This day in .....

10 August 1628 ? The Swedish warship Vasa sinks in the Stockholm harbour after only about 20 minutes of her maiden voyage.

Vasa (ship)

17th-century Swedish warship

Vasa or Wasa (Swedish pronunciation: [²vɑːsa] ^ⓘ) is a Swedish warship built between 1626 and 1628. The ship sank after sailing roughly 1,300 m (1,400 yd) into her maiden voyage on 10 August 1628. She fell into obscurity after most of her valuable bronze cannons were salvaged in the 17th century, until she was located again in the late 1950s in a busy shipping area in Stockholm harbor. The ship was salvaged with a largely intact hull in 1961. She was housed in a temporary museum called Wasavarvet ("The Vasa Shipyard") until 1988 and then moved permanently to the Vasa Museum in the Royal National City Park in Stockholm. The ship is one of Sweden's most popular tourist attractions and has been seen by over 35 million visitors since 1961.^[2] Since her recovery, Vasa has become a widely recognized symbol of the Swedish Empire.

The ship was built on the orders of the King of Sweden Gustavus Adolphus as part of the military expansion he initiated in a war with Poland-Lithuania (1621–1629). She was constructed at the navy yard in Stockholm under a contract with private entrepreneurs in 1626–1627 and armed primarily with bronze cannons cast in Stockholm specifically for the ship. Richly decorated as a symbol of the king's ambitions for Sweden and himself, upon completion she was one of the most powerfully armed vessels in the world. However, Vasa was dangerously unstable, with too much weight in the upper structure of the hull. Despite this lack of stability, she was ordered to sea and foundered only a few minutes after encountering a wind stronger than a breeze.

The order to sail was the result of a combination of factors. The king, who was leading the army in Poland at the time of her maiden voyage, was impatient to see her take up her station as flagship of the reserve squadron at Älvsnabben in the Stockholm Archipelago. At the same time the king's subordinates lacked the political courage to openly discuss the ship's problems or to have the maiden voyage postponed. An inquiry was organized by the Swedish Privy Council to find those responsible for the disaster, but in the end no one was punished.

During the 1961 recovery, thousands of artifacts and the remains of at least 15 people were found in and around Vasa's hull by marine archaeologists. Among the many items found were clothing, weapons, cannons, tools, coins, cutlery, food, drink and six of the ten sails. The artifacts and the ship herself have provided scholars with invaluable insights into details of naval warfare, shipbuilding techniques and everyday life in early 17th-century Sweden. Today Vasa is the world's best-preserved 17th century ship, and the most visited museum in Scandinavia.^[3] The wreck of Vasa continually undergoes monitoring and further research on how to preserve her.^[4]

1. ^ "Vasa in numbers – The Vasa Museum". 17 October 2015. Archived from the original on 17 October 2015.
2. ^ 11 million at Wasavarvet 1961–88 and 18 million at the permanent museum since 1990. The total is based on statistics from the official website of the Vasa Museum: (in Swedish) "Museets besökare" Archived 14 August 2010 at the Wayback Machine, 2011; "Vasas sista färd" Archived 18 August 2010 at the Wayback Machine, 2000(?).
3. ^ "Welcome to the Vasa Museum". Archived from the original on 1 April 2020. Retrieved 23 April 2020.
4. ^ "The Quest to Find—and Save—the World's Most Famous Shipwreck". Archived from the original on 6 April 2023. Retrieved 8 June 2020.

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11 August 1934 ? The first civilian prisoners arrive at the Federal prison on Alcatraz Island.

Alcatraz Island

Island in San Francisco Bay, California, U.S.

"Alcatraz" redirects here. For the former prison on the island, see Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary. For other uses, see Alcatraz (disambiguation).

Not to be confused with Alcatrazes Islands.

Alcatraz Island (/ˈælkəˌtræz/) is a small island 1.25 miles (2.01 km) offshore from San Francisco, California, United States.^[1] The island was developed in the mid-19th century with facilities for a lighthouse, a military fortification, and a military prison. In 1934, the island was converted into a federal prison, Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary. The strong currents around the island and cold water temperatures made escape nearly impossible, and the prison became one of the most notorious in American history.^[4] The prison closed in 1963, and the island is now a major tourist attraction.

Beginning in November 1969, the island was occupied for more than 19 months by a group of Native Americans, initially primarily from San Francisco, who were later joined by AIM and other urban Indians from other parts of the country, who were part of a wave of Native American activists organizing public protests across the US through the 1970s. In 1972, Alcatraz was transferred to the Department of Interior to become part of Golden Gate National Recreation Area. It was designated as a National Historic Landmark in 1986.

Today, the island's facilities are managed by the National Park Service as part of Golden Gate National Recreation Area. Visitors can reach the island by ferry ride from Pier 33, located between the San Francisco Ferry Building and Fisherman's Wharf, San Francisco. Hornblower Cruises, operating under the name Alcatraz Cruises, is the official ferry provider to and from the island.

Alcatraz Island is the site of the abandoned federal prison, the oldest operating lighthouse on the West Coast of the United States, early military fortifications, and natural features such as rock pools and a seabird colony (mostly western gulls, cormorants, and egrets). According to a 1971 documentary on the history of Alcatraz, the island measures 1,675 feet (511 m) by 590 feet (180 m) and is 135 feet (41 m) at highest point during mean tide.^[5] The total area of the island is reported to be 22 acres (8.9 ha).^[1]

Landmarks on the island include the Main Cellhouse, Dining Hall, Lighthouse, the ruins of the Warden's House and Social Hall, Parade Grounds, Building 64, Water Tower, New Industries Building, Model Industries Building, and the Recreation Yard.

1. ^ ^{a b c} "Alcatraz Island". Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica. 2009. Retrieved August 20, 2009.
2. ^ ^{a b c} Cite error: The named reference nris was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
3. ^ Cite error: The named reference nhlsum was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
4. ^ Odier, Odier (1982). The Rock: A History of Alcatraz: The Fort/The Prison. L'Image Odier. ISBN 0-9611632-0-8.
5. ^ "This Is An Alcatraz Documentary (Part 1)". Narrated by Howard Duff. 1971. Archived from the original on October 29, 2021. Retrieved August 30, 2012.

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12 August 1851 ? Isaac Singer is granted a patent for his sewing machine.

Isaac Singer

American inventor and businessman (1811–1875)

For the Polish-American writer, see Isaac Bashevis Singer.

Isaac Merritt Singer (October 27, 1811 – July 23, 1875) was an American inventor, actor, and businessman. He made important improvements in the design of the sewing machine^[1] and was the founder of what became one of the first American multi-national businesses, the Singer Sewing Machine Company.^[2]

Many others, including Walter Hunt and Elias Howe, had patented sewing machines^[3] before Singer, but his success was based on the practicality of his machine, the ease with which it could be adapted to home use and its availability on an installments payment basis.^[4]

Singer died in 1875, dividing his $13 million fortune unequally among 20 of his living children by his wives and various mistresses, although one son, who had supported his mother in her divorce case against Singer, received only $500.^[2] Altogether, he fathered 26 children.

1. ^ "The Story of Singer Sewing Machines in Scotland". Historic Environment Scotland Blog. 12 June 2020. Retrieved 6 January 2021.
2. ^ ^{a b} Hunter, Clare (2019). Threads of life : a history of the world through the eye of a needle. London: Sceptre (Hodder & Stoughton). pp. 256–266, 269–271. ISBN 978-1473687912. OCLC 1079199690.
3. ^ Forsdyke, Graham. "History of the Sewing Machine". International Sewing Machine Collectors Society. Retrieved 30 June 2019.
4. ^ История создания корпорации "Зингер". Биография Исаака Меррита Зингера. [All About Sewing Machines – The History of Singer Corporation] (in Russian). Archived from the original on 12 June 2008.

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13 August 1961 ? East Germany closes the border between the eastern and western sectors of Berlin to thwart its inhabitants' attempts to escape to the West.

Berlin Wall

Barrier that once enclosed West Berlin

This article is about the wall that surrounded West Berlin during the Cold War. For the border that divided most of East and West Germany, see German wall. For the video game, see The Berlin Wall (video game). For the ring wall around the historic city of Berlin, see Berlin Customs Wall.

The Berlin Wall (German: Berliner Mauer, pronounced [bɛʁˌliːnɐ ˈmaʊɐ] ^ⓘ) was a guarded concrete barrier that encircled West Berlin of the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG; West Germany) from 1961 to 1989, separating it from East Berlin and the German Democratic Republic (GDR; East Germany).^[a][1][3] Construction of the Berlin Wall was commenced by the government of the GDR on 13 August 1961. It included guard towers placed along large concrete walls,^[4] accompanied by a wide area (later known as the "death strip") that contained anti-vehicle trenches, beds of nails and other defenses. The primary intention for the Wall's construction was to prevent East German citizens from fleeing to the West.^[5]

The Soviet Bloc propaganda portrayed the Wall as protecting its population from "fascist elements conspiring to prevent the will of the people" from building a communist state in the GDR. The authorities officially referred to the Berlin Wall as the Anti-Fascist Protection Rampart (German: Antifaschistischer Schutzwall, pronounced [antifaˌʃɪstɪʃɐ ˈʃʊtsval] ^ⓘ). The West Berlin city government sometimes referred to it as the "Wall of Shame", a term coined by mayor Willy Brandt in reference to the Wall's restriction on freedom of movement.^[6] Along with the separate and much longer inner German border, which demarcated the border between East and West Germany, it came to symbolize physically the Iron Curtain that separated the Western Bloc and Soviet satellite states of the Eastern Bloc during the Cold War.^[7]

Before the Wall's erection, 3.5 million East Germans circumvented Eastern Bloc emigration restrictions and defected from the GDR, many by crossing over the border from East Berlin into West Berlin; from there they could then travel to West Germany and to other Western European countries. Between 1961 and 1989, the Wall prevented almost all such emigration.^[8] During this period, over 100,000^[9] people attempted to escape, and over 5,000 people succeeded in escaping over the Wall, with an estimated death toll of those murdered by East German authorities ranging from 136^[10] to more than 200^[7][11] in and around Berlin.

