September 26
- 46 BC – Julius Caesar dedicates a temple to his mythical ancestor Venus Genetrix in accordance with a vow he made at the battle of Pharsalus.
- 715 – Ragenfrid defeats Theudoald at the Battle of Compiègne.
- 1212 – Golden Bull of Sicily is certified as an hereditary royal title in Bohemia for the Přemyslid dynasty.
- 1580 – Sir Francis Drake finishes his circumnavigation of the Earth.
- 1687 – The Parthenon in Athens is partially destroyed by an explosion caused by the bombing from Venetian forces led by Morosini who are besieging the Ottoman Turks stationed in Athens.
- 1687 – The city council of Amsterdam votes to support William of Orange's invasion of England, which became the Glorious Revolution.
- 1777 – British troops occupy Philadelphia, Pennsylvania during the American Revolution.
- 1783 – The first battle of Shays' Rebellion begins.
- 1789 – Thomas Jefferson is appointed the first United States Secretary of State, John Jay is appointed the first Chief Justice of the United States, Samuel Osgood is appointed the first United States Postmaster General, and Edmund Randolph is appointed the first United States Attorney General.
- 1792 – Marc-David Lasource begins accusing Maximilien Robespierre of wanting a dictatorship for France.
- 1810 – A new Act of Succession is adopted by the Riksdag of the Estates and Jean Baptiste Bernadotte becomes heir to the Swedish throne.
- 1872 – The first Shriners Temple (called Mecca) is established in New York City.
- 1907 – New Zealand and Newfoundland each become dominions within the British Empire.
- 1908 – Ed Reulbach becomes the first and only pitcher to throw two shutouts in one day against the Brooklyn Dodgers.
- 1914 – The United States Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is established by the Federal Trade Commission Act.
- 1917 – World War I: The Battle of Polygon Wood begins.
- 1918 – World War I: The Meuse-Argonne Offensive, the bloodiest single battle in American history, begins.
- 1923 – Gustav Stresemann resumes the Weimar Republic's payment of reparations.
- 1934 – Steamship RMS Queen Mary is launched.
- 1942 – The Holocaust: August Frank, a higher official of the SS concentration camp administration department, issues a memorandum containing a great deal of operational detail in how Jews should be "evacuated".
- 1944 – World War II: Operation Market Garden fails.
- 1944 – World War II: On the central front of the Gothic Line Brazilian troops control the Serchio valley region after ten days of fighting.
- 1950 – United Nations troops recapture Seoul from North Korean forces.
- 1950 – Indonesia is admitted to the United Nations.
- 1954 – Japanese rail ferry Toya Maru sinks during a typhoon in the Tsugaru Strait, Japan killing 1,172.
- 1959 – Typhoon Vera, the strongest typhoon to hit Japan in recorded history, makes landfall, killing 4,580 people and leaving nearly 1.6 million others homeless.
- 1960 – In Chicago, the first televised debate takes place between presidential candidates Richard M. Nixon and John F. Kennedy.
- 1960 – Fidel Castro announces Cuba's support for the U.S.S.R.
- 1970 – The Laguna Fire starts in San Diego County, California, burning 175,425 acres (710 km²).
- 1971 – The Freetown Christiania was founded.
- 1973 – Concorde makes its first non-stop crossing of the Atlantic in record-breaking time.
- 1981 – Baseball: Nolan Ryan sets a Major League record by throwing his fifth no-hitter.
- 1983 – Soviet military officer Stanislav Petrov averts a likely worldwide nuclear war by correctly identifying a report of an incoming nuclear missile as a computer error and not an American first strike.
- 1983 – Australia II wins the America's Cup, ending the longest winning streak in sporting history.
- 1984 – The United Kingdom agrees to the handover of Hong Kong
- 1997 – A Garuda Indonesia Airbus A-300 crashes near Medan, Indonesia, airport, killing 234.
- 1997 – An earthquake strikes the Italian regions of Umbria and the Marche, causing part of the Basilica of St. Francis at Assisi to collapse.
- 2000 – Anti-globalization protests in Prague (some 20,000 protesters) turn violent during the IMF and World Bank summits.
- 2000 – The MS Express Samina sinks off Paros in the Agean sea killing 80 passengers.
- 2001 – Polish Wikipedia was started.
- 2002 – The overcrowded Senegalese ferry MV Joola capsizes off the coast of The Gambia killing more than 1,000.
