September 15: Day of the year

September 15 is the 258th day of the year (259th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 107 days remaining until the end of the year.

Up to 1900

• 668 – Eastern Roman Emperor Constans II is murdered in his bath.
• 1440 – Gilles de Rais, one of the earliest-known serial killers, is taken into custody upon an accusation brought against him by the Bishop of Nantes.
• 1616 – The first non-aristocratic free public school in Europe is opened in Frascati, Italy.
• 1762 – Seven Years' War: Battle of Signal Hill.
• 1776 – American Revolutionary War: British forces land at Kip's Bay, during the New York Campaign.
• 1789 – The United States Department of State is founded, as the Department of Foreign Affairs.
• 1812 – The French army under Napoleon Bonaparte enters Moscow.
• 1812 – War of 1812: A second supply train sent to relieve Fort Harrison is ambushed in the Attack of the Narrows.
• 1820 – Constitutionalist Revolution in Lisbon
• 1821 – Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua and Costa Rica jointly declare independence from Spain.
• 1830 – The Liverpool to Manchester railway line opens. On the same day, William Huskisson becomes the first railway fatality after being hit by a locomotive.
• 1835 – The HMS Beagle arrives in the Galapagos Islands with a young Charles Darwin on board.
• 1851 – Saint Joseph's University is founded in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
• 1862 – American Civil War: Confederate forces capture Harper's Ferry, then in Virginia, now in West Virginia.
• 1873 – Franco-Prussian War: The last German troops leave France.
• 1875 – Indianola, Texas, is destroyed by a Hurricane, killing between 150 and 300 people.
• 1894 – First Sino-Japanese War: Japan defeats China in the Battle of Pyongyang.

1901 – 2000

• 1916 – World War I: Tanks are used in battle for the first time, in the Somme, northern France.
• 1935 – With the Nuremberg Laws, the Nazis strip Jews of German citizenship.
• 1935 – The Nazis adopt the Swastika flag as the flag of Germany.
• 1940 – World War II: Climax of the Battle of Britain.
• 1942 – World War II: United States Navy aircraft carrier USS Wasp is torpedoed at Guadalcanal, present-day Solomon Islands.
• 1944 – World War II: The Battle of Peleliu (in Palau), between US and Japanese forces, begins.
• 1944 – World War II: Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt meet in Quebec as part of the Octagon conference to discuss strategy.
• 1945 – A hurricane in South Florida and the Bahamas destroys 366 planes and 25 blimps at NAS Richmond
• 1947 – Typhoon Kathleen kills 1,077 people in the Kanto region of Japan.
• 1948 – The F-86 Sabre sets the world aircraft speed record, at 671 miles per hour (1,080 kilometres per hour).
• 1949 – Konrad Adenauer becomes the first Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany.
• 1950 – Korean War: US forces land at Inchon.
• 1952 – The UN gives Eritrea to Ethiopia.
• 1958 – A Central Railroad of New Jersey commuter train runs through an open drawbridge at the Newark Bay, killing 58 people.
• 1959 – Nikita Khrushchev becomes the first Soviet leader to visit the US.
• 1961 – Hurricane Carla hits Texas.
• 1962 – Soviet ship Poltava heads towards Cuba, one of the events that lead to the Cuban Missile Crisis.
• 1963 – "Birmingham Sunday" when a bomb killed 4 black girls in a church in Birmingham, Alabama.
• 1966 – US President Lyndon B. Johnson, responding to a sniper attack at the University of Texas at Austin, writes a letter to United States Congress urging the enactment of gun control legislation.
• 1968 – The Soviet Zond 5 spaceship is launched, becoming the first spacecraft to fly around the Moon and re-enter Earth's atmosphere.
• 1969 – US ice breaker tanker SS Manhattan passes through the Northwest Passage, after four weeks.
• 1972 – Scandinavian Airlines System domestic flight from Gothenburg to Stockholm, Sweden, is hijacked and flown to Malmo Bulltofta Airport.
• 1973 – Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden becomes King.
• 1975 – The French department of Corse, on the island of Corsica, is divided in two, into Haute-Corse and Corse-du-Sud.
• 1981 – Vanuatu joins the UN.
• 1981 – The Senate Judiciary Committee approves Sandra Day O'Connor to become a Justice on the United States Supreme Court, being the first female in such a role.
• 1983 – Prime Minister of Israel Menachem Begin resigns.
• 1990 – France announces it will send 4,000 troops to the Persian Gulf.
• 1991 – Bangladesh becomes a parliamentary democracy.
• 1993 – Hans-Adam II, Prince of Liechtenstein disbands his country's parliament.
• 1994 – For the first time, a planet outside the Solar System is discovered.
• 1997 – New York City's Museum of Jewish Heritage opens.
• 2000 – The 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney begin.