In 1989, a series of revolutions in nearby Eastern Bloc countries—in Poland and Hungary in particular—caused a chain reaction in East Germany.^[12] In particular, the Pan-European Picnic in August 1989 set in motion a peaceful development during which the Iron Curtain largely broke, the rulers in the East came under pressure to cease their repressive policies, the Berlin Wall fell and finally the Eastern Bloc collapsed.^[13][14][15] After several weeks of civil unrest, the East German government announced on 9 November 1989 that all GDR citizens could visit the FRG and West Berlin. Crowds of East Germans crossed and climbed onto the Wall, joined by West Germans on the other side in a celebratory atmosphere. Over the next few weeks, souvenir hunters chipped away parts of the Wall.^[7] The Brandenburg Gate, a few meters from the Berlin Wall, was opened on 22 December 1989. The demolition of the Wall officially began on 13 June 1990 and was completed in 1994.^[1] The fall of the Berlin Wall paved the way for German reunification, which formally took place on 3 October 1990.^[7]

1. ^ ^{a b c} "Untangling 5 myths about the Berlin Wall". Chicago Tribune. 31 October 2014. Archived from the original on 20 April 2019. Retrieved 1 November 2014.
2. ^ Piotrowicz, Ryszard W.; Blay, Sam (1997). The unification of Germany in international and domestic law. Rodopi. p. 42. ISBN 90-5183-755-0. OCLC 36437948.
3. ^ Video: Berlin, 1961/08/31 (1961). Universal Newsreel. 1961. Retrieved 20 February 2012.
4. ^ Marck, Jack (October 2006). "Over the Wall: A Once-in-a-Lifetime Experience". American Heritage. Archived from the original on 29 August 2008.
5. ^ "Berlin Wall". Encyclopaedia Britannica. 23 January 2024.
6. ^ "Berlin Wall: Five things you might not know". The Telegraph. 12 August 2011. Archived from the original on 10 January 2022. Retrieved 22 May 2017.
7. ^ ^{a b c d} "Berlin Wall Fast Facts". CNN. 16 September 2013. Archived from the original on 13 November 2019. Retrieved 9 April 2019.
8. ^ "Freedom!". Time. 20 November 1989. Archived from the original on 21 November 2007. Retrieved 9 November 2009.
9. ^ "Victims of the Wall". www.berlin.de. 19 August 2020. Archived from the original on 9 December 2021. Retrieved 9 December 2021.
10. ^ Cite error: The named reference Chronik was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
11. ^ Cite error: The named reference contemporary research was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
12. ^ Mary Elise Sarotte, Collapse: The Accidental Opening of the Berlin Wall, New York: Basic Books, 2014
13. ^ Hilde Szabo: Die Berliner Mauer begann im Burgenland zu bröckeln (The Berlin Wall began to crumble in Burgenland - German), in Wiener Zeitung 16 August 1999; Otmar Lahodynsky: Paneuropäisches Picknick: Die Generalprobe für den Mauerfall (Pan-European picnic: the dress rehearsal for the fall of the Berlin Wall - German), in: Profil 9 August 2014.
14. ^ Thomas Roser: DDR-Massenflucht: Ein Picknick hebt die Welt aus den Angeln (German - Mass exodus of the GDR: A picnic clears the world) in: Die Presse 16 August 2018.
15. ^ Der 19. August 1989 war ein Test für Gorbatschows" (German - August 19, 1989 was a test for Gorbachev), in: FAZ 19 August 2009.

Cite error: There are <ref group=lower-alpha> tags or {{efn}} templates on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=lower-alpha}} template or {{notelist}} template (see the help page).

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14 August 1969 ? Operation Banner: British troops are deployed in Northern Ireland.

Operation Banner

1969–2007 British military operation in Northern Ireland during the Troubles

Operation Banner was the operational name for the British Armed Forces' operation in Northern Ireland from 1969 to 2007, as part of the Troubles. It was the longest continuous deployment in British military history.^[7][8] The British Army was initially deployed, at the request of the unionist government of Northern Ireland, in response to the August 1969 riots. Its role was to support the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) and to assert the authority of the British government in Northern Ireland. This involved counter-insurgency and supporting the police in carrying out internal security duties such as guarding key points, mounting checkpoints and patrols, carrying out raids and searches, riot control and bomb disposal. More than 300,000 soldiers served in Operation Banner.^[9] At the peak of the operation in the 1970s, about 21,000 British troops were deployed, most of them from Great Britain. As part of the operation, a new locally-recruited regiment was also formed: the Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR).

The Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) waged a guerrilla campaign against the British military from 1970 to 1997. Catholics welcomed the troops when they first arrived, because they saw the RUC as sectarian,^[10] but Catholic hostility to the British military's deployment grew after incidents such as the Falls Curfew (1970), Operation Demetrius (1971) and Bloody Sunday (1972). In their efforts to defeat the IRA, there were incidents of collusion between British soldiers and Ulster loyalist paramilitaries. From the late 1970s the British government adopted a policy of "Ulsterisation", which meant giving a greater role to local forces: the UDR and RUC. After the Good Friday Agreement in 1998, the operation was gradually scaled down, most military facilities were removed and the vast majority of British troops were withdrawn.

According to the Ministry of Defence, 1,441 serving British military personnel died in Operation Banner;^[11] 722 of whom were killed in paramilitary attacks,^[11] and 719 of whom died as a result of other causes.^[11] It suffered its greatest loss of life in the Warrenpoint ambush of 1979.

1. ^ Taylor, Peter, Behind the mask: The IRA and Sinn Féin, Chapter 21: Stalemate, pp. 246–261.
2. ^ "Army paper says IRA not defeated". BBC News. 6 July 2007. Retrieved 21 March 2008.
3. ^ "The Troubles left a legacy like no other army deployment". Sky News. 14 March 2019. Retrieved 1 June 2019.
4. ^ "House of Commons Debate". Hansard. 13 February 1992. Retrieved 1 June 2019.
5. ^ Operation Banner Deaths; retrieved 26 May 2014.
6. ^ ^{a b} Cite error: The named reference suttonindex was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
7. ^ Sanders, Andrew. Times of Trouble: Britain's War in Northern Ireland. Edinburgh University Press, 2012. p.109
8. ^ "The Troubles: How 1969 violence led to Army's longest campaign". BBC News, 14 August 2019.
9. ^ Armed Forces mark 50 years since the start of operations in Northern Ireland. Ministry of Defence, 14 August 2019.
10. ^ "1969: British troops sent into Northern Ireland". On This Day. BBC News. 14 August 1969. Retrieved 12 January 2018.
11. ^ ^{a b c} "UK Armed Forces Operational deaths post World War II" (PDF). Ministry of Defence. 26 March 2015. Retrieved 10 March 2019.

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18 August 1783 ? A huge fireball meteor is seen across Great Britain as it passes over the east coast

1783 Great Meteor

Bolide observed on 18 August 1783

The 1783 Great Meteor was a meteor procession observed on 18 August 1783 from the British Isles, at a time when such phenomena were not well understood. The meteor was the subject of much discussion in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society and was the subject of a detailed study by Charles Blagden.

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19 August 1934 ? The first All-American Soap Box Derby is held in Dayton, Ohio.

Soap Box Derby

Youth racing competition

The Soap Box Derby is a youth-oriented soap box car racing program which has been running in the United States since 1934. Proclaimed "the greatest amateur racing event in the world", the program culminates each July at the FirstEnergy All-American Soap Box Derby World Championship held at Derby Downs in Akron, Ohio, with winners from their local communities travelling from across the US, Canada, Germany and Japan to compete. 2024 will mark the 86th running of the All-American since its inception in 1934 in Dayton, Ohio, having missed four years (1942–1945) during World War II and one (2020) during the COVID pandemic. Cars competing in the program race downhill, propelled by gravity alone.

The Soap Box Derby expanded quickly across the US from the very beginning, bolstered largely by a generous financial campaign by its national sponsor, Chevrolet Motor Company. At the same time there was enthusiastic support from coast to coast of numerous local newspapers that published aggressively during the summer months when races were held, with stories boasting of their own community races and of their Champion travelling to Akron with dreams of capturing a National title and hometown glory. In 1936 the All-American had its own purpose-built track constructed at what is now Derby Downs, with some communities across America following suit with tracks of their own.

Its greatest years occurred during the fifties and sixties when viewer turnout at the All-American reached 100,000 spectators, and racer participation was at an all-time high. From the very beginning, technical and car-design innovation happened rapidly, so Derby officials drafted ways of governing the sport so that it did not become too hazardous as speed records were being challenged. At Derby Downs the track length was shortened twice to slow the cars down.

The seventies brought significant changes, beginning with the introduction of girls to the sport in 1971. The following year Chevrolet dropped its sponsorship, sending Derby Downs into a tailspin that threatened its very future. Racer enrollment plummeted the following year. In 1973 a scandal hit Derby Downs with the discovery that their World Champion had cheated, and was thus disqualified, further exacerbating an uncertain future. In 1975 Karren Stead won the World Championship, the first of many girls that would go on to claim the title. Finally there was Derby's decision to divide the competition with the introduction of the Junior Division kit cars in 1976.

As fiscal challenges continued, the Derby instituted new guidelines by redrafting the Official race divisions into three: Stock, Super Stock and Masters. With them came the prefabricated fiber glass kit racers which kids could now purchase, this to appeal to a new generation of racers uncomfortable with constructing their own cars from scratch, as well as to help Derby effectively meet its financial obligations. Leading into the 21st century the Soap Box Derby has continued to expand with the inclusion of the Rally Program racers at the All-American in 1993, the creation of the Ultimate Speed Challenge in 2004 and the Legacy Division in 2019.

1. ^ ^{a b c d e f g h i} "Staff". "Soap Box Derby".
2. ^ ^{a b c} "Board of Directors". "Soap Box Derby".
3. ^ "ISBD 2022 Annual Report". "HeyZine Flipbooks".

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20 August 1882 ? Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture debuts in Moscow, Russia.

1812 Overture

1880 concert overture by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

"The Year 1812" redirects here. For the leap year, see 1812.

The Year 1812, Solemn Overture, Op. 49, popularly known as the 1812 Overture,^[1] is a concert overture in E♭ major written in 1880 by Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. The piece commemorates Russia's successful defense against the French invasion of the country by Napoleon in 1812.

The overture debuted in Moscow on 20 August [O.S. 8 August] 1882,^[2] conducted by Ippolit Al'tani under a tent near the then-almost-finished Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, which also memorialised the 1812 defense of Russia.^[3]

The fifteen-minute overture is best known for its climactic volley of cannon fire, ringing chimes, and a brass fanfare finale. It has also become a common accompaniment to fireworks displays on the United States' Independence Day.^[4] The 1812 Overture went on to become one of Tchaikovsky's most popular works, along with his ballet scores to The Nutcracker, The Sleeping Beauty, and Swan Lake.^[5]

1. ^ "Tchaikovsky Research: The Year 1812, Op. 49 (TH 49)". Retrieved 21 June 2015.
2. ^ Lax, Roger; Smith, Frederick (1989). The Great Song Thesaurus. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 230. ISBN 978-0-19-505408-8.
3. ^ Felsenfeld, Daniel. Tchaikovsky: A Listener's Guide, p. 54. Amadeus Press, 2006.
4. ^ Hernández, Javier C. (3 July 2022). "Amid Ukraine War, Orchestras Rethink '1812 Overture,' a July 4 Rite – Some ensembles have decided not to perform Tchaikovsky's overture, written as commemoration of Russia's defeat of Napoleon's army". The New York Times. Retrieved 4 July 2022.
5. ^ Robinson, Harlow (2012). Rzhevsky, Nicholas (ed.). The Cambridge Companion to Modern Russian Culture. Cambridge University Press. p. 268. ISBN 978-1-107-00252-4.

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23 August 1973 ? A bank robbery gone wrong in Stockholm, Sweden, turns into a hostage crisis; over the next five days the hostages begin to sympathise with their captors, leading to the term "Stockholm syndrome".

Stockholm syndrome

Proposed psychological condition

For other uses, see Stockholm Syndrome (disambiguation).

Stockholm syndrome is a proposed condition or theory that tries to explain why hostages sometimes develop a psychological bond with their captors.^[1][2] It is supposed to result from a rather specific set of circumstances, namely the power imbalances contained in hostage-taking, kidnapping, and abusive relationships. Therefore, it is difficult to find a large number of people who experience Stockholm syndrome to conduct studies with any sort of validity or useful sample size. This makes it hard to determine trends in the development and effects of the condition,^[3] and in fact it is a "contested illness" due to doubts about the legitimacy of the condition.^[4]

Emotional bonds can possibly form between captors and captives, during intimate time together, but these are considered irrational by some in light of the danger or risk endured by the victims. Stockholm syndrome has never been included in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), the standard tool for diagnosis of psychiatric illnesses and disorders in the United States, mainly due to the lack of a consistent body of academic research.^[4] The syndrome is rare: according to data from the FBI, about 8% of hostage victims show evidence of Stockholm syndrome.^[5]

Stockholm syndrome is paradoxical because the sympathetic sentiments that captives feel towards their captors are the opposite of the fear and disdain which an onlooker might feel towards the captors.