- 2008 – Swiss pilot and inventor Yves Rossy becomes first person to fly a jet engine-powered wing across the English Channel.
- 2009 – Typhoon Ketsana (2009) hit the Philippines, China, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and Thailand, causing 700 fatalities.
September 25
- 275 – In Rome, (after the assassination of Aurelian), the Senate proclaims Marcus Claudius Tacitus Emperor.
- 303 – On a voyage preaching the gospel, Saint Fermin of Pamplona is beheaded in Amiens, France.
- 1066 – The Battle of Stamford Bridge marks the end of the Viking invasions of England.
- 1396 – Ottoman Emperor Bayezid I defeats a Christian army at the Battle of Nicopolis.
- 1513 – Spanish explorer Vasco Núñez de Balboa reaches what would become known as the Pacific Ocean.
- 1555 – The Peace of Augsburg is signed in Augsburg by Charles V and the princes of the Schmalkaldic League.
- 1690 – Publick Occurrences Both Foreign and Domestick, the first newspaper to appear in the Americas, is published for the first and only time.
- 1775 – Ethan Allen surrenders to British forces after attempting to capture Montreal during the Battle of Longue-Pointe. At the same time, Benedict Arnold and his expeditionary company set off from Fort Western, bound for Quebec City (Invasion of Canada (1775)).
- 1789 – The U.S. Congress passes twelve amendments to the United States Constitution: the Congressional Apportionment Amendment (which was never ratified), the Congressional Compensation Amendment, and the ten that are known as the Bill of Rights.
- 1804 – The Teton Sioux (a subdivision of the Lakota) demand one of the boats from the Lewis and Clark Expedition as a toll for moving further upriver.
- 1846 – U.S. forces led by Zachary Taylor capture the Mexican city of Monterrey.
- 1868 – The Imperial Russian steam frigate Alexander Neuski is shipwrecked off Jutland while carrying Grand Duke Alexei of Russia.
- 1890 – The U.S. Congress establishes Sequoia National Park.
- 1906 – In the presence of the king and before a great crowd, Leonardo Torres Quevedo successfully demonstrates the invention of the Telekino in the port of Bilbao, guiding a boat from the shore, in what is considered the birth of the remote control.
- 1911 – Ground is broken for Fenway Park in Boston, Massachusetts.
- 1912 – Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism is founded in New York, New York.
- 1915 – World War I: The Second Battle of Champagne begins.
- 1929 – Jimmy Doolittle performs the first blind flight from Mitchel Field proving that full instrument flying from take off to landing is possible.
- 1942 – World War II: Swiss Police Instruction of September 25, 1942 – this instruction denied entry into Switzerland to Jewish refugees.
- 1944 – World War II: Surviving elements of the British 1st Airborne Division withdraw from Arnhem in the Netherlands, thus ending the Battle of Arnhem and Operation Market Garden.
- 1955 – The Royal Jordanian Air Force is founded.
- 1956 – TAT-1, the first submarine transatlantic telephone cable system, is inaugurated.
- 1957 – Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, is integrated by the use of United States Army troops.
- 1959 – Solomon Bandaranaike, Prime Minister of Sri Lanka is mortally wounded by a Buddhist monk, Talduwe Somarama, and dies the next day.
- 1962 – The People's Democratic Republic of Algeria is formally proclaimed. Ferhat Abbas is elected President of the provisional government.
- 1970 – Cease-fire between Jordan and the Fedayeen ends fighting triggered by four hijackings on September 6 and 9.
- 1972 – In a referendum, the people of Norway reject membership of the European Community.
- 1977 – About 4,200 people take part in the first running of the Chicago Marathon.
- 1978 – PSA Flight 182, a Boeing 727-214, collides in mid-air with a Cessna 172 and crashes in San Diego, California, resulting in the deaths of 144 people.
- 1981 – Sandra Day O'Connor becomes the 102nd person sworn in as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States and the first woman to hold the office.
- 1981 – Belize joins the United Nations.
- 1983 – Maze Prison escape: 38 republican prisoners, armed with 6 handguns, hijack a prison meals lorry and smash their way out of the Maze prison. It is the largest prison escape since WWII and in British history.
- 1992 – NASA launched a $511 million probe to Mars in the first U.S. mission to the planet in 17 years. Eleven months later, the probe would fail.
- 1996 – The last of the Magdalene Asylums closes in Ireland.
- 2002 – The Vitim event, a possible bolide impact in Siberia, Russia.