From 2001

• 2007 – Former world Rally champion Colin McRae dies in a helicopter crash in Lanarkshire, Scotland, along with his son and two family friends.
• 2008 – Lehman Brothers files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
• 2011 – A parliamentary election is held in Denmark, resulting in Helle Thorning-Schmidt becoming Prime Minister on October 3.
• 2015 – Malcolm Turnbull replaces Tony Abbott as Prime Minister of Australia.
• 2015 – Aksel V. Johannesen becomes Prime Minister of the Faroe Islands.
• 2017 – 2017 Parsons Green bombing: An explosive device is detonated on a tube train near London's Parsons Green station, injuring 30 people.
• 2017 – The Cassini space probe's mission is ended, as it is plunged into Saturn's atmosphere.

Up to 1800

• 1254 – Marco Polo, Italian explorer (d. 1324)
• 1533 – Catherine of Austria, Queen Consort of Poland and Lithuania (d. 1572)
• 1580 – Charles Annibal Fabrot, French lawyer (d. 1659)
• 1603 – Tokugawa Yorifusa, Japanese daimyo (d. 1661)
• 1613 – François de la Rochefoucauld, French author (d. 1680)
• 1649 – Titus Oates, English priest (d. 1705)
• 1666 – Sophia Dorothea of Celle, German princess (d. 1726)
• 1675 – Vakhtang VI of Kartli, Georgian King (d. 1737)
• 1676 – Stanislaw Poniatowski, Polish politician (d. 1762)
• 1690 – Ignazio Prota, Italian composer and music educator (d. 1748)
• 1715 – Jean-Baptiste Vaquette de Gribeauval, French general and engineer (d. 1789)
• 1736 – Jean-Silvain Bailly, French politician and astronomer (d. 1793)
• 1756 – Carl Philipp Moritz, German writer (d. 1793)
• 1760 – Bogislav Friedrich Emanuel von Tauentzien, Prussian general (d. 1824)
• 1761 – Cornelio Saavedra, Argentine politician (d. 1829)
• 1765 – Bocage, Portuguese poet (d. 1805)
• 1787 – Guillaume-Henri Dufour, Swiss humanist, general, politician, mapmaker and engineer (d. 1875)
• 1789 – James Fenimore Cooper, American writer (d. 1851)
• 1800 – Paul-Frederick, Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin (d. 1842)

