The French conquest of Cochinchina (Vietnam) begins.
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What Happened in September?
Battles, deaths, and monumental religious moments. Explore significant events from September that helped shape the world. Dates for earlier events may be approximate.
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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.
A geomagnetic storm of this magnitude occurring today would cause widespread electrical disruptions, blackouts, and could cause an internet apocalypse, sending large numbers of people and businesses offline due to extended outages of the electrical power grid. More
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.
The evacuation and subsequent fall of Atlanta were crucial to the Union war effort, ensuring President Lincoln's reelection and paving the way for Sherman's destructive March to the Sea.
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.
In 1890, when the U.S. Congress demanded Wyoming rescind the right of women to vote as a condition of becoming a State. Wyoming, with a Republican governor and Democratic legislature, insisted it would not become a state without keeping women's suffrage. Congress gave in, and Wyoming became the 44th State and the first U.S. State in which women could vote on July 10, 1890.
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.
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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.
Construction on a Crazy Horse Memorial Monument carving was started in 1948 into the Harney Peak leucogranite on Thunder Mountain. The project is being constructed on private land and funded without Federal or local Government money. More.
Credit: Crazy Horse Memorial Org.
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
Geronimo, also known as Goyathlay, hands his rifle to a U.S. General bringing the Apache armed resistance to an end after his tribe had been relocated to a reservation in Arizona 14 years earlier. His military resistance with his tiny band of Chiricahuas made him feared by white settlers.
After his surrender, Goyathlay and about 30 followers, including children, were sent to Fort Marion in St. Augustine, destined fto years of imprisonment. On his deathbed, he confessed to his nephew that he regretted his decision to surrender. His last words were reported to be: "I should have never surrendered. I should have fought until I was the last man alive." He dictated his autobiography "Geronimo's Story of his Life" to S.M Barrett Superintendent of Education, Lawton.
U.S. Patent No. 388,850 is granted to George Eastman for the Kodak camera. He also registered the trademark "Kodak". The patent marked a significant moment in photography by introducing a small, handheld, and easy-to-use box camera loaded with roll film.
This innovation made photography accessible to the general public, allowing them to "press the button, we do the rest" by sending the completed camera back to the factory for film development, prints, and a reload. More
Source: Smithsonian - National Museum of American History.
The first issue of National Geographic Magazine is published, nine months after the founding of the National Geographic Society. The initial publication was a scholarly journal, focusing on geographical topics and lacking photographs. In January 1905 the first photo feature appeared, depicting views of Lhasa, Tibet, leading to the magazine becoming known for its innovative use of photography to document discovery and travel.
Church President Wilford Woodruff releases its Anti-polygamy "Manifesto" officially advising the Mormon community, against any future plural marriage in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS). Upon its issuance, the LDS Church in conference accepted Woodruff's Manifesto as "authoritative and binding".
While the Manifesto officially ended new plural marriages, it did not affect the status of those already in practice. Many polygamists continued to live with their plural wives. Reportedly, Wilford Woodruff practiced plural marriage at the time. In 1904 the Church made polygamy a cause for excommunication. The Manifesto was a response to mounting anti-polygamy pressure from the United States Congress, which by 1890 had disincorporated the church, escheated its assets to the U.S. federal government, and imprisoned many prominent polygamist Mormons. The declaration was a significant step for the Mormon Church to gain statehood for Utah and to integrate into mainstream American society by officially ending the practice of polygamy.
The largest land run in U.S. history occurred as more than 100,000 white settlers rushed to claim over more than 6 million acres of land to claim valuable land that had once belonged to Native Americans in what is now northern Oklahoma. The mad dash began with a single gun shot, and land-hungry pioneers on horseback and in carriages raced forward to stake their claims to the best acres.
Under the provisions of the Homestead Act of 1862, a legal settler could claim 160 acres of public land, and those who lived on and improved the claim for five years could receive a title to the land. More
New Zealand governor, Lord Glasgow, signs a new Electoral Act into law which makes New Zealand the first self-governing country in the world in which women had the right to vote in parliamentary elections. Teo months later, on November 28, 1893 Women in New Zealand become the first in the world to vote in a national election. More
US President Grover Cleveland signs Proclamation 369 - Granting Amnesty and Pardon to the Mormon community, members of the Church of Latter-Day Saints (LDS), for the Offenses of Polygamy, Bigamy, Adultery, or Unlawful Cohabitation. The pardon helped clear the path for Utah to achieve statehood in 1896. More
The United States second-class battleship Maine is commissioned on September 17, 1895 at the New York Navy Yard. The 6,682-ton armored vessel was designed to modernize the fleet but was largely considered obsolete upon completion. The Maine, famously sank in Havana Harbor on February 15, 1898 killing over 260 American crew members.
The first ever recorded drunk driving arrest takes place in London. The driver was a man named George Smith who was a taxi cab driver in London. He was drinking and driving and crashed into a building, he was arrested for drunk driving and pleaded guilty to the charge. Smith was sentenced to pay 25 shillings. The first DUI charge in the United States occurred in 1910 when New York became the first state to prohibit drunk driving. No specific individual name was recorded.