- 2003 – A magnitude-8.0 earthquake strikes just offshore Hokkaidō, Japan.
- 2008 – China launches the spacecraft Shenzhou 7.
- 2009 – U.S. President Barack Obama, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and French President Nicolas Sarkozy, in a joint TV appearance for a G-20 summit, accused Iran of building a secret nuclear enrichment facility.
- 2010 – Mahmoud Abbas speaks at United Nations General Assembly to request that Israel end its policy of building settlements in the West Bank.
September 24
- 622 – Prophet Muhammad completes his hijra from Mecca to Medina.
- 1180 – Manuel I Komnenos, last Emperor of the Komnenian restoration dies. The Byzantine Empire slips into terminal decline.
- 1645 – Battle of Rowton Heath, Parliamentarian victory over a Royalist army commanded in person by King Charles
- 1664 – The Dutch Republic surrenders New Amsterdam to England.
- 1674 – Second Tantrik Coronation of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj.
- 1780 – Benedict Arnold flees to British Army lines when the arrest of British Major John André exposes Arnold's plot to surrender West Point.
- 1789 – The United States Congress passes the Judiciary Act which creates the office of the United States Attorney General and the federal judiciary system, and orders the composition of the Supreme Court of the United States.
- 1841 – The Sultan of Brunei cedes Sarawak to the United Kingdom.
- 1852 – The first airship powered by (a steam) engine, created by Henri Giffard, travels 17 miles (27 km) from Paris to Trappes.
- 1869 – "Black Friday": Gold prices plummet after Ulysses S. Grant orders the Treasury to sell large quantities of gold after Jay Gould and James Fisk plot to control the market.
- 1877 – Battle of Shiroyama, decisive victory of the Imperial Japanese Army over the Satsuma Rebellion
- 1890 – The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints officially renounces polygamy.
- 1906 – U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt proclaims Devils Tower in Wyoming as the nation's first National Monument.
- 1914 – World War I: The Siege of Przemyśl (present-day Poland) begins.
- 1932 – Gandhi and Dr. B. R. Ambedkar agree to the Poona Pact, which reserved seats in the Indian provincial legislatures for the "Depressed Classes" (Untouchables).
- 1935 – Earl Bascom and Weldon Bascom produce the first rodeo ever held outdoors under electric lights at Columbia, Mississippi
- 1937 – Second Sino-Japanese War: The Chinese Eighth Route Army gains a minor, but morale-boosting victory in the Battle of Pingxingguan.
- 1946 – Cathay Pacific Airways is founded in Hong Kong.
- 1946 – Clark Clifford and George Elsey, military advisers to U.S. President Harry S. Truman, present him with a top-secret report on the Soviet Union that first recommends the containment policy.
- 1948 – The Honda Motor Company is founded.
- 1950 – Forest fires black out the sun over portions of Canada and New England. A blue moon (in the astronomical sense) is seen as far away as Europe.
- 1957 – Camp Nou, the largest stadium in Europe, is opened in Barcelona.
- 1957 – President Dwight D. Eisenhower sends 101st Airborne Division troops to Little Rock, Arkansas, to enforce desegregation.
- 1960 – USS Enterprise (CVN-65), the world's first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, is launched.
- 1962 – United States court of appeals orders the University of Mississippi to admit James Meredith.
- 1968 – 60 Minutes debuts on CBS.
- 1968 – Swaziland joins the United Nations.
- 1973 – Guinea-Bissau declares its independence from Portugal.
- 1979 – Compu-Serve launches the first consumer internet service, which features the first public electronic mail service.
- 1988 – National League for Democracy is formed by Aung San Suu Kyi and various others to help fight against dictatorship in Myanmar.
- 1990 – Periodic Great White Spot is observed on Saturn.
- 1996 – Representatives of 71 nations sign the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty at the United Nations.
- 2005 – Hurricane Rita makes landfall in the United States, devastating Beaumont, Texas and portions of southwestern Louisiana.
- 2007 – Between 30,000 and 100,000 people take part in anti-government protests in Yangon, Burma, the largest in 20 years.
- 2008 – The Trump International Hotel and Tower in Chicago is topped off at 1,389 feet (423 m), at the time becoming the world's highest residence above ground-level.
- 2009 – The G20 summit begins in Pittsburgh with 30 global leaders in attendance. It marks the first use of LRAD in U.S. history.