1801 – 1900

• 1808 – John Hutton Balfour, Scottish botanist (d. 1884)
• 1811 – Charles de Mornay, French politician (d. 1865)
• 1814 – Ferdinand von Arnim, German architect (d. 1866)
• 1815 – Halfdan Kjerulf, Norwegian composer (d. 1868)
• 1825 – Iwakura Tomomi, Japanese statesman (d. 1883)
• 1828 – Alexander Butlerov, Russian chemist (d. 1886)
• 1830 – Porfirio Díaz, President of Mexico (d. 1915)
• 1834 – Heinrich von Treitschke, German historian and publicist (d. 1896)
• 1852 – Edward Bouchet, American physicist (d. 1918)
• 1857 – William Howard Taft, 27th President of the United States (d. 1930)
• 1858 – Charles de Foucauld, French monk (d. 1916)
• 1860 – Visvesvaraya, Indian engineer, scholar and politician (d. 1962)
• 1863 – Horatio Parker, American composer (d. 1919)
• 1875 – Henry D. Hatfield, American politician, 14th Governor of West Virginia (d. 1962)
• 1876 – Bruno Walter, German conductor (d. 1962)
• 1876 – Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay, Bengali writer (d. 1938)
• 1877 – Jakob Ehrlich, Austrian politician and Zionist (d. 1938)
• 1877 – Yente Serdatzky, Lithuanian-American author and playwright (d. 1962)
• 1879 – Joseph Lyons, 10th Prime Minister of Australia (d. 1939)
• 1881 – Ettore Bugatti, Italian automobile engineer and designer (d. 1947)
• 1883 – Esteban Teradas i Illa, Spanish mathematician and engineer (d. 1950)
• 1886 – Paul Lévy, French mathematician (d. 1971)
• 1887 – Carlos Dávila, President of Chile (d. 1955)
• 1888 – Antonio Ascari, Italian racing driver (d. 1925)
• 1889 – Robert Benchley, American writer (d. 1945)
• 1890 – Agatha Christie, English writer (d. 1976)
• 1894 – Jean Renoir, French movie director (d. 1979)
• 1895 – Magda Lupescu, consort of King Carol II of Romania (d. 1977)

1901 – 1925

• 1903 – Roy Acuff, American Country musician (d. 1992)
• 1903 – Yisrael Kristal, Polish-born Israeli supercentenarian and Holocaust survivor (d. 2017)
• 1904 – King Umberto II of Italy (d. 1983)
• 1905 – Pat O'Callaghan, Irish hammer thrower (d. 1991)
• 1907 – Alfred Delp, German Jesuit and Resistance activist (d. 1945)
• 1907 – Fay Wray, Canadian-American actress (d. 2004)
• 1908 – Misko Kranjec, Slovenian writer (d. 1983)
• 1909 – C. N. Annadurai, Indian politician, 7th Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu (d. 1969)
• 1911 – Karsten Solheim, Norwegian-American golf entrepreneur (d. 2000)
• 1911 – Luther Terry, 9th Surgeon General of the United States (d. 1985)
• 1913 – John N. Mitchell, United States Attorney General (d. 1988)
• 1913 – Johannes Steinhoff, German military officer (d. 1994)
• 1914 – Adolfo Bioy Casares, Argentine writer (d. 1999)
• 1914 – Jens Otto Krag, Prime Minister of Denmark (d. 1978)
• 1915 – Helmut Schön, German footballer and manager (d. 1996)
• 1916 – Margaret Lockwood, English actress (d. 1990)
• 1918 – Margot Loyola, Chilean musician and singer (d. 2015)
• 1919 – Nelson Gidding, American screenwriter (d. 2004)
• 1919 – Fausto Coppi, Italian cyclist (d. 1960)
• 1922 – Jackie Cooper, American actor (d. 2011)
• 1922 – Bob Anderson, British fencer and sword fight choreographer (d. 2012)
• 1922 – Mary Soames, Baroness Soames, daughter of Winston Churchill (d. 2014)
• 1924 – György Lázár, 50th Prime Minister of Hungary (d. 2014)
• 1925 – Carlo Rambaldi, Italian special effects artist (d. 2012)
• 1925 – Helle Virkner, Danish actress (d. 2009)