There are four key components that characterize Stockholm syndrome:

• A hostage's development of positive feelings towards the captor
• No previous relationship between hostage and captor
• A refusal by hostages to cooperate with police and other government authorities
• A hostage's belief in the humanity of the captor, ceasing to perceive them as a threat, when the victim holds the same values as the aggressor.^[6]

1. ^ King, David (2020). Six Days in August: The Story of Stockholm Syndrome. W.W. Norton. ISBN 978-0-393-63508-9.
2. ^ Jameson C (2010). "The Short Step From Love to Hypnosis: A Reconsideration of the Stockholm Syndrome". Journal for Cultural Research. 14 (4): 337–355. doi:10.1080/14797581003765309. S2CID 144260301.
3. ^ Demarest, Rebecca A. (2009). "The Relationship Between Stockholm Syndrome and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder in Battered Women". Inquiries Journal. 1 (11).
4. ^ ^{a b} Adorjan, Michael; Christensen, Tony; Kelly, Benjamin; Pawluch, Dorothy (2012). "Stockholm Syndrome as Vernacular Resource". The Sociological Quarterly. 53 (3): 454–474. doi:10.1111/j.1533-8525.2012.01241.x. JSTOR 41679728. S2CID 141676449.
5. ^ Fuselier, G. Dwayne (July 1999). "Placing the Stockholm Syndrome in Perspective" (PDF). FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin. 68 (7): 22–25. S2CID 10256916. Archived from the original (PDF) on 27 June 2004.
6. ^ Sundaram CS (2013). "Stockholm Syndrome". Salem Press Encyclopedia – via Research Starters.

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24 August 1857 ? The Panic of 1857 begins, setting off one of the most severe economic crises in United States history.

Panic of 1857

American economic crisis

The Panic of 1857 was a financial crisis in the United States caused by the declining international economy and over-expansion of the domestic economy. Because of the invention of the telegraph by Samuel F. Morse in 1844, the Panic of 1857 was the first financial crisis to spread rapidly throughout the United States.^[1] The world economy was more interconnected by the 1850s, which made the Panic of 1857 the first worldwide economic crisis.^[2] In Britain, the Palmerston government circumvented the requirements of the Bank Charter Act 1844, which required gold and silver reserves to back up the amount of money in circulation. Surfacing news of this circumvention set off the Panic in Britain.^[3]

Beginning in September 1857, the financial downturn did not last long, but a proper recovery was not seen until the onset of the American Civil War in 1861.^[4] The sinking of SS Central America in September 1857 contributed to the panic, since New York City banks were waiting on a much-needed shipment of gold that was being transported by the ship. After the failure of Ohio Life Insurance and Trust Company, the financial panic quickly spread with businesses beginning to fail, the railroad industry experiencing financial declines, and hundreds of thousands of workers being laid off.^[5]

Because the years immediately preceding the Panic of 1857 were prosperous, many banks, merchants, and farmers had seized the opportunity to take risks with their investments, and, as soon as market prices began to fall, they quickly began to experience the effects of financial panic.^[4] American banks did not recover until after the Civil War.^[6]

1. ^ Fulfer, Johnny (January 6, 2022). "Panic of 1857: A Story of Speculative Finance". The Economic Historian. Retrieved August 9, 2022.
2. ^ See the "Preface" contained in the Collected Works of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels Volume 28 (International Publishers: New York, 1986) p. XIII.
3. ^ See note 238 contained in the Collected Works of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels Volume 12 (International Publishers: New York, 1979) p. 669-670.
4. ^ ^{a b} Glasner, David (1997). Business Cycles and Depressions: An Encyclopedia. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Library of Congress. pp. 128–132. ISBN 978-0-8240-0944-1.
5. ^ "A House Divided". Dickinson College. Retrieved March 4, 2011.
6. ^ Burlingame, Liz (August 23, 2013). "Sunken Treasures: The World's Most Valuable Shipwreck Discoveries". The Weather Channel. Archived from the original on October 6, 2014.

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25 August 1835 ? The New York Sun perpetrates the Great Moon Hoax.

Great Moon Hoax

Fake series in the New York newspaper The Sun in 1835

Not to be confused with Moon landing conspiracy theories.

The "Great Moon Hoax", also known as the "Great Moon Hoax of 1835" was a series of six articles published in The Sun (a New York newspaper), beginning on August 25, 1835, about the supposed discovery of life and civilization on the Moon. The discoveries were falsely attributed to Sir John Herschel and his fictitious companion Andrew Grant.^[1]

The story was advertised on August 21, 1835, as an upcoming feature allegedly reprinted from The Edinburgh Courant.^[2] The first in a series of six was published four days later on August 25. These articles were never retracted, however on September 16, 1835, The Sun admitted the articles were in fact fabricated.^[3]

1. ^ Vida, István Kornél (2012). "The "Great Moon Hoax" of 1835". Hungarian Journal of English and American Studies. 18 (1/2): 431–441. JSTOR 43488485.
2. ^ Maliszewski, Paul. "Paper Moon", Wilson Quarterly. Winter 2005. p. 26.
3. ^ ""The Great Moon Hoax" is published in the "New York Sun" | August 25, 1835". HISTORY. Retrieved 2023-11-29.

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26 August 1978 ? Papal conclave: Albino Luciani is elected as Pope John Paul I.

Pope John Paul I

Head of the Catholic Church in 1978

"John Paul I" redirects here. Not to be confused with John Paul.

Pope John Paul I (Latin: Ioannes Paulus I; Italian: Giovanni Paolo I; born Albino Luciani [alˈbiːno luˈtʃaːni]; 17 October 1912 – 28 September 1978) was head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City from 26 August 1978 until his death 33 days later. His reign is among the shortest in papal history, resulting in the most recent year of three popes and the first to occur since 1605. John Paul I remains the most recent Italian-born pope, the last in a succession of such popes that started with Clement VII in 1523.

Before the August 1978 papal conclave that elected him, he expressed his desire not to be elected, telling those close to him that he would decline the papacy if elected; upon the cardinals' electing him, he felt an obligation to say yes.^[4] He was the first pontiff to have a double name, choosing "John Paul" in honour of his two immediate predecessors, John XXIII and Paul VI. He explained that he was indebted to John XXIII and to Paul VI for naming him a bishop and a cardinal, respectively. Furthermore, he was the first pope to add the regnal number "I", designating himself "the First".

His two immediate successors, John Paul II and Benedict XVI, later recalled the warm qualities of the late pontiff in several addresses. In Italy, he is remembered with the appellatives of Il Papa del Sorriso (transl. The Smiling Pope)^[5] and Il Sorriso di Dio (transl. The Smile of God).^[6] Time magazine and other publications referred to him as "The September Pope".^[7] He is also known in Italy as "Papa Luciani". In his hometown of Canale d'Agordo a museum built and named in his honour is dedicated to his life and brief papacy.

He was declared a servant of God by his successor, John Paul II, on 23 November 2003, the first step on the road to sainthood. Pope Francis confirmed his heroic virtue on 8 November 2017 and named him as Venerable. Pope Francis presided over the beatification on 4 September 2022.^[8][9]

1. ^ "33-Tage-Papst Johannes Paul I. Seliggesprochen".
2. ^ "Pope Francis beatifies John Paul I, pope for 33 days".
3. ^ "The prayer for Pope Luciani". Corriere delle Alpi. 29 September 2015. Retrieved 30 September 2015.
4. ^ Allen, John (2 November 2012). "Debunking four myths about John Paul I, the 'Smiling Pope'". National Catholic Reporter. Retrieved 28 December 2013.
5. ^ Seabeck, Raymond; Seabeck, Lauretta (2004). The Smiling Pope, The Life & Teaching of John Paul I. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)
6. ^ Papa Luciani: Il sorriso di Dio (Pope Luciani: The Smile of God). Radiotelevisione Italia. 2006. Archived from the original on 24 October 2012. Retrieved 21 July 2018. documentary.
7. ^ "The September Pope". Time. 9 October 1978. Archived from the original on 23 November 2008. Retrieved 3 April 2010.
8. ^ "33-day 'Smiling Pope' John Paul I beatified at the Vatican". BBC News. 4 September 2022.
9. ^ "Pope beatifies John Paul I: May he obtain for us the 'smile of the soul'". Vatican News. 4 September 2022.

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27 August 2011 ? Hurricane Irene strikes the United States east coast, killing 47 and causing an estimated $15.6 billion in damage.

Hurricane Irene

Category 3 Atlantic hurricane in 2011

This article is about the tropical cyclone in 2011. For other storms of the same name, see List of storms named Irene.

Hurricane Irene was a large and destructive tropical cyclone which affected much of the Caribbean and East Coast of the United States during late August 2011. The ninth named storm, first hurricane, and first major hurricane of the 2011 Atlantic hurricane season, Irene originated from a well-defined Atlantic tropical wave that began showing signs of organization east of the Lesser Antilles. Due to development of atmospheric convection and a closed center of circulation, the system was designated as Tropical Storm Irene on August 20, 2011. After intensifying, Irene made landfall in St. Croix as a strong tropical storm later that day. Early on August 21, the storm made a second landfall in Puerto Rico. While crossing the island, Irene strengthened into a Category 1 hurricane. The storm paralleled offshore of Hispaniola, continuing to slowly intensify in the process. Shortly before making four landfalls in the Bahamas, Irene peaked as a 120 mph (190 km/h) Category 3 hurricane.

Thereafter, the storm slowly leveled off in intensity as it struck the Bahamas and then curved northward after passing east of Grand Bahama. Continuing to weaken, Irene was downgraded to a Category 1 hurricane before making landfall on the Outer Banks of North Carolina on August 27, becoming the first hurricane to make landfall in the United States since Hurricane Ike in 2008. Later that day, the storm re-emerged into the Atlantic from southeastern Virginia. Although Irene remained a hurricane over water, it weakened to a tropical storm while making yet another landfall in the Little Egg Inlet in southeastern New Jersey on August 27. A few hours later, Irene made its ninth and final landfall in Brooklyn, New York City. Early on August 29, Irene transitioned into an extratropical cyclone while striking Vermont, after remaining inland as a tropical cyclone for less than 12 hours.

Throughout its path, Irene caused widespread destruction and at least 49 deaths. Damage estimates throughout the United States are estimated near $13.5 billion, making Irene one of the costliest hurricanes on record in the country. In addition, monetary losses in the Caribbean and Canada were $830 million and $130 million respectively for a total of nearly $14.2 billion in damage.^[1][2]

1. ^ Fieser, Erza (August 25, 2011). "Hurricane Irene barrels toward US as Caribbean islands take stock of damage". The Christian Science Monitor. Archived from the original on August 26, 2011. Retrieved September 20, 2011.
2. ^ Telling the Weather Story (PDF) (Report). Insurance Bureau of Canada. June 4, 2012. Archived (PDF) from the original on June 9, 2015. Retrieved July 19, 2015.

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28 August 1996 ? Charles, Prince of Wales and Diana, Princess of Wales divorce.

Diana, Princess of Wales

Member of the British royal family (1961–1997)

Several terms redirect here. For other uses, see Diana Spencer (disambiguation), Lady Di (disambiguation), People's Princess (disambiguation), and Princess Diana (disambiguation).

Diana, Princess of Wales (born Diana Frances Spencer; 1 July 1961 – 31 August 1997) was a member of the British royal family. She was the first wife of Charles III (then Prince of Wales) and mother of Princes William and Harry. Her activism and glamour made her an international icon, and earned her enduring popularity.