September 23
- 1122 – Pope Calixtus II and Holy Roman Emperor Henry V agree to the Concordat of Worms to put an end to the Investiture Controversy.
- 1409 – Battle of Kherlen, the second significant victory over Ming China by the Mongols since 1368.
- 1459 – Battle of Blore Heath, the first major battle of the English Wars of the Roses, is fought at Blore Heath in Staffordshire.
- 1641 – The Merchant Royal, carrying a treasure worth over a billion US dollars, is lost at sea off Land's End.
- 1642 – First commencement exercises occur at Harvard College.
- 1779 – American Revolution: a squadron commanded by John Paul Jones on board the USS Bonhomme Richard wins the Battle of Flamborough Head, off the coast of England, against two British warships.
- 1780 – American Revolution: British Major John André is arrested as a spy by American soldiers exposing Benedict Arnold's change of sides.
- 1803 – Second Anglo-Maratha War: Battle of Assaye between the British East India Company and the Maratha Empire in India.
- 1806 – Lewis and Clark return to St. Louis after exploring the Pacific Northwest of the United States.
- 1821 – Tripolitsa, Greece, falls and 30,000 Turks are massacred during the Greek War of Independence.
- 1845 – The Knickerbockers Baseball Club, the first baseball team to play under the modern rules, is founded in New York.
- 1846 – Neptune is discovered by French astronomer Urbain Jean Joseph Le Verrier and British astronomer John Couch Adams; the discovery is verified by German astronomer Johann Gottfried Galle.
- 1857 – The Russian warship Lefort capsizes and sinks during a storm in the Gulf of Finland, killing all 826 aboard.
- 1868 – Grito de Lares ("Lares Revolt") occurs in Puerto Rico against Spanish rule.
- 1889 – Nintendo Koppai (Later Nintendo Company, Limited) is founded by Fusajiro Yamauchi to produce and market the playing card game Hanafuda.
- 1905 – Norway and Sweden sign the "Karlstad treaty", peacefully dissolving the Union between the two countries.
- 1908 – University of Alberta in Alberta, Canada, is founded.
- 1909 – The Phantom of the Opera (original title: Le Fantôme de l'Opéra), a novel by French writer Gaston Leroux, is first published as a serialization in Le Gaulois.
- 1932 – The Kingdom of Hejaz and Nejd is renamed the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
- 1936 – First ascent of Siniolchu by a German team.
- 1938 – Mobilization of the Czechoslovak army in response to the Munich Crisis.
- 1941 – World War II: The first gas chamber experiments are conducted at Auschwitz.
- 1942 – World War II: First day of the September Matanikau action on Guadalcanal as United States Marine Corps forces attack Imperial Japanese Army units along the Matanikau River.
- 1943 – World War II: The so-called Salò Republic is born.
- 1952 – Richard Nixon makes his "Checkers speech".
- 1959 – Iowa farmer and corn breeder Roswell Garst hosts Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev.
- 1959 – The MS Princess of Tasmania, Australia’s first passenger roll-on/roll-off diesel ferry, makes her maiden voyage across Bass Strait.
- 1962 – The Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York City opens with the completion of the first building, the Philharmonic Hall (now Avery Fisher Hall) home of the New York Philharmonic.
- 1969 – The Chicago Eight trial opens in Chicago.
- 1972 – Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos announces over television and radio the implementation of martial law.
- 1973 – Juan Perón returns to power in Argentina.
- 1983 – Saint Kitts and Nevis joins the United Nations.
- 1983 – Gerrie Coetzee of South Africa becomes the first African boxing world heavyweight champion.
- 1983 – Gulf Air Flight 771 is bombed, killing all 117 people on board.
- 1986 – Jim Deshaies of the Houston Astros sets the major-league record by striking out the first eight batters of the game against the Los Angeles Dodgers.
- 1988 – José Canseco of the Oakland Athletics becomes the first member of the 40-40 club.
- 1992 – A large Provisional Irish Republican Army bomb destroys forensic laboratories in Belfast.
- 1999 – Celebrate Bisexuality Day was first observed in the United States.
- 1999 – NASA announces that it has lost contact with the Mars Climate Orbiter.
- 1999 – Qantas Flight 1 overruns the runway in Bangkok during a storm. Although some passengers only receive minor injuries, it is still the worst crash in Qantas's history since 1960.
- 2002 – The first public version of the web browser Mozilla Firefox ("Phoenix 0.1") is released.