1926 – 1950

• 1926 – Jean-Pierre Serre, French mathematician
• 1926 – Shohei Imamura, Japanese movie director (d. 2006)
• 1926 – Ed Derwinski, American politician (d. 2012)
• 1927 – Val Holten, Australian cricketer (d. 2015)
• 1927 – Norm Crosby, American comedian and actor
• 1928 – Cannonball Adderley, American jazz musician (d. 1975)
• 1929 – Murray Gell-Mann, American physicist (d. 2019)
• 1929 – Mümtaz Soysal, Turkish politician and lawyer (d. 2019)
• 1929 – Eva Burrows, 13th General of the Salvation Army (d. 2015)
• 1930 – Merab Mamardashvili, Georgian philosopher (d. 1990)
• 1933 – Henry Darrow, American actor
• 1933 – Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, Spanish composer and conductor (d. 2014)
• 1935 – Patriarch Dinkha IV of the Assyrian Church of the East (d. 2015)
• 1936 – Ashley Cooper, Australian tennis player
• 1937 – Robert Lucas, Jr., American economist
• 1937 – Fernando de la Rúa, former President of Argentina (d. 2019)
• 1938 – Gaylord Perry, American baseball player
• 1940 – Merlin Olsen, American football player and actor (d. 2010)
• 1941 – Flórián Albert, Hungarian footballer (d. 2011)
• 1941 – Signe Toly Anderson, American singer (d. 2016)
• 1941 – Yuriy Norshteyn, Russian animator, director and screenwriter
• 1941 – Viktor Zubkov, former Prime Minister of Russia
• 1941 – Miroslaw Hermaszewski, Polish cosmonaut
• 1942 – Wen Jiabao, former Premier of the People's Republic of China
• 1942 – Emmerson Mnangagwa, 3rd President of Zimbabwe
• 1942 – Lee Dorman, American bass player (d. 2012)
• 1944 – Graham Taylor, English footballer and manager (d. 2017)
• 1944 – Mauro Piacenza, Italian cardinal
• 1945 – Hans-Gert Pöttering, German politician
• 1945 – Carmen Maura, Spanish actress
• 1945 – Jessye Norman, American singer (d. 2019)
• 1945 – Ron Shelton, American screenwriter, director and movie producer
• 1945 – Muqrin bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, Saudi prince
• 1946 – Ola Brunkert, Swedish musician (d. 2008)
• 1946 – Tommy Lee Jones, American actor
• 1946 – Oliver Stone, American movie director
• 1946 – Mike Procter, South African cricketer, coach and referee
• 1947 – Viggo Jensen, Danish footballer and manager
• 1949 – Joe Barton, American politician
• 1950 – Mirza Masroor Ahmad, Islamic spiritual leader

1951 – 1975

• 1951 – Johan Neeskens, Dutch footballer
• 1952 – Richard Brodeur, Canadian ice hockey player
• 1954 – Hrant Dink, Turkish-Armenian newspaper editor (d. 2007)
• 1954 – Nava Semel, Israeli author and playwright (d. 2017)
• 1955 – Bruce Reitherman, American movie maker
• 1955 – Abdul Qadir, Pakistani cricketer (d. 2019)
• 1955 – Renzo Rosso, Italian fashion designer
• 1955 – Brendan O'Carroll, Irish actor
• 1956 – Maggie Reilly, Scottish singer
• 1958 – Dr. Know, American guitarist
• 1959 – Mark Kirk, American politician
• 1960 – Katsuyoshi Shinto, Japanese footballer
• 1961 – Dan Marino, American football player
• 1961 – Colin McFarlane, English voice actor
• 1962 – Rebecca Miller, American actress, director and writer
• 1964 – Robert Fico, former Prime Minister of Slovakia
• 1966 – Sherman Douglas, American basketball player
• 1967 – Huw Bunford, Welsh guitarist and songwriter (Super Furry Animals)
• 1969 – Revaz Arveladze, Georgian footballer
• 1970 – Svetlana Zakharova, Russian long-distance runner
• 1971 – Josh Charles, American actor
• 1972 – Jimmy Carr, British comedian
• 1972 – Queen Letizia of Spain
• 1973 – Daniel Westling, Swedish royal
• 1973 – Julie Cox, British actress
• 1973 – Alyn Smith, Scottish politician
• 1974 – Murat Yakin, Swiss footballer