Diana was born into British nobility, and grew up close to the royal family on their Sandringham estate. In 1981, while working as a nursery teacher's assistant, she became engaged to Charles, the eldest son of Elizabeth II. Their wedding took place at St Paul's Cathedral in July 1981 and made her Princess of Wales, a role in which she was enthusiastically received by the public. The couple had two sons, William and Harry, who were then respectively second and third in the line of succession to the British throne. Diana's marriage to Charles suffered due to their incompatibility and extramarital affairs. They separated in 1992, soon after the breakdown of their relationship became public knowledge. Their marital difficulties were widely publicised, and the couple divorced in 1996.

As Princess of Wales, Diana undertook royal duties on behalf of the Queen and represented her at functions across the Commonwealth realms. She was celebrated in the media for her unconventional approach to charity work. Her patronages were initially centred on children and the elderly, but she later became known for her involvement in two particular campaigns: one involved the social attitudes towards and the acceptance of AIDS patients, and the other for the removal of landmines, promoted through the International Red Cross. She also raised awareness and advocated for ways to help people affected by cancer and mental illness. Diana was initially noted for her shyness, but her charisma and friendliness endeared her to the public and helped her reputation survive the public collapse of her marriage. Considered photogenic, she is regarded as a fashion icon of the 1980s and 1990s.

In August 1997, Diana died in a car crash in Paris; the incident led to extensive public mourning and global media attention. An inquest returned a verdict of unlawful killing following Operation Paget, an investigation by the Metropolitan Police. Her legacy has had a significant effect on the royal family and British society.^[1]

1. ^ "Diana's Legacy: A Reshaped Monarchy, a More Emotional U.K." The New York Times. 30 August 2017. Archived from the original on 31 August 2017.

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29 August 1898 ? The Goodyear tire company is founded.

Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company

American multinational tire manufacturer

The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company is an American multinational tire manufacturer headquartered in Akron, Ohio. Goodyear manufactures tires for passenger vehicles, aviation, commercial trucks, military and police vehicles, motorcycles, RVs, race cars, and heavy off-road machinery. It also licenses the Goodyear brand to bicycle tires manufacturers, returning from a break in production between 1976 and 2015.^[3] As of 2017, Goodyear is one of the top four tire manufacturers along with Bridgestone (Japan), Michelin (France), and Continental (Germany).^[4]

Founded in 1898 by Frank Seiberling, the company was named after American Charles Goodyear (1800–1860), inventor of vulcanized rubber. The first Goodyear tires became popular because they were easily detachable and required little maintenance.^[5] Though Goodyear had been manufacturing airships and balloons since the early 1900s, the first Goodyear advertising blimp flew in 1925. Today, it is one of the most recognizable advertising icons in America.^[6]

The company is the sole tire supplier for NASCAR series and the most successful tire supplier in Formula One history, with more starts, wins, and constructors' championships than any other tire supplier.^[7] They pulled out of the sport after the 1998 season. Goodyear was the first global tire manufacturer to enter China when it invested in a tire manufacturing plant in Dalian in 1994. Goodyear was a component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average between 1930 and 1999.^[8] The company opened a new global headquarters building in Akron in 2013.

1. ^ "Our Company".
2. ^ "The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company 2017 Annual Report (Form 10-K)". sec.gov. U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. February 2018.
3. ^ "Goodyear Returns to Bicycle Tires". Bloomberg.com. March 2, 2015. Retrieved January 19, 2018 – via www.bloomberg.com.
4. ^ "Leading tyre manufacturers". Tyrepress. September 26, 2013. Retrieved March 13, 2018.
5. ^ O'Reilly, Maurice (1983). The Goodyear Story. Benjamin Company. pp. 13–21. ISBN 978-0-87502-116-4.
6. ^ Terdiman, Daniel. "Goodyear bids goodbye to blimps, says hello to zeppelins". CNET. Retrieved December 30, 2014.
7. ^ "FormulaSPEED2.0". Archived from the original on March 27, 2012. Retrieved December 29, 2011.
8. ^ "History of DJIA". globalfinancialdata.com. Archived from the original on September 26, 2007.

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30 August 1835 ? Melbourne is founded.

Melbourne

Capital city of Victoria, Australia

This article is about the Australian metropolitan area. For other uses, see Melbourne (disambiguation).

Melbourne (/ˈmɛlbərn/ ^ⓘ MEL-bərn;^{[note 1]} locally [ˈmælbən], Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: Narrm or Naarm^[9][10]) is the capital of the state of Victoria and the second-most populous city in Australia (behind Sydney), although the most populous by contiguous urban area.^[11] Its name generally refers to a 9,993 km² (3,858 sq mi) metropolitan area also known as Greater Melbourne,^[12] comprising an urban agglomeration of 31 local municipalities,^[13] although the name is also used specifically for the local municipality of City of Melbourne based around its central business area.

The metropolis occupies much of the northern and eastern coastlines of Port Phillip Bay and spreads into the Mornington Peninsula, part of West Gippsland, as well as the hinterlands towards the Yarra Valley, the Dandenong Ranges, and the Macedon Ranges. Melbourne has a population over 5 million (19% of the population of Australia, as of the 2021 census), mostly residing to the east of the city centre, and its inhabitants are commonly referred to as "Melburnians".^{[note 2]}

The area of Melbourne has been home to Aboriginal Victorians for over 40,000 years and serves as an important meeting place for local Kulin nation clans.^[16][17] Of the five peoples of the Kulin nation, the traditional custodians of the land encompassing Melbourne are the Boonwurrung, Wathaurong and the Wurundjeri peoples. A short-lived penal settlement was built in 1803 at Port Phillip, then part of the British colony of New South Wales. However, it was not until 1835, with the arrival of free settlers from Van Diemen's Land (modern-day Tasmania), that Melbourne was founded.^[16] It was incorporated as a Crown settlement in 1837, and named after William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne,^[16] who was then Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. In 1851, four years after Queen Victoria declared it a city, Melbourne became the capital of the new colony of Victoria.^[18] During the 1850s Victorian gold rush, the city entered a lengthy boom period that, by the late 1880s, had transformed it into one of the world's largest and wealthiest metropolises.^[19][20] After the federation of Australia in 1901, Melbourne served as the interim seat of government of the new nation until Canberra became the permanent capital in 1927.^[21] Today, it is a leading financial centre in the Asia-Pacific region and ranked 32nd globally in the March 2022 Global Financial Centres Index.^[22]

Melbourne is home of many of Australia's best-known landmarks, such as the Melbourne Cricket Ground, the National Gallery of Victoria and the World Heritage-listed Royal Exhibition Building. Noted for its cultural heritage, the city gave rise to Australian rules football, Australian impressionism and Australian cinema, and has more recently been recognised as a UNESCO City of Literature and a global centre for street art, live music and theatre. It hosts major annual international events, such as the Australian Grand Prix and the Australian Open, and also hosted the 1956 Summer Olympics. Melbourne consistently ranked as the world's most liveable city for much of the 2010s.^[23]

Melbourne Airport, also known as the Tullamarine Airport, is the second-busiest airport in Australia, and the Port of Melbourne is the nation's busiest seaport.^[24] Its main metropolitan rail terminus is Flinders Street station and its main regional rail and road coach terminus is Southern Cross station. It also has Australia's most extensive freeway network and the largest urban tram network in the world.^[25]

1. ^ "Greater Melbourne". Australian Bureau of Statistics. Retrieved 28 March 2024.
2. ^ "2016 Census of Population and Housing: General Community Profile". Australian Bureau of Statistics. 2017. Archived from the original on 17 August 2021. Retrieved 28 September 2021.
3. ^ "Great Circle Distance between MELBOURNE and CANBERRA". Geoscience Australia. March 2004. Archived from the original on 4 June 2022. Retrieved 19 December 2016.
4. ^ "Great Circle Distance between MELBOURNE and ADELAIDE". Geoscience Australia. March 2004. Archived from the original on 4 June 2022. Retrieved 19 December 2016.
5. ^ "Great Circle Distance between MELBOURNE and SYDNEY". Geoscience Australia. March 2004.
6. ^ "Great Circle Distance between MELBOURNE and BRISBANE". Geoscience Australia. March 2004. Archived from the original on 20 December 2016. Retrieved 19 December 2016.
7. ^ "Great Circle Distance between MELBOURNE and PERTH". Geoscience Australia. March 2004. Archived from the original on 20 December 2016. Retrieved 19 December 2016.
8. ^ Wells, John C. (2008), Longman Pronunciation Dictionary (3rd ed.), Longman, ISBN 9781405881180; Butler, S., ed. (2013). "Melbourne". Macquarie Dictionary (6th ed.). Sydney: Macmillan Publishers. ISBN 978-18-7642-966-9.
9. ^ Clark, Ian D. (2002). Dictionary of Aboriginal placenames of Melbourne and Central Victoria. Melbourne: Victorian Aboriginal Corp. for Languages. p. 62. ISBN 0957936052.
10. ^ Nicholson, Mandy; Jones, David (2020). "Wurundjeri-al Narrm-u (Wurundjeri's Melbourne): Aboriginal living heritage in Australia's urban landscapes". The Routledge Handbook on Historic Urban Landscapes in the Asia-Pacific. Routledge. doi:10.4324/9780429486470-30. ISBN 978-0-429-48647-0. S2CID 213567108. Archived from the original on 4 June 2022. Retrieved 23 April 2022.
11. ^ "Regional population". Australian Bureau of Statistics. 20 April 2023. Archived from the original on 30 March 2021. Retrieved 23 April 2023.
12. ^ "2016 Census of Population and Housing". Archived from the original on 2 April 2020. Retrieved 1 December 2019.
13. ^ "Victorian Local Government Directory" (PDF). Department of Planning and Community Development, Government of Victoria. p. 11. Archived from the original (PDF) on 15 September 2009. Retrieved 11 September 2009.
14. ^ Oxford English Dictionary Additions Series, iii, s.v. "Melburnian Archived 26 January 2020 at the Wayback Machine".
15. ^ Macquarie Dictionary, Fourth Edition (2005). Or less commonly Melbournites. Melbourne, The Macquarie Library Pty Ltd. ISBN 1-876429-14-3.
16. ^ ^{a b c} "History of the City of Melbourne" (PDF). City of Melbourne. November 1997. pp. 8–10. Archived (PDF) from the original on 8 May 2016. Retrieved 28 January 2018.
17. ^ Cite error: The named reference merrimerri was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
18. ^ Cite error: The named reference MilesLewis25 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
19. ^ Cite error: The named reference RobertCervero320 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
20. ^ Davidson, Jim (2 August 2014). "Rise and fall of British empire viewed through its cities". The Australian. Archived from the original on 14 January 2018. Retrieved 7 September 2018.
21. ^ "Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act" (PDF). Department of the Attorney-General, Government of Australia. p. 45 (Section 125). Archived from the original (PDF) on 1 June 2010. Retrieved 11 September 2009.
22. ^ "The Global Financial Centres Index 31" (PDF). Long Finance. March 2022. Archived (PDF) from the original on 17 June 2022. Retrieved 23 August 2022.
23. ^ Stephanie Chalkley-Rhoden (16 August 2017). "World's most liveable city: Melbourne takes top spot for seventh year running". Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Archived from the original on 16 August 2017. Retrieved 17 August 2017.
24. ^ "Government outlines vision for Port of Melbourne Freight Hub" (Press release). 2006. Archived from the original on 8 July 2012. Retrieved 26 July 2007.
25. ^ "Investing in Transport Chapter 3 – East/West, Section 3.1.2 – Tram Network" (PDF). Department of Transport, Government of Victoria. Archived (PDF) from the original on 3 July 2020. Retrieved 21 November 2009.

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31 August 1998 ? North Korea reportedly launches Kwangmyŏngsŏng-1, its first satellite.

