| | 490 BC - After the Battle of Marathon, where the Greeks defeated the invading Persians, Pheidippides, who had already run 140 miles over 2 days and nights, ran 26 miles from Marathon to Athens to carry the news of the victory. His last words before he collapsed and died, "Rejoice, we are victorious." |
| | 44 BC - Pharaoh Cleopatra VII of Egypt declares her son co-ruler as Ptolemy XV Caesarion. |
| | 44 BC - The first of Cicero’s Philippics (oratorical attacks) on Mark Antony. He will make 14 of them over the next several months. |
| | 31 BC - Final war of the Roman Republic: Battle of Actium - Off the western coast of Greece, forces of Octavian defeat troops under Mark Antony and Cleopatra. |
| | 1649 - The Italian city of Castro is completely destroyed by the forces of Pope Innocent X, ending the Wars of Castro. |
| | 1666 - The Great Fire of London breaks out and burns for three days, destroying 10,000 buildings including St. Paul's Cathedral. |
| | 1752 - The United Kingdom adopts the Gregorian Calendar, nearly two centuries later than most of Western Europe. |
| | 1789 - The United States Department of the Treasury is founded. |
| | 1792 - During what became known as the September Massacres of the French Revolution, rampaging mobs slaughter three Roman Catholic Church bishops and more than two hundred priests. |
| | 1807 - British Navy bombards Copenhagen with fire bombs and phosphorus rockets to prevent Denmark from surrendering its fleet to Napoleon. |
| | 1833 - Oberlin College is founded by John Shipherd and Philo P. Stewart. |
| | 1862 - American Civil War: President Abraham Lincoln reluctantly restores Union General George McClellan to full command after General John Pope's disastrous defeat at the Battle of Second Bull Run. |
| | 1864 - American Civil War: Union forces enter Atlanta, Georgia a day after the Confederate defenders flee the city. |
| | 1867 - Mutsuhito, the Meiji Emperor of Japan marries Ichijo Masako. The Empress consort is thereafter known as Lady Haruko. |
| | 1870 - Franco-Prussian War: Battle of Sedan - Prussian forces take French Emperor Napoleon III and 100,000 of his soldiers prisoner. |
| | 1885 - In Rock Springs, Wyoming, 150 white miners attack their Chinese fellow workers, killing 28, wounding 15, and forcing several hundred more out of town. |
| | 1898 - Battle of Omdurman - British and Egyptian troops defeat Sudanese tribesmen and establishing British dominance in the Sudan. |
| | 1901 - Vice President of the United States Theodore Roosevelt utters the famous phrase, "Speak softly and carry a big stick" at the Minnesota State Fair. |
| | 1925 - The U.S. Zeppelin the USS Shenandoah crashes, killing 14. |
| | 1935 - Labor Day Hurricane of 1935: A large hurricane hits the Florida Keys killing 423. |
| | 1939 - Following the invasion of Poland, Freie Stadt Danzig Danzig (now Gdansk, Poland) is annexed to Nazi Germany. |
| | 1945 - World War II ends: The final official surrender of Japan is accepted aboard the battleship USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay. |
| | 1945 - Vietnam declares its independence, forming the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam). |
| | 1958 - U.S. Air Force C-130A-II is shot down by fighters over Yerevan, Armenia when it strays into Soviet airspace while conducting a sigint mission. All crew lost. |
| | 1963 - CBS Evening News becomes U.S. network television's first half-hour weeknight news broadcast, when the show is lengthened from 15 to 30 minutes. |
| | 1967 - The microstate Principality of Sealand unilaterally declares its independence. |
| | 1969 - The first automatic teller machine in the United States is installed in Rockville Center, New York. |
| | 1970 - NASA announces the cancellation of two Apollo missions to the Moon, Apollo 15 (the designation was re-used by a later mission), and Apollo 19. |
| | 1990 - Transnistria unilaterally proclaimed as Soviet republic; the Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev declares the decision null and void. |
| | 1991 - The United States recognizes the independence of the Baltic states: Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. |
| | 1995 - The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame opens in Cleveland, Ohio. |
| | 1996 - A peace agreement is signed between the Government of the Republic of the Philippines and the Moro National Liberation Front in Malacañang Palace. |
| | 1998 - Swissair Flight 111 crashes near Peggys Cove, Nova Scotia. All 229 people on board are killed. |
| | 1998 - The UN's International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda finds Jean-Paul Akayesu, the former mayor of a small town in Rwanda, guilty of nine counts of genocide. |
| | 2006 - Waziristan War Ends. US and Pakistani Troops leave Waziristan mountain area. |