Browse Historical Events by Month:
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 powerful magnitude 8.2 Kanto earthquake and the ensuing 39.5 feet tsunami kills more than 140,000 people in Yokohama and Tokyo. Over the next ten days, the region experienced 1,197 aftershocks. More
By urbzoo - https://www.flickr.com/photos/urbzoo/3767766524/, CC BY 2.0,
Scottish biologist Alexander Fleming accidently discovers penicillin leading to a breakthrough in the development of antibiotics. The following year, Fleming published his findings in the British Journal of Experimental Pathology and presented his discovery to the Medical Research Club. To his surprise, his peers showed little interest in his work.
He recruited leading chemists and experts to help purify penicillin from the mold without any success. Penicillin was labelled a laboratory curiosity and Fleming gave up attempts to purify it. It wasn't until the 1940's fueled by the needs from WW2 and an unprecedented cooperation between the United States and Great Britain to produce penicillin that Penicillin became commercially available in 1943. More
Motorola, Inc. , the American multinational telecommunications company based in Schaumburg, Illinois is founded as Galvin Manufacturing Corporation by brothers Paul and Joseph Galvin. In 1947, the company changed its name to Motorola. More
Gandhi announces a fast "unto death" in protest of the British government's proposal to separate India's electoral system by caste which would aggravate the Indian caste and religious divisions, and in support of his goal to end the Hindu prejudice and discrimination against the untouchables. More
Prince Faisal, On Ibn Saud's behalf, declares the unification of the two kingdoms of Hejaz and Nejd as the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. That date is now a national holiday called Saudi National Day.
Standard Oil geologists' Robert P. “Bert” Miller and Schuyler B. “Krug” Henry, arrive in Saudi Arabia and are the first geologists to enter Saudi Arabia. They came ashore in Al Hasa on Sept. 23,1933 – just two years after the United States officially recognized Ibn Sa’ud’s nation.
The Nuremberg race laws are enacted, stripping German Jews of their citizenship and reducing them to mere “subjects” of the state thus establishing the framework that eventually led to the Holocaust. More
The Great New England Hurricane; a category 3 hurricane, originating near the Cape Verde Islands, slams into Long Island and southern New England without warning. The hurricane causing over 600 deaths and devastated coastal cities and towns. it was the most destructive storm to strike the region in the 20th century. More
President Franklin D. Roosevelt, writes a letter to Adolf Hitler appealing to him to refrain
from further aggression. and to work with the United States and its allies to promote world peace.Read letter
The Munich Agreement is signed by Germany, Italy, France, and the United Kingdom, allowing Nazi Germany to annex the Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia. More
The Munich Agreement is signed by Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, Neville Chamberlain, and Édouard Daladier; ceding the Sudetenland border regions from Czechoslovakia to Nazi Germany. Upon his return to London, Chamberlain infamously declared that the agreement had brought "peace for our time," a sentiment quickly proven wrong by the impending World War II.
The Czechoslovak government was not included in the negotiations and was given the choice of resisting alone or submitting to the agreement. The Munich Agreement is considered a failed attempt at appeasement and is often referred to as the "Munich Betrayal" because it abandoned Czechoslovakia and only emboldened Hitler, accelerating the path toward World War II.
World War II effectively begins with Hitlers Germany's invasion of Poland. The German army blitzkrieg tactics quickly overpower the Polish forces. Britain and France declared war on Germany two days later on September 3.
in accordance with their earlier commitments to Poland.The Soviets entered into a pact with Germany and the Red Army occupies eastern Poland on September 17.
France and the United Kingdom declare war on Germany, two days after Nazi Germany invaded Poland, marking the start of WWII
The Soviet Union invades Poland which was already in a state of war with Nazi Germany and occupies the Eastern part of Poland. At the end of September the division of Poland was confirmed by German–Soviet Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Demarcation.
The treaty included a correction of the borders first drawn in the secret clause of the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact. It was the beginning of a 2-year long occupation of Central Europe by two totalitarian regimes. More
The Blitz begins as German Luftwaffe planes bomb London, marking the start of a sustained aerial bombing campaign during World War II on British towns and cities which went on until May 1941. More
Lascaux cave paintings of animals are accidentally discovered by four boys examining a fox hole down which their dog had fallen on the hill of Lascaux, France.
The boys, in awe of what they had found, told their teacher, after which the process towards excavating the cave was set in motion. By 1948 the cave was ready to be opened to the public.Lascaux is located in the Dordogne region of southwestern France, near the town of Montignac. It is a cave complex renowned for its Palaeolithic art, featuring well-preserved paintings of animals that are estimated to be up to 20,000 years old. The original cave is now closed to the public for preservation, but you can visit replicas like Lascaux IV to experience the art. More
Italy invades Egypt from its colony in Libya on September 13, 1940. Having limited success, Hitler realized that Germany would have to support the Italians and on 11 February 1941 Major-General Erwin Rommel's Afrika Korps landed at Tripoli. More
The United States instituted the the first peacetime draft in United States' history. with the Selective Training and Service Act of 1940, which required all men between the ages of 21 and 45 to register for the draft. Those who were selected from the draft lottery were required to serve at least one year in the armed forces.
Once the U.S. entered WWII, draft terms extended through the duration of the fighting. By the end of the war in 1945, 50 million men between eighteen and forty-five had registered for the draft and 10 million had been inducted in the military. More
Germany, Italy, and Japan sign the Tripartite Pact, forming the Axis Powers alliance one year after the start of World War II. It created a defense alliance between the countries and was in part intended to deter the United States from entering the conflict. More
The Siege of Leningrad begins as German forces surround the city, leading to a brutal and prolonged siege that lasted for nearly 900 days. More