Kwangmyŏngsŏng-1

North Korean satellite

Kwangmyŏngsŏng-1 or Gwangmyeongseong-1 (Korean: 광명성 1호, Hanja: 光明星 1號, meaning Bright Star 1) was a satellite allegedly launched by North Korea on 31 August 1998. While the North Korean government claimed that the launch was successful, no objects were ever tracked in orbit from the launch,^{[1][self-published source]} and outside North Korea it is considered to have been a failure.^[2][3] It was the first satellite to be launched as part of the Kwangmyŏngsŏng program, and the first satellite that North Korea attempted to launch.

It was launched from Musudan-ri using a Paektusan rocket, at 03:07 GMT on 31 August 1998, a few days before the 50th anniversary of North Korea's independence from Japan. On 4 September, the Korean Central News Agency announced that the satellite had successfully been placed into low Earth orbit.

The China National Space Administration was involved in the development of Kwangmyŏngsŏng-1, which had a 72-faced polyhedral shape, similar to Dong Fang Hong I, the first Chinese satellite.^{[4][self-published source]} The mass of the satellite is unclear, with estimates ranging from 6 kilograms (13 lb) to 170 kilograms (370 lb).

1. ^ Wade, Mark. "Kwangmyongsong 1". Encyclopedia Astronautica. Archived from the original on 25 August 2002. Retrieved 6 April 2009.^{[self-published source]}
2. ^ "U.S. Calls North Korean Rocket a Failed Satellite". The New York Times. 15 September 1998. Retrieved 5 April 2009.
3. ^ "North Korea's space launch programme and long-range missile projects". Reuters. Retrieved 31 July 2023.
4. ^ Wade, Mark. "Kwangmyongsong". Encyclopedia Astronautica. Archived from the original on 31 March 2009. Retrieved 6 April 2009.^{[self-published source]}

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1 September 1939 ? Adolf Hitler signs an order to begin the systematic euthanasia of mentally ill and disabled people.

Action T4

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• Aktion T4

• From a page move: This is a redirect from a page that has been moved (renamed). This page was kept as a redirect to avoid breaking links, both internal and external, that may have been made to the old page name.

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2 September 1666 ? The Great Fire of London breaks out and burns for three days, destroying 10,000 buildings including St Paul's Cathedral.

Great Fire of London

Major City of London fire in 1666

This article is about the 1666 fire of London. For other "Great Fires", see List of historic fires. For other notable fires in London, see Early fires of London and Second Great Fire of London.

The Great Fire of London was a major conflagration that swept through central London from Sunday 2 September to Thursday 6 September 1666,^[1] gutting the medieval City of London inside the old Roman city wall, while also extending past the wall to the west. The death toll is generally thought to have been relatively small,^[2][3] although some historians have challenged this belief.^[4]

The fire started in a bakery in Pudding Lane shortly after midnight on Sunday 2 September, and spread rapidly. The use of the major firefighting technique of the time, the creation of firebreaks by means of removing structures in the fire's path, was critically delayed due to the indecisiveness of the Lord Mayor, Sir Thomas Bloodworth. By the time large-scale demolitions were ordered on Sunday night, the wind had already fanned the bakery fire into a firestorm which defeated such measures. The fire pushed north on Monday into the heart of the City. Order in the streets broke down as rumours arose of suspicious foreigners setting fires. The fears of the homeless focused on the French and Dutch, England's enemies in the ongoing Second Anglo-Dutch War; these substantial immigrant groups became victims of street violence. On Tuesday, the fire spread over nearly the whole city, destroying St Paul's Cathedral and leaping the River Fleet to threaten Charles II's court at Whitehall. Coordinated firefighting efforts were simultaneously getting underway. The battle to put out the fire is considered to have been won by two key factors: the strong east wind dropped, and the Tower of London garrison used gunpowder to create effective firebreaks, halting further spread eastward.

The social and economic problems created by the disaster were overwhelming. Flight from London and settlement elsewhere were strongly encouraged by Charles II, who feared a London rebellion amongst the dispossessed refugees. Various schemes for rebuilding the city were proposed, some of them very radical. After the fire, London was reconstructed on essentially the same medieval street plan, which still exists today.^[5]

Cite error: There are <ref group=lower-alpha> tags or {{efn}} templates on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=lower-alpha}} template or {{notelist}} template (see the help page).

1. ^ All dates are given according to the Julian calendar. Note that, when recording British history, it is usual to use the dates recorded at the time of the event. Any dates between 1 January and 25 March have their year adjusted to start on 1 January according to the New Style.
2. ^ Cite error: The named reference tindeath was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
3. ^ Cite error: The named reference porterdeath was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
4. ^ Cite error: The named reference Hanson 2001, 326–33 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
5. ^ Reddaway, 27

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3 September 1971 ? Qatar becomes an independent state.

Qatar

Country in West Asia

This article is about the country. For other places, see Qatar (disambiguation).

Qatar,^[b] officially the State of Qatar,^[c] is a country in West Asia. It occupies the Qatar Peninsula on the northeastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula in the Middle East; it shares its sole land border with Saudi Arabia to the south, with the rest of its territory surrounded by the Persian Gulf. The Gulf of Bahrain, an inlet of the Persian Gulf, separates Qatar from nearby Bahrain. The capital is Doha, home to over 80% of the country's inhabitants, and the land area is mostly made up of flat, low-lying desert.

Qatar has been ruled as a hereditary monarchy by the House of Thani since Mohammed bin Thani signed "an agreement, not a formal treaty"^[18] with Britain in 1868 that recognised its separate status. Following Ottoman rule, Qatar became a British protectorate in 1916 and gained independence in 1971. The current emir is Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, who holds nearly all executive, legislative, and judicial authority in autocratic manner under the Constitution of Qatar.^[19] He appoints the prime minister and cabinet. The partially-elected Consultative Assembly can block legislation and has a limited ability to dismiss ministers.

In early 2017, the population of Qatar was 2.6 million, although only 313,000 of them are Qatari citizens and 2.3 million being expatriates and migrant workers.^[20] Its official religion is Islam.^[21] The country has the fourth-highest GDP (PPP) per capita in the world^[22] and the eleventh-highest GNI per capita (Atlas method).^[23] It ranks 42nd in the Human Development Index, the third-highest HDI in the Arab world.^[24] It is a high-income economy, backed by the world's third-largest natural gas reserves and oil reserves.^[25] Qatar is one of the world's largest exporters of liquefied natural gas^[26] and the world's largest emitter of carbon dioxide per capita.^[27]

In the 21st century, Qatar emerged as both a major non-NATO ally of the United States and a middle power in the Arab world. Its economy has risen rapidly through its resource-wealth,^[28][29] and its geopolitical power has risen through its media group, Al Jazeera Media Network, and reported support for rebel groups financially during the Arab Spring.^[30][31][32] Qatar also forms part of the Gulf Cooperation Council.^[3]

1. ^ "The Constitution" (PDF). Government Communications Office. Archived (PDF) from the original on 29 November 2020. Retrieved 31 August 2020.
2. ^ "Population of Qatar by nationality". Priya Dsouza. 19 August 2019. Archived from the original on 30 September 2018. Retrieved 19 November 2022.
3. ^ ^{a b} Cite error: The named reference CIA was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
4. ^ "Population By Religion, Gender And Municipality March 2020". Qatar Statistics Authority.
5. ^ "The objections to Qatar hosting the World Cup reek of Eurocentrism". NBC News. Archived from the original on 22 November 2022. Retrieved 22 November 2022. In condemning Qatar, we should remember that the population of this authoritarian monarchy
6. ^ "Political Stability: the Mysterious Case of Qatar". Middle East Political and Economic Institute. Archived from the original on 22 November 2022. Retrieved 22 November 2022. ; the Qatari state remains fundamentally autocratic
7. ^ "Population structure". Ministry of Development Planning and Statistics. 31 January 2020. Archived from the original on 26 June 2018. Retrieved 7 February 2017.
8. ^ "Populations". Qsa.gov.qa. Archived from the original on 9 July 2010. Retrieved 2 October 2010.
9. ^ ^{a b c d} "World Economic Outlook Database, October 2023 Edition. (Qatar)". IMF.org. International Monetary Fund. 10 October 2023. Archived from the original on 18 October 2023. Retrieved 12 October 2023.
10. ^ "GINI index". World Bank. Archived from the original on 9 February 2015. Retrieved 22 January 2013.
11. ^ "Human Development Report 2023/24" (PDF). United Nations Development Programme. 13 March 2024. p. 289. Archived (PDF) from the original on 13 March 2024. Retrieved 13 March 2024.
12. ^ "List of left- & right-driving countries – World Standards". Archived from the original on 29 December 2020. Retrieved 5 June 2017.
13. ^ "Qatar". Dictionary.com Unabridged (Online). n.d., and "Qatar". Lexico UK English Dictionary. Oxford University Press. n.d.
14. ^ Jones, Daniel (2011). Roach, Peter; Setter, Jane; Esling, John (eds.). "Qatar". Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary (18th ed.). Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-15255-6.
15. ^ Wells, John C. (2008). Longman Pronunciation Dictionary (3rd ed.). Longman. ISBN 978-1-4058-8118-0.
16. ^ "Definition of Qatar | Dictionary.com". www.dictionary.com. Archived from the original on 29 November 2022. Retrieved 26 November 2022.
17. ^ Johnstone, T. M. (2008). "Encyclopaedia of Islam". Ķaṭar. Brill Online. Archived from the original on 27 September 2013. Retrieved 22 January 2013.(subscription required)
18. ^ Fromherz, Allen James (2011). Qatar: A Modern History (1st ed.). Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press. p. 58. ISBN 978-1626162037.
19. ^ "Qatar: Freedom in the World 2020 Country Report". Freedom House. Archived from the original on 3 May 2021. Retrieved 6 April 2021.
20. ^ "Population of Qatar by nationality – 2017 report". Archived from the original on 25 December 2018. Retrieved 7 February 2017.
21. ^ "The Constitution". Archived from the original on 24 October 2004. Retrieved 29 October 2017.
22. ^ "GDP per capita, PPP (current international $) | Data". data.worldbank.org. Archived from the original on 22 June 2019. Retrieved 20 November 2022.
23. ^ "GNI per capita, Atlas method (current US$) | Data". data.worldbank.org. Archived from the original on 20 November 2022. Retrieved 20 November 2022.
24. ^ Nations, United (8 September 2022). "Human Development Report 2021-22". Archived from the original on 12 January 2023. Retrieved 16 November 2022.
25. ^ "Indices & Data | Human Development Reports". United Nations Development Programme. 14 March 2013. Archived from the original on 12 January 2013. Retrieved 27 June 2013.
26. ^ "2022 World LNG Report Press Release" (PDF). International Gas Union (IGU). 6 July 2022. Archived (PDF) from the original on 9 October 2022. Retrieved 7 October 2022.
27. ^ "Where in the world do people emit the most CO2?". Our World in Data. Archived from the original on 25 May 2021. Retrieved 17 July 2021.
28. ^ Cooper, Andrew F. "Middle Powers: Squeezed out or Adaptive?". Public Diplomacy Magazine. Archived from the original on 17 March 2015. Retrieved 12 March 2015.
29. ^ Kamrava, Mehran. "Mediation and Qatari Foreign Policy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 7 October 2013. Retrieved 12 March 2015.
30. ^ Dagher, Sam (17 October 2011). "Tiny Kingdom's Huge Role in Libya Draws Concern". Online.wsj.com. Archived from the original on 27 October 2014. Retrieved 30 December 2013.
31. ^ "Qatar: Rise of an Underdog". Politicsandpolicy.org. Archived from the original on 10 June 2017. Retrieved 30 December 2013.
32. ^ Black, Ian (26 October 2011). "Qatar admits sending hundreds of troops to support Libya rebels". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 15 November 2019. Retrieved 30 December 2013.

