What Happened in September?

The Vesuvius Observatory (the Osservatorio Vesuviano), officially opens as a surveillance center on September 28, 1845. It was founded in Naples, Italy in 1841 at the behest of King Ferdinand II of Bourbon, then the ruler of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. Expand +

American inventor Elias Howe was granted a patent for his sewing machine. An invention which revolutionized garment manufacturing and changed everyday life in the factory, at the personal level, to country economies and in the home. Expand +

Astronomer Johann Gottfried Galle is the first to identify Neptune as the eighth planet orbiting around the Sun. The discovery was made possible by mathematical calculations of its predicted position due to observed perturbations in the orbit of the planet Uranus.  A telescope was then used since Neptune is too faint and distant to be visible to the naked eye.  Expand +

American dentist Dr. William Morton uses the anesthetic diethyl ether to extract a tooth in his Boston office. On October 16, 1846  he gave a successful public demonstration of surgical anesthesia at Massachusetts General Hospital. He is credited with being instrumental in gaining the world’s acceptance of surgical anesthesia. 

During the Mexican-American War, General Winfield Scott captures Mexico City after a successful attack on the port city of Veracruz and a series of victories. More

American railroad foreman Phineas Gage suffers a traumatic brain injury when an iron rod shot through his skull through his left cheek and out his cranial vault, obliterating the greater part of the left frontal lobe of his brain; he survived with limited physical damage, although personality changes were observed and reported. More

California is admitted into the Union becoming the 31st State.

Two ships collided about fifty miles off the coast of Newfoundland, killing at least 322 people of the 400 who were onboard. The collision was caused by a sudden, heavy fog that obscured the view of both ships' Captains. The larger ship was the wood hulled paddle steamer called SS Arctic. The smaller ship was called the SS Vesta, an iron hulled, propeller driven French ship. More

A Mormon militia in southern Utah seized a wagon train from Arkansas and brutally murdered 120 people. Soon after, records of the event were destroyed and leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints  (LDS) attempted a cover-up. The "Mountain Meadows Massacre" still troubles the descendants of both the attackers and victims. More

The French conquest of Cochinchina (Vietnam) begins.

The Carrington Event was the most intense geomagnetic storm in recorded history. It was associated with a very bright solar flare and it created strong auroral displays that were reported globally and caused sparking and even fires in multiple telegraph stations. The geomagnetic storm was most likely the result of a coronal mass ejection (CME) from the Sun colliding with Earth's magnetosphere. Expand +

The Royal Charter storm wrecks over 130 ships along the coast of England and Wales, resulting in the loss of around 800 lives.

The Battle of Antietam takes place during the American Civil War, resulting in the bloodiest single day of battle in U.S. history. It showed that the Union could stand against the Confederate army in the Eastern theater. It also gave President Abraham Lincoln the confidence to issue the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation. More

President Lincoln issued the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, declaring that as of January 1, 1863 "all persons held as slaves within any State, or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free." More

Confederate forces evacuated Atlanta under the command of General John Bell Hood, following a prolonged siege by Union General William Tecumseh Sherman, leading to the city's surrender to Union forces the following day.  Expand +

The Wyoming legislators write the first state constitution granting women the right to vote. It was signed into law on December 10, 1869, by Territorial Governor John Allen Campbell. On September 6, 1870, Louisa Ann Swain of Laramie, Wyoming became the first woman to cast a vote in a general election.  Expand +

Forces of the Royal Italian Army enter Rome and take control of the city; eliminating the last remnants of the Papal territories and marking the end of the temporal power of the Pope.  Expand +

The prominent banking firm of Jay Cooke and Company, which was heavily invested in railroad construction, closes its doors as it could no longer sell enough railroad bonds to meet its obligations, leading to a crisis of confidence triggering bank runs and failures throughout the country and plunging the United States into a severe depression referred to as the Panic of 1873. 

Crazy Horse is fatally wounded four months after surrendering to U.S. troops under General George Crook at Camp Robinson in northwestern Nebraska. He was wounded  by a military guard in a scuffle with soldiers who were trying to imprison him in a cell. He died shortly thereafter.  Expand +

A group of 150 white coal miners in Rock Springs, Wyoming, attacked the Chinese workers, killing 28, wounding 15 others, and driving several hundred more out of town. More