- 2004 – Hurricane Jeanne: At least 1,070 in Haiti are reported to have been killed by floods.
- 2008 – Kauhajoki school shooting: Matti Saari kills 10 people before committing suicide.
September 22
- 66 – Roman Emperor Nero creates the Legion I Italica.
- 1236 – The Lithuanians and Semigallians defeat the Livonian Brothers of the Sword in the Battle of Saule.
- 1499 – Treaty of Basel: Switzerland becomes an independent state.
- 1586 – Battle of Zutphen: Spanish victory over England and Dutch.
- 1598 – English playwright Ben Jonson kills an actor in a duel and is indicted for manslaughter.
- 1692 – Last people hanged for witchcraft in Britain's North American colonies.
- 1761 – George III and Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz are crowned King and Queen, respectively, of the Kingdom of Great Britain.
- 1776 – Nathan Hale is hanged for spying during American Revolution.
- 1784 – Russia establishes a colony at Kodiak, Alaska.
- 1789 – The office of United States Postmaster General is established.
- 1789 – Battle of Rymnik establishes Alexander Suvorov as a pre-eminent Russian military commander after his allied army defeat superior Ottoman Empire forces.
- 1792 – Primidi Vendémiaire of year 1 of the French Republican Calendar as the French First Republic comes into being.
- 1823 – Joseph Smith, Jr. states he found the Golden plates on this date after being directed by God through the Angel Moroni to the place where they were buried.
- 1851 – The city of Des Moines, Iowa is incorporated as Fort Des Moines.
- 1862 – Slavery in the United States: a preliminary version of the Emancipation Proclamation is released.
- 1866 – Battle of Curupaity in the War of the Triple Alliance.
- 1869 – Richard Wagner's opera Das Rheingold premieres in Munich.
- 1885 – Lord Randolph Churchill makes a speech in Ulster in opposition to Home Rule.
- 1888 – The first issue of National Geographic Magazine is published.
- 1896 – Queen Victoria surpasses her grandfather King George III as the longest reigning monarch in British history.
- 1908 – The independence of Bulgaria is proclaimed.
- 1910 – The Duke of York's Picture House opens in Brighton, now the oldest continually operating cinema in Britain.
- 1919 – The steel strike of 1919, led by the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers, begins in Pennsylvania before spreading across the United States.
- 1927 – Jack Dempsey loses the "Long Count" boxing match to Gene Tunney.
- 1934 – An explosion takes place at Gresford Colliery in Wales, leading to the deaths of 266 miners and rescuers.
- 1937 – Spanish Civil War: Peña Blanca is taken; the end of the Battle of El Mazuco.
- 1939 – Joint victory parade of Wehrmacht and Red Army in Brest-Litovsk at the end of the Invasion of Poland.
- 1941 – World War II: On Jewish New Year Day, the German SS murder 6,000 Jews in Vinnytsya, Ukraine. Those are the survivors of the previous killings that took place a few days earlier in which about 24,000 Jews were executed.
- 1944 – World War II: the Red Army enters Tallinn.
- 1955 – In the United Kingdom, the television channel ITV goes live for the first time.
- 1960 – The Sudanese Republic is renamed Mali after the withdrawal of Senegal from the Mali Federation.
- 1965 – The Indo-Pakistani War of 1965 (also known as the Second Kashmir War) between India and Pakistan over Kashmir, ends after the UN calls for a cease-fire.
- 1975 – Sara Jane Moore tries to assassinate U.S. President Gerald Ford, but is foiled by Oliver Sipple.
- 1979 – The Vela Incident (also known as the South Atlantic Flash) is observed near Bouvet Island, thought to be a nuclear weapons test.
- 1980 – Iraq invades Iran.
- 1991 – The Dead Sea Scrolls are made available to the public for the first time by the Huntington Library.
- 1993 – A barge strikes a railroad bridge near Mobile, Alabama, causing the deadliest train wreck in Amtrak history. 47 passengers are killed.
- 1993 – A Transair Georgian Airlines Tu-154 is shot down by a missile in Sukhumi, Georgia.
- 1994 – the Nordhordland Bridge was opened across the Salhusfjorden between Klauvaneset and Flatøy in Hordaland, Norway. It has no lateral anchorage because of the depth of Salhusfjorden.
- 1995 – An E-3B AWACS crashes outside Elmendorf Air Force Base, Alaska after multiple bird strikes to two of the four engines soon after takeoff; all 24 on board are killed.