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4 September 1888 ? George Eastman registers the trademark Kodak and receives a patent for his camera that uses roll film.

Eastman Kodak

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5 September 1960 ? Muhammad Ali (then Cassius Clay) wins the gold medal in the light heavyweight boxing competition at the Olympic Games in Rome.

Boxing at the 1960 Summer Olympics

Boxing competitions

Italy dominated boxing at the 1960 Summer Olympics, winning three gold medals and seven medals overall. Two of the gold medalists would later become Hall of Fame world champions in professional boxing: American Cassius Clay (later known as Muhammad Ali) and Italian Nino Benvenuti.^[1]

1. ^ "Boxing at the 1960 Rome Summer Games". Sports Reference. Archived from the original on 17 April 2020. Retrieved 25 November 2018.

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6 September 1991 ? The name Saint Petersburg is restored to Russia's second largest city, which had been known as Leningrad since 1924.

Saint Petersburg

Federal city in Russia

This article is about the Russian city. For the American city, see St. Petersburg, Florida. For other uses, see Saint Petersburg (disambiguation).

"Leningrad" and "Petrograd" redirect here. For other uses, see Leningrad (disambiguation) and Petrograd (disambiguation).

Federal city in Northwestern, Russia

Saint Petersburg,^[a] formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad,^[b] is the second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea. The city had a population of roughly 5.6 million residents as of 2021,^[5] with more than 6.4 million people living in the metropolitan area. Saint Petersburg is the fourth-most populous city in Europe, the most populous city on the Baltic Sea, and the world's northernmost city of more than 1 million residents. As Russia's Imperial capital, and a historically strategic port, it is governed as a federal city.

The city was founded by Tsar Peter the Great on 27 May 1703 on the site of a captured Swedish fortress, and was named after the apostle Saint Peter.^[10] In Russia, Saint Petersburg is historically and culturally associated with the birth of the Russian Empire and Russia's entry into modern history as a European great power.^[11] It served as a capital of the Tsardom of Russia, and the subsequent Russian Empire, from 1712 to 1918 (being replaced by Moscow for a short period of time between 1728 and 1730).^[12] After the October Revolution in 1917, the Bolsheviks moved their government to Moscow.^[13] The city was renamed Leningrad after Lenin's death in 1924. It was the site of the siege of Leningrad during the Second World War, the most lethal siege in history.^[14] In June 1991, only a few months before the Belovezha Accords and the dissolution of the USSR, voters supported restoring the city's original appellation in a city-wide referendum.^[15]

As Russia's cultural centre,^[16] Saint Petersburg received over 15 million tourists in 2018.^[17][18] It is considered an important economic, scientific, and tourism centre of Russia and Europe. In modern times, the city has the nickname of being "the Northern Capital of Russia" and is home to notable federal government bodies such as the Constitutional Court of Russia and the Heraldic Council of the President of the Russian Federation. It is also a seat for the National Library of Russia and a planned location for the Supreme Court of Russia, as well as the home to the headquarters of the Russian Navy, and the Western Military District of the Russian Armed Forces. The Historic Centre of Saint Petersburg and Related Groups of Monuments constitute a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Saint Petersburg is home to the Hermitage, one of the largest art museums in the world, the Lakhta Center, the tallest skyscraper in Europe, and was one of the host cities of the 2018 FIFA World Cup and the UEFA Euro 2020.

1. ^ Official website of St. Petersburg. St. Petersburg in Figures Archived 19 February 2009 at the Wayback Machine
2. ^ "Putin appointed an official from the "LPR" as the head of Chukotka". Novaya Gazeta Europe (in Russian). 15 March 2023. Archived from the original on 15 March 2023. Retrieved 15 March 2023.
3. ^ "Численность населения регионов и городских агломераций | Институт экономики города" (PDF). www.urbaneconomics.ru. Archived from the original (PDF) on 29 March 2023. Retrieved 18 March 2023.
4. ^ Including parts of Leningrad Oblast
5. ^ ^{a b} "Оценка численности постоянного населения по субъектам Российской Федерации". Federal State Statistics Service. Archived from the original on 1 September 2022. Retrieved 1 September 2022.
6. ^ "Валовой региональный продукт по субъектам Российской Федерации в 2016-2021гг". www.rosstat.gov.ru.
7. ^ "Об исчислении времени". Официальный интернет-портал правовой информации (in Russian). Archived from the original on 22 June 2020. Retrieved 19 January 2019.
8. ^ Official throughout the Russian Federation according to Article 68.1 of the Constitution of Russia.
9. ^ "Petersburg". Collins English Dictionary. HarperCollins. Archived from the original on 4 March 2018. Retrieved 16 March 2023.
10. ^ Shevchenko, Elizaveta (11 October 2021). "The Five Names of St. Petersburg". news.itmo.ru (in Russian). Retrieved 28 October 2023.
11. ^ Sobchak, Anatoly. Город четырех революций – Дух преобразования... (in Russian). Archived from the original on 8 February 2017. Retrieved 23 May 2020.
12. ^ "18th Century in the Russian history". Rusmania. Archived from the original on 19 March 2022. Retrieved 3 December 2020.
13. ^ McColl, R.W., ed. (2005). Encyclopedia of world geography. Vol. 1. New York: Infobase Publishing. pp. 633–634. ISBN 978-0-8160-5786-3. Archived from the original on 2 September 2023. Retrieved 9 February 2011.
14. ^ Hanson, Victor Davis (2020). The Second World Wars: How the First Global Conflict Was Fought and Won (Reprint ed.). New York: Basic Books. pp. 3, 308. ISBN 978-1541674103.
15. ^ Nelsson, Richard (1 September 2021). "Leningrad becomes St Petersburg – archive, 1991". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Archived from the original on 13 July 2023. Retrieved 14 August 2023.
16. ^ V. Morozov. The Discourses of Saint Petersburg and the Shaping of a Wider Europe, Copenhagen Peace Research Institute, 2002. ISSN 1397-0895
17. ^ "Saint Petersburg Tourism – A Look At The Growth of Tourism in Russia's Northern Capital". St Petersburg Essential Guide. Archived from the original on 11 August 2020. Retrieved 12 August 2020.
18. ^ Fes, Nick (4 February 2019). "Saint Petersburg: Number Of Tourists Increased As Well As The Black Market". TourismReview. Archived from the original on 29 September 2020. Retrieved 12 August 2020.

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7 September 1943 ? A fire at the Gulf Hotel in Houston, kills 55 people.

Gulf Hotel fire

1943 hotel fire in downtown Houston, Texas, United States

The Gulf Hotel fire claimed 55 lives in the early-morning hours of September 7, 1943 in Downtown Houston, Texas, United States. The fire remains the worst loss of life in a fire in the city's history.

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8 September 1504 ? Michelangelo's David is unveiled in Piazza della Signoria in Florence.

David (Michelangelo)

Renaissance statue in Florence, Italy

David is a masterpiece^[1][2] of Italian Renaissance sculpture, created from 1501 to 1504 by Michelangelo. With a height of 5.17 metres (17 ft 0 in), the David was the first colossal marble statue made in the early modern period following classical antiquity, a precedent for the 16th century and beyond. David was originally commissioned as one of a series of statues of twelve prophets to be positioned along the roofline of the east end of Florence Cathedral (Duomo di Firenze), but was instead placed in the public square in front of the Palazzo della Signoria, the seat of civic government in Florence, where it was unveiled on 8 September 1504. In 1873, the statue was moved to the Galleria dell'Accademia, Florence, and in 1910 replaced at the original location by a replica.

The biblical figure David was a favoured subject in the art of Florence.^[3] Because of the nature of the figure it represented, the statue soon came to symbolize the defence of civil liberties embodied in the 1494 constitution of the Republic of Florence,^[4] an independent city-state threatened on all sides by more powerful rival states and by the political aspirations of the Medici family.

1. ^ Paolucci, Antonio (2004). Bracci, Susanna; Falletti, Franca; Matteini, Mauro (eds.). Exploring David: Diagnostic Tests and State of Conservation. Giunti Editore. p. 12. ISBN 978-88-09-03325-2. The David in Florence's Accademia is young Michelangelo's masterpiece.
2. ^ Buonarroti, Michelangelo; Paolucci, Antonio (2006). Michelangelo's David. Harry N. Abrams. p. 7. ISBN 978-1-903973-99-8. ...a masterpiece of throbbing vitality.
3. ^ See, for example, Donatello's two sculptures of David; Verrocchio's bronze David; Domenico Ghirlandaio's painting of David; and Bartolomeo Bellano's bronze David.
4. ^ Pocock, John Greville Agard (2016) [1975]. The Machiavellian Moment: Florentine Political Thought and the Atlantic Republican Tradition. Princeton University Press. p. 103. ISBN 978-1-4008-8351-6.

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9 September 1990 ? 1990 Batticaloa massacre, massacre of 184 minority Tamil civilians by Sri Lankan Army in the eastern Batticaloa District of Sri Lanka.

1990 Batticaloa massacre

Killing of Tamil refugees by the Sri Lankan Army

This article contains Tamil text. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks or boxes, misplaced vowels or missing conjuncts instead of Tamil text.

The 1990 Batticaloa massacre, also known as the Sathurukondan massacre (Tamil: சத்துருக்கொண்டான் படுகொலை), was a massacre of at least 184 minority Sri Lankan Tamil refugees, including infants, from three villages in the Batticaloa District by the Sri Lankan Army on September 9, 1990.^{[1][2][3][4][5]} Although the government instituted two investigations, no one was ever charged.

1. ^ "The massacre at Sathurukondan: 9th September 1990 – Report 8". UTHR. Archived from the original on 29 April 2009. Retrieved 8 September 2011.
2. ^ "Chapter 45: War continues with brutality". Asia Times. Archived from the original on 22 July 2002. Retrieved 8 September 2011.
3. ^ "Batticaloa massacre victims remembered". Tamilnet. Retrieved 8 September 2011.
4. ^ "Towards reconciliation". Dailynews. Retrieved 8 September 2011.
5. ^ "World Report 2000: Sri Lanka". Human Rights Watch. Retrieved 8 September 2011.

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10 September 1960 ? At the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome, Abebe Bikila becomes the first sub-Saharan African to win a gold medal, winning the marathon in bare feet.

Abebe Bikila

Ethiopian marathon runner (1932–1973)

This article is about a person whose name includes a patronymic. The article properly refers to the person by his given name, Abebe, and not as Bikila.

This article contains Ethiopic text. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Ethiopic characters.

Shambel Abebe Bikila (Amharic: ሻምበል አበበ ቢቂላ; August 7, 1932 – October 25, 1973) was an Ethiopian marathon runner who was a back-to-back Olympic marathon champion. He was the first Ethiopian Olympic gold medalist, winning his and Africa's first gold medal at the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome while running barefoot.^[3] At the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, he won his second gold medal, making him the first athlete to successfully defend an Olympic marathon title. In both victories, he ran in world record time.

