britain passed the punitive Intolerable Acts in response to the Boston Tea Party.

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05/09/1725

Wedding of Louis XV and Maria Leszczyńska.

Louis XV, known as Louis the Beloved, was King of France from 1 September 1715 until his death in 1774. He succeeded his great-grandfather Louis XIV at the age of five. Until he reached maturity in 1723, the kingdom was ruled by his grand-uncle Philippe II, Duke of Orléans, as Regent of France. Cardinal Fleury was chief minister from 1726 until his death in 1743, at which time the king took sole control of the kingdom.

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05/09/1698

In an effort to Westernize his nobility, Tsar Peter I of Russia imposes a tax on beards for all men except the clergy and peasantry.

Tsar is a Slavic title derived from the Latin word caesar, which was intended to mean emperor in the European medieval sense of the term—a ruler with the same rank as a Roman emperor, holding it by the approval of another emperor or a supreme ecclesiastical official—but was usually considered by Western Europeans to be equivalent to "king".

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05/09/1697

War of the Grand Alliance : A French warship commanded by Captain Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville defeated an English squadron at the Battle of Hudson's Bay.

The Nine Years' War was a European great power conflict from 1688 to 1697 between France and the Grand Alliance. Fought primarily in Europe, related conflicts include the Williamite war in Ireland, and King William's War in North America.

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05/09/1661

Fall of Nicolas Fouquet: Louis XIV's Superintendent of Finances is arrested in Nantes by D'Artagnan, captain of the king's musketeers.

Nicolas Fouquet, marquis de Belle-Île, vicomte de Melun et Vaux was the Superintendent of Finances in France from 1653 until 1661 under King Louis XIV. He had a glittering career, and acquired enormous wealth. He fell out of favor, accused of peculation and lèse-majesté. The king had him imprisoned from 1661 until his death in 1680.

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05/09/1590

An army led by Alexander Farnese, Duke of Parma forces Henry IV of France to lift the siege of Paris.

Alexander Farnese was an Italian noble and military leader, who was Duke of Parma, Piacenza and Castro from 1586 to 1592, as well as Governor of the Spanish Netherlands from 1578 to 1592. Nephew to King Philip II of Spain, he served in the Battle of Lepanto and the subsequent campaigns of the Holy League against the Ottoman Empire. He was latter appointed general of the Spanish army during the Dutch revolt and its ramifications, serving in Netherlands, France and the Holy Roman Empire until his death in 1592.

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05/09/1367

Swa Saw Ke becomes king of Ava

Mingyi Swa Saw Ke, also called Bǔ Là Làng (卜剌浪), in Ming History, was king of Ava from 1367 to 1400. He reestablished central authority in Upper Myanmar (Burma) for the first time since the fall of the Pagan Empire in the 1280s. He essentially founded the Ava Kingdom that would dominate Upper Burma for the next two centuries.

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05/09/0917

Liu Yan declares himself emperor, establishing the Southern Han state in southern China, at his capital of Panyu.

Liu Yan, né Liu Yan (劉巖), also named Liu Zhi (劉陟) and briefly as Liu Gong (劉龔), also known by his temple name as the Emperor Gaozu of Southern Han (南漢高祖), was the first emperor of the Chinese Southern Han dynasty, one of the Ten Kingdoms during the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period.

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