- 1995 – Nagerkovil school bombing, is carried out by Sri Lankan Air Force in which at least 34 die, most of them ethnic Tamil school children.
- 2003 – David Hempleman-Adams becomes the first person to cross the Atlantic Ocean in an open-air, wicker-basket hot air balloon.
September 21
- 1217 – Livonian Crusade: The Estonian tribal leader Lembitu and Livonian leader Kaupo are killed in Battle of St. Matthew's Day.
- 1435 – An agreement between Charles VII of France and Philip the Good ends the partnership between the English and Burgundy in Hundred Years' War.
- 1745 – Battle of Prestonpans: A Hanoverian army under the command of Sir John Cope is defeated, in ten minutes, by the Jacobite forces of Prince Charles Edward Stuart
- 1776 – Part of New York City is burned shortly after being occupied by British forces.
- 1780 – American Revolutionary War: Benedict Arnold gives the British the plans to West Point.
- 1792 – The National Convention declares France a republic and abolishes the monarchy.
- 1827 – Joseph Smith, Jr. is reportedly visited by the angel Moroni, who gave him a record of gold plates, one-third of which Smith has translated into The Book of Mormon.
- 1860 – In the Second Opium War, an Anglo-French force defeats Chinese troops at the Battle of Palikao.
- 1896 – British force under Horatio Kitchener takes Dongola in the Sudan.
- 1897 – The "Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus" editorial is published in the New York Sun.
- 1898 – Empress Dowager Cixi seizes power and ends the Hundred Days' Reform in China.
- 1921 – A storage silo in Oppau, Germany, explodes, killing 500-600 people.
- 1934 – A large typhoon hits western Honshū, Japan, killing 3,036 people.
- 1937 – J. R. R. Tolkien's The Hobbit is published.
- 1938 – The Great Hurricane of 1938 makes landfall on Long Island in New York. The death toll is estimated at 500-700 people.
- 1939 – Romanian Prime Minister Armand Calinescu is assassinated by ultranationalist members of the Iron Guard.
- 1942 – On the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur, Nazis send over 1,000 Jews of Pidhaytsi (west Ukraine) to Belzec extermination camp.
- 1942 – In Poland, at the end of Yom Kippur, Germans order Jews to permanently evacuate Konstantynów and move to the Ghetto in Biała Podlaska, established to assemble Jews from seven nearby towns, including Janów Podlaski, Rossosz and Terespol.
- 1942 – In Dunaivtsi, Ukraine, Nazis murder 2,588 Jews.
- 1942 – The B-29 Superfortress makes its maiden flight.
- 1953 – LT No Kum-Sok a North Korean pilot defected to South Korea and is associated with Operation Moolah.
- 1961 – Maiden flight of the CH-47 Chinook transportation helicopter.
- 1964 – Malta becomes independent from the United Kingdom.
- 1964 – The North American XB-70 Valkyrie, the world's first Mach 3 bomber, makes its maiden flight from Palmdale, California.
- 1965 – Gambia, Maldives and Singapore are admitted as members of the United Nations.
- 1971 – Bahrain, Bhutan and Qatar join the United Nations.
- 1972 – Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos signs Proclamation № 1081, placing the entire country under martial law.
- 1976 – Orlando Letelier is assassinated in Washington, D.C. He is a member of the Chilean socialist government of Salvador Allende, overthrown in 1973 by Augusto Pinochet.
- 1976 – Seychelles joins the United Nations.
- 1981 – Belize is granted full independence from the United Kingdom.
- 1981 – Sandra Day O'Connor is unanimously approved by the U.S. Senate as the first female Supreme Court justice.
- 1984 – Brunei joins the United Nations.
- 1991 – Armenia is granted independence from Soviet Union.
- 1993 – Russian President Boris Yeltsin suspends parliament and scraps the then-functioning constitution, thus triggering the Russian constitutional crisis of 1993.
- 1999 – Chi-Chi earthquake occurs in central Taiwan, leaving about 2,400 people dead.
- 2001 – Deep Space 1 flies within 2,200 km of Comet Borrelly.
- 2001 – America: A Tribute to Heroes is broadcast by over 35 network and cable channels, raising over $200 million for the September 11 attack victims.
- 2003 – Galileo mission is terminated by sending the probe into Jupiter's atmosphere, where it is crushed by the pressure at the lower altitudes.