Born in Shewa, Abebe moved to Addis Ababa around 1952 and joined the 5th Infantry Regiment of the Ethiopian Imperial Guard, an elite infantry division that safeguarded the emperor of Ethiopia. Abebe served in the Kagnew Battalion during Korean War.^[4]

Enlisting as a soldier before his athletic career, he rose to the rank of shambel (captain). Abebe participated in a total of sixteen marathons. He placed second on his first marathon in Addis Ababa, won twelve other races, and finished fifth in the 1963 Boston Marathon. In July 1967, he sustained the first of several sports-related leg injuries that prevented him from finishing his last two marathons. Abebe was a pioneer in long-distance running. Mamo Wolde, Juma Ikangaa, Tegla Loroupe, Paul Tergat, and Haile Gebrselassie—all recipients of the New York Road Runners' Abebe Bikila Award—are a few of the athletes who have followed in his footsteps to establish East Africa as a force in long-distance running.^[5][6][7]

On March 22, 1969, Abebe was paralysed due to a car accident. He regained some upper-body mobility, but he never walked again. While he was receiving medical treatment in England, Abebe competed in archery and table tennis at the 1970 Stoke Mandeville Games in London. Those games were an early predecessor of the Paralympic Games. He competed in both sports at a 1971 competition for disabled people in Norway and won its cross-country sleigh-riding event. Abebe died at age 41 in 1973 of a cerebral haemorrhage related to his accident four years earlier. He received a state funeral, and Emperor Haile Selassie declared a national day of mourning. Many schools, venues, and events, including Abebe Bikila Stadium in Addis Ababa, are named after him. He is the subject of biographies and films documenting his athletic career, and he is often featured in publications about the marathon and the Olympics.

1. ^ ^{a b} Evans, Hilary; Gjerde, Arild; Heijmans, Jeroen; Mallon, Bill; et al. "Abebe Bikila". Olympics at Sports-Reference.com. Sports Reference LLC. Archived from the original on April 17, 2020.
2. ^ "Abebe Bikila". trackfield.brinkster.net. Retrieved October 10, 2019.
3. ^ "Remembering Bikila's 1960 Olympic marathon victory on its 60th anniversary". World Athletics. Retrieved August 8, 2021.
4. ^ '6·25 전쟁' 참전 에디오피아 마라토너, 한국 두 번 살려준 사연
5. ^ Cite error: The named reference BenyoHenderson3 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
6. ^ Pitsiladis, Wang & Wolfarth (2011), p. 186
7. ^ Cite error: The named reference Gebreselassie was invoked but never defined (see the help page).

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11 September 2001 ? Two hijacked aircraft crash into the World Trade Center in New York City, while a third smashes into The Pentagon in Arlington County, Virginia, and a fourth into a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, in a series of coordinated suicide attacks by 19 members of al-Qaeda. In total 2,996 people are killed.

September 11 attacks

2001 Islamist terror attacks in the United States

For other uses, see September 11 attacks (disambiguation).

"9/11" redirects here. For the calendar dates, see September 11 and November 9. For the reverse, see 11/9 (disambiguation).

The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11,^[e] were four coordinated Islamist suicide terrorist attacks carried out by Al-Qaeda against the United States on September 11, 2001. That morning, 19 terrorists hijacked four commercial airliners scheduled to travel from the East Coast to California. The hijackers crashed the first two planes into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, two of the world's five tallest buildings at the time, and aimed the next two flights toward targets in or near Washington, D.C., in an attack on the nation's capital. The third team succeeded in striking the Pentagon, the headquarters of the U.S. Department of Defense in Arlington County, Virginia, while the fourth plane crashed in rural Pennsylvania during a passenger revolt. The September 11 attacks killed 2,977 people, making them the deadliest terrorist attack in history, and instigated the multi-decade global war on terror, fought in Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere.

The first impact was that of American Airlines Flight 11, which ringleader Mohamed Atta flew into the North Tower of the World Trade Center complex in Lower Manhattan at 8:46 a.m.^[f] Seventeen minutes later, at 9:03,^[g] the World Trade Center's South Tower was hit by United Airlines Flight 175. Both 110-story skyscrapers collapsed within an hour and forty-one minutes,^[h] bringing about the destruction of the remaining five structures in the WTC complex and damaging or destroying nearby buildings. A third flight, American Airlines Flight 77, crashed into the Pentagon at 9:37 a.m., causing a partial collapse. The fourth and final flight, United Airlines Flight 93, flew in the direction of the capital. Alerted to the previous attacks, the passengers fought for control, forcing the hijackers to nosedive the plane into a Stonycreek Township field, near Shanksville, at 10:03 a.m. Investigators determined that Flight 93's target was either the United States Capitol or the White House.

That evening, the Central Intelligence Agency informed President George W. Bush that its Counterterrorism Center had identified the attacks as having been the work of Al-Qaeda under Osama bin Laden's leadership. The United States formally responded by launching the war on terror and invading Afghanistan to depose the Taliban, which rejected the conditions of U.S. terms to expel Al-Qaeda from Afghanistan and extradite its leaders. The U.S.'s invocation of Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty—its only usage to date—called upon allies to fight Al-Qaeda. As U.S. and NATO invasion forces swept through Afghanistan, bin Laden eluded them by disappearing into the White Mountains. He denied any involvement until 2004, when excerpts of a taped statement in which he accepted responsibility for the attacks were released. Al-Qaeda's cited motivations included U.S. support of Israel, the presence of U.S. military bases in Saudi Arabia and sanctions against Iraq. The nearly decade-long manhunt for bin Laden concluded on May 2, 2011, when he was killed during a U.S. military raid after being tracked down to his compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. The war in Afghanistan continued for another eight years until the agreement was made in February 2020 for American and NATO troops to withdraw from the country, and the last members of the U.S. armed forces left the region on August 30, 2021, after which the Taliban returned to power. Ayman al-Zawahiri, another planner of the attacks who succeeded bin Laden as leader of Al-Qaeda, was killed by U.S. drone strikes in Kabul, Afghanistan on July 31, 2022.^[14]

Excluding the hijackers, the attacks killed 2,977 people, injured thousands more and gave rise to substantial long-term health consequences while also causing at least $10 billion in infrastructure and property damage. It remains the deadliest terrorist attack in history as well as the deadliest incident for firefighters and law enforcement personnel in US history, killing 343 and 72 members, respectively. The loss of life stemming from the impact of Flight 11 secured its place as the most lethal plane crash in aviation history followed by the death toll incurred by Flight 175. The destruction of the World Trade Center and its environs seriously harmed the U.S. economy and induced global market shocks. Many other countries strengthened anti-terrorism legislation and expanded their powers of law enforcement and intelligence agencies. Cleanup of the World Trade Center site (colloquially "Ground Zero") took eight months and was completed in May 2002, while the Pentagon was repaired within a year. After delays in the design of a replacement complex, construction of the One World Trade Center began in November 2006; it opened in November 2014. Memorials to the attacks include the National September 11 Memorial & Museum in New York City, The Pentagon Memorial in Arlington County, Virginia, and the Flight 93 National Memorial at the Pennsylvania crash site.

Cite error: There are <ref group=lower-alpha> tags or {{efn}} templates on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=lower-alpha}} template or {{notelist}} template (see the help page).

1. ^ "A Day of Remembrance". U.S. Embassy in Georgia. September 11, 2022. Archived from the original on October 24, 2023. Retrieved October 27, 2022.
2. ^ Stempel, Jonathan (July 29, 2019). "Accused 9/11 mastermind open to role in victims' lawsuit if not executed". Reuters. Archived from the original on April 5, 2020. Retrieved October 27, 2022.
3. ^ 9/11 Final Report of the National Commission (2004). Collapse of WTC1 (PDF). p. 24. Archived (PDF) from the original on September 12, 2017. Retrieved December 7, 2023.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
4. ^ National Institute of Standards and Technology (2005). "Final report on the collapse of the World Trade Center" (PDF). NIST: 69. Archived (PDF) from the original on July 7, 2021. Retrieved December 7, 2023.
5. ^ ^{a b} "102 Minutes: Last Words at the Trade Center; Fighting to Live as the Towers Die". The New York Times. May 26, 2002. Archived from the original on September 12, 2009. Retrieved June 23, 2023.
6. ^ Final Report of the 9/11 Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (PDF) (Report). National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States. July 22, 2004. pp. 7–8. Archived (PDF) from the original on August 16, 2021. Retrieved August 15, 2021.
7. ^ Staff Report of the 9/11 Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States (PDF) (Report). National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States. September 2005 [August 26, 2004]. p. 24. Archived (PDF) from the original on July 12, 2014. Retrieved August 15, 2021.
8. ^ Building and Fire Research Laboratory (September 2005). Visual Evidence, Damage Estimates, and Timeline Analysis (PDF) (Report). National Institute of Standards and Technology, United States Department of Commerce. p. 27. Archived (PDF) from the original on September 11, 2021. Retrieved August 24, 2021.
9. ^ "Timeline for United Airlines Flight 175". NPR. June 17, 2004. Archived from the original on August 24, 2021. Retrieved August 24, 2021.
10. ^ 9/11 Commission 2004a, p. 302.
11. ^ "9/11/01 timeline: How the September 11, 2001 attacks unfolded". WPVI-TV. September 11, 2023. Archived from the original on November 5, 2023. Retrieved November 4, 2023.
12. ^ National Institute of Standards and Technology (2005). "Final report on the collapse of the World Trade Center" (PDF). NIST: 229. Archived (PDF) from the original on July 7, 2021. Retrieved December 7, 2023.
13. ^ 9/11 Final Report of the National Commission (2004). Collapse of WTC1 (PDF). p. 329. Archived (PDF) from the original on September 12, 2017. Retrieved December 7, 2023.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
14. ^ Baker, Peter; Cooper, Helene; Barnes, Julian; Schmitt, Eric (August 1, 2022). "U.S. Drone Strike Kills Ayman al-Zawahri, Top Qaeda Leader". The New York Times. Archived from the original on August 1, 2022. Retrieved August 1, 2022.

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12 September 2001 ? Ansett Australia, Australia's first commercial interstate airline, collapses due to increased strain on the international airline industry, leaving 10,000 people unemployed.

Ansett Australia

Defunct domestic airline of Australia (1936–2002)

"Ansett" redirects here. For other uses, see Ansett (disambiguation).

Ansett Australia was a major Australian airline group, based in Melbourne, Victoria. The airline flew domestically within Australia and from the 1990s to destinations in Asia.^[1] After operating for 65 years, the airline was placed into administration in 2001 following a financial collapse and subsequent organised liquidation in 2002, subject to deed of company arrangement. The last flight touched down on 5 March 2002.

1. ^ Cook, Terry (15 September 2001). "Australia's second biggest airline collapses". World Socialist Web Site. Archived from the original on 30 September 2007. Retrieved 16 October 2007.

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13 September 1994 ? Ulysses probe passes the Sun's south pole.

Ulysses (spacecraft)

1990 robotic space probe; studied the Sun from a near-polar orbit

Not to be confused with the 2024 lunar landing mission IM-1, which used a spacecraft known as Odysseus.

Ulysses (/juːˈlɪsiːz/ yoo-LISS-eez, UK also /ˈjuːlɪsiːz/ YOO-liss-eez) was a robotic space probe whose primary mission was to orbit the Sun and study it at all latitudes. It was launched in 1990 and made three "fast latitude scans" of the Sun in 1994/1995, 2000/2001, and 2007/2008. In addition, the probe studied several comets. Ulysses was a joint venture of the European Space Agency (ESA) and the United States' National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), under leadership of ESA with participation from Canada's National Research Council.^[3] The last day for mission operations on Ulysses was 30 June 2009.^[4][5]

To study the Sun at all latitudes, the probe needed to change its orbital inclination and leave the plane of the Solar System. To change the orbital inclination of a spacecraft to about 80° requires a large change in heliocentric velocity, the energy to achieve which far exceeded the capabilities of any launch vehicle. To reach the desired orbit around the Sun, the mission's planners chose a gravity assist maneuver around Jupiter, but this Jupiter encounter meant that Ulysses could not be powered by solar cells. The probe was powered instead by a General Purpose Heat Source Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator (GPHS-RTG).^[6]

The spacecraft was originally named Odysseus, because of its lengthy and indirect trajectory to study the solar poles. It was renamed Ulysses, the Latin translation of "Odysseus", at ESA's request in honor not only of Homer's mythological hero but also of Dante's character in the Inferno.^[7] Ulysses was originally scheduled for launch in May 1986 aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger on STS-61-F. Due to the 28 January 1986 loss of Challenger, the launch of Ulysses was delayed until 6 October 1990 aboard Discovery (mission STS-41).

1. ^ "Ulysses". NASA's Solar System Exploration website. Retrieved 25 September 2023.
2. ^ ^{a b} "Ulysses". NASA's Solar System Exploration website. Retrieved 2 December 2022.
3. ^ "Welcome to the HIA Ulysses Project". Herzberg Institute of Astrophysics. Archived from the original on 17 August 2011. The Herzberg Institute of Astrophysics (HIA) of the National Research Council of Canada provided instrumentation and test equipment for the COsmic ray and Solar Particle INvestigation (COSPIN) on the Ulysses spacecraft. The COSPIN instrument consists of five sensors which measure energetic nucleons and electrons over a wide range of energies. This was the first participation by Canada in a deep-space interplanetary mission.
4. ^ Cite error: The named reference ESA News was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
5. ^ The odyssey concludes ... Archived February 24, 2012, at the Wayback Machine
6. ^ https://rps.nasa.gov/missions/13/ulysses/
7. ^ "Inferno of Ulysses' urge to explore an uninhabited world behind the Sun. In Jane's Spaceflight Directory 1988, ISBN 0-7106-0860-8

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14 September Congo Crisis: With CIA help, Mobutu Sese Seko seizes power in a military coup, suspending parliament and the constitution.

Congo Crisis

1960–1965 conflict in the Congo

The Congo Crisis (French: Crise congolaise) was a period of political upheaval and conflict between 1960 and 1965 in the Republic of the Congo (today the Democratic Republic of the Congo).^[c] The crisis began almost immediately after the Congo became independent from Belgium and ended, unofficially, with the entire country under the rule of Joseph-Désiré Mobutu. Constituting a series of civil wars, the Congo Crisis was also a proxy conflict in the Cold War, in which the Soviet Union and the United States supported opposing factions. Around 100,000 people are believed to have been killed during the crisis.

A nationalist movement in the Belgian Congo demanded the end of colonial rule: this led to the country's independence on 30 June 1960. Minimal preparations had been made and many issues, such as federalism, tribalism, and ethnic nationalism, remained unresolved. In the first week of July, a mutiny broke out in the army and violence erupted between black and white civilians. Belgium sent troops to protect fleeing white citizens. Katanga and South Kasai seceded with Belgian support. Amid continuing unrest and violence, the United Nations deployed peacekeepers, but UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld refused to use these troops to help the central government in Léopoldville fight the secessionists. Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba, the charismatic leader of the largest nationalist faction, reacted by calling for assistance from the Soviet Union, which promptly sent military advisers and other support.

The involvement of the Soviets split the Congolese government and led to an impasse between Lumumba and President Joseph Kasa-Vubu. Mobutu, at that time Lumumba's chief military aide and a lieutenant-colonel in the army, broke this deadlock with a coup d'état, expelled the Soviet advisors and established a new government effectively under his own control. Lumumba was taken captive and subsequently executed in 1961. A rival government of the "Free Republic of the Congo" was founded in the eastern city of Stanleyville by Lumumba supporters led by Antoine Gizenga. It gained Soviet support but was crushed in early 1962. Meanwhile, the UN took a more aggressive stance towards the secessionists after Hammarskjöld was killed in a plane crash in late 1961. Supported by UN troops, Léopoldville defeated secessionist movements in Katanga and South Kasai by the start of 1963.

With Katanga and South Kasai back under the government's control, a reconciliatory compromise constitution was adopted and the exiled Katangese leader, Moïse Tshombe, was recalled to head an interim administration while fresh elections were organised. Before these could be held, however, Maoist-inspired militants calling themselves the "Simbas" rose up in the east of the country. The Simbas took control of a significant amount of territory and proclaimed a communist "People's Republic of the Congo" in Stanleyville. Government forces gradually retook territory and, in November 1964, Belgium and the United States intervened militarily in Stanleyville to recover hostages from Simba captivity. The Simbas were defeated and collapsed soon after. Following the elections in March 1965, a new political stalemate developed between Tshombe and Kasa-Vubu, forcing the government into near-paralysis. Mobutu mounted a second coup d'état in November 1965, taking personal control of the country. Under Mobutu's rule, the Congo (renamed Zaire in 1971) was transformed into a dictatorship which would endure until his deposition in 1997.

1. ^ Haskin 2005, pp. 24–25.
2. ^ Nzongola-Ntalaja 2007, p. 101.
3. ^ Dorn 2016, p. 32.
4. ^ Nugent 2004, p. 97.
5. ^ Mwakikagile 2014, p. 72.
6. ^ EISA 2002a.

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15 September 1981 ? The John Bull becomes the oldest operable steam locomotive in the world when the Smithsonian Institution operates it under its own power outside Washington, D.C.

John Bull (locomotive)

British-built railroad steam locomotive

John Bull is a historic British-built railroad steam locomotive that operated in the United States. It was operated for the first time on September 15, 1831, and became the oldest operable steam locomotive in the world when the Smithsonian Institution ran it under its own steam in 1981.^[3][4] Built by Robert Stephenson and Company, it was initially purchased by and operated for the Camden and Amboy Railroad, the first railroad in New Jersey, which gave it the number 1 and its first name, "Stevens". (Robert L. Stevens was president of the Camden and Amboy Railroad at the time.) The C&A used it heavily from 1833 until 1866, when it was removed from active service and placed in storage.

After the C&A's assets were acquired by the Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR) in 1871, the PRR refurbished and operated the locomotive a few times for public displays: it was fired up for the Centennial Exposition in 1876 and again for the National Railway Appliance Exhibition in 1883. In 1884 it was purchased by the Smithsonian Institution as the museum's first major industrial exhibit.

In 1939 the employees of the PRR's Altoona, Pennsylvania workshops built an operable replica of the locomotive for further exhibition duties, as the Smithsonian wanted to keep the original locomotive in a more controlled environment. After being on static display for 42 years, the Smithsonian commemorated the locomotive's 150th birthday in 1981 by firing it up; it was then the world's oldest surviving operable steam locomotive.

As of 2021^[update], the original John Bull is on static display in the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C., and the replica is preserved at the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania in Strasburg, Pennsylvania.

1. ^ ^{a b} Burlingame, Luther D. (6 October 1911). "Shop Safeguards". Railway Age Gazette. 51 (14): 672.
2. ^ Cite error: The named reference Johnson was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
3. ^ "John Bull Locomotive". History Wired. Smithsonian Institution. Retrieved 4 August 2008.
4. ^ Klein and Bell, pp 280–1.

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16 September 1987 ? The Montreal Protocol is signed to protect the ozone layer from depletion

Montreal Protocol

1987 treaty to protect the ozone layer

The Montreal Protocol is an international treaty designed to protect the ozone layer by phasing out the production of numerous substances that are responsible for ozone depletion. It was agreed on 16 September 1987, and entered into force on 1 January 1989. Since then, it has undergone nine revisions, in 1990 (London), 1991 (Nairobi), 1992 (Copenhagen), 1993 (Bangkok), 1995 (Vienna), 1997 (Montreal), 1998 (Australia), 1999 (Beijing) and 2016 (Kigali)^[1][2][3] As a result of the international agreement, the ozone hole in Antarctica is slowly recovering. ^[4] Climate projections indicate that the ozone layer will return to 1980 levels between 2040 (across much of the world) and 2066 (over Antarctica).^[5][6][7] Due to its widespread adoption and implementation, it has been hailed as an example of successful international co-operation. Former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan stated that "perhaps the single most successful international agreement to date has been the Montreal Protocol".^[8][9] In comparison, effective burden-sharing and solution proposals mitigating regional conflicts of interest have been among the success factors for the ozone depletion challenge, where global regulation based on the Kyoto Protocol has failed to do so.^[10] In this case of the ozone depletion challenge, there was global regulation already being installed before a scientific consensus was established. Also, overall public opinion was convinced of possible imminent risks.^[11][12]

The ozone treaty has been ratified by 198 parties (197 states and the European Union),^[13] making them the first universally ratified treaties in United Nations history.^[14]

This truly universal treaty has also been remarkable in the expedience of the policy-making process at the global scale, where only 14 years lapsed between a basic scientific research discovery (1973) and the international agreement signed (1985 and 1987).

1. ^ Hub, IISD's SDG Knowledge. "Kigali Amendment Enters into Force, Bringing Promise of Reduced Global Warming | News | SDG Knowledge Hub | IISD". Retrieved 7 March 2019.
2. ^ McGrath, Matt (15 October 2016). "Deal reached on HFC greenhouse gases". BBC.
3. ^ "Adjustments to the Montreal Protocol". United Nations Environment Programme Ozone Secretariat. Archived from the original on 23 August 2014. Retrieved 24 August 2014.
4. ^ Ewenfeldt B, "Ozonlagret mår bättre", Arbetarbladet 12-9-2014, p. 10.
5. ^ "Ozone Layer on Track to Recovery: Success Story Should Encourage Action on Climate". UNEP. UNEP. 10 September 2014. Archived from the original on 13 September 2014. Retrieved 18 September 2014.
6. ^ Susan Solomon; Anne R. Douglass; Paul A. Newman (July 2014). "The Antarctic ozone hole: An update". Physics Today. 67 (7): 42–48. Bibcode:2014PhT....67g..42D. doi:10.1063/PT.3.2449. hdl:1721.1/99159.
7. ^ Canada, Environment and Climate Change (20 February 2015). "Ozone layer depletion: Montreal Protocol". aem. Retrieved 22 April 2020.
8. ^ "The Ozone Hole-The Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer". Theozonehole.com. 16 September 1987. Archived from the original on 12 September 2012. Retrieved 17 August 2007.
9. ^ "Background for International Day for the Preservation of the Ozone Layer - 16 September". un.org. Retrieved 28 May 2017.
10. ^ Of Montreal and Kyoto: A Tale of Two Protocols Archived 26 August 2014 at the Wayback Machine by Cass R. Sunstein 38 ELR 10566 8/2008
11. ^ Environmental Politics Climate Change and Knowledge Politics Archived 26 August 2014 at the Wayback Machine Reiner Grundmann, Vol. 16, No. 3, 414–432, June 2007
12. ^ Technische Problemlösung, Verhandeln und umfassende Problemlösung, (eng. technical trouble shooting, negotiating and generic problem solving capability) Archived 3 March 2016 at the Wayback Machine in Gesellschaftliche Komplexität und kollektive Handlungsfähigkeit (Societys complexity and collective ability to act), ed. Schimank, U. (2000). Frankfurt/Main: Campus, p.154-182 book summary at the Max Planck Gesellschaft Archived 12 October 2014 at the Wayback Machine
13. ^ "Status of Ratification – The Ozone Secretariat". Ozone.unep.org. Archived from the original on 8 October 2014. Retrieved 10 March 2008.
14. ^ "UNEP press release: "South Sudan Joins Montreal Protocol and Commits to Phasing Out Ozone-Damaging Substances"". Unep.org. Archived from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 11 July 2012.

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17 September 1983 ? Vanessa Williams becomes the first black Miss America.

Vanessa L. Williams

Redirect to:

• Vanessa Williams

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