From 1976

• 1976 – Paul Thomson, Scottish musician
• 1977 – Angela Aki, Japanese singer-songwriter
• 1977 – Sophie Dahl, British model
• 1977 – Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Nigerian writer
• 1977 – Tom Hardy, English actor, screenwriter and producer
• 1977 – René Haselbacher, Austrian cyclist
• 1977 – Jason Terry, American basketball player
• 1978 – Eidur Gudjohnsen, Icelandic footballer
• 1978 – Kew Jaliens, Dutch footballer
• 1979 – Patrick Marleau, Canadian ice hockey player
• 1979 – Carlos Ruiz, Guatemalan footballer
• 1979 – Amy Davidson, American actress
• 1980 – Mike Dunleavy, Jr., American basketball player
• 1980 – Jolin Tsai, Taiwanese singer
• 1981 – Miyavi, Japanese composer, singer and guitarist
• 1983 – Ashleigh McIvor, Canadian freestyle skier
• 1983 – Tomas Sivok, Czech footballer
• 1983 – Santeri Palin, Finnish writer
• 1984 – Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, British royal
• 1986 – Heidi Montag, American television personality and singer
• 1986 – Anan Anwar, Thai singer and actor
• 1986 – Peter Wilson, English sport shooter and Olympic gold medalist
• 1986 – Poppy Delevingne, English model
• 1987 – Clare Maguire, English singer-songwriter
• 1988 – Chelsea Kane, American actress and singer
• 1988 – Kate Mansi, American actress
• 1990 – Gwyneth Keyworth, Welsh actress
• 1996 – Jake Cherry, American actor
• 1996 – Nao Furuhata, Japanese idol and singer
• 1999 – Nana Owada, Japanese idol singer and actress

Up to 1900

• 668 – Constans II, Emperor (b. 630)
• 921 – Saint Ludmila of Bohemia, Bohemian martyr (b. 860)
• 1134 – Alfonso the Battler, King of Aragon and Navarra (b. 1073)
• 1231 – Louis I, Duke of Bavaria (b. 1173)
• 1326 – Dmitry of Tver (b. 1299)
• 1352 – Ewostatewos, Ethiopian monk and religious leader (b. 1273)
• 1750 – Charles Theodore Pachelbel, German composer (b. 1690)
• 1794 – Abraham Clark, Signer of the Declaration of Independence (b. 1725)
• 1803 – Gian Francesco Albani, Italian cardinal (b. 1719)
• 1805 – Christopher Gadsden, American soldier and statesman (b. 1724)
• 1830 – William Huskisson, English politician, first rail fatality (b. 1770)
• 1835 – Sarah Knox Taylor, wife of Jefferson Davis (b. 1814)
• 1841 – Alessandro Rolla, Italian violinist and composer (b. 1757)
• 1842 – Pierre Baillot, French violinist and composer (b. 1771)
• 1842 – Francisco Morazan, President of Central America (b. 1792)
• 1859 – Isambard Kingdom Brunel, British engineer (b. 1806)
• 1864 – John Hanning Speke, British explorer (b. 1827)
• 1875 – Duchenne de Boulogne, French psychologist (b. 1806)
• 1883 – Joseph Plateau, Belgian physicist (b. 1801)
• 1885 – Jumbo, African elephant (b. 1861)
• 1891 – John Steell, Scottish sculptor (b. 1804)
• 1893 – Thomas Hawksley, English engineer (b. 1807)

1901 – 2000

• 1926 – Rudolf Christoph Eucken, German writer (b. 1846)
• 1930 – Milton Sills, American actor (b. 1882)
• 1938 – Thomas Wolfe, American writer (b. 1900)
• 1940 – William B. Bankhead, American politician (b. 1874)
• 1945 – André Tardieu, French statesman (b. 1876)
• 1945 – Anton Webern, Austrian composer and conductor (b. 1883)
• 1972 – Geoffrey Fisher, Archbishop of Canterbury (b. 1887)
• 1972 – Asgeir Asgeirsson, second President of Iceland (b. 1894)
• 1973 – King Gustav VI Adolf of Sweden, King of Sweden (b. 1882)
• 1973 – Victor Jara, Chilean musician (b. 1932)
• 1975 – Pavel Sukhoi, Russian aircraft designer (b. 1895)
• 1978 – Willy Messerschmidt, German aircraft designer (b. 1898)
• 1979 – Tommy Leonetti, American singer-songwriter and actor (b. 1929)
• 1981 – Harold Bennett, English actor (b. 1899)
• 1985 – Cootie Williams, American trumpeter (b. 1910)
• 1989 – Robert Penn Warren, American writer (b. 1905)
• 1995 – Gunnar Nordahl, Swedish footballer (b. 1921)
• 1998 – Luke Rasminsky, Canadian economist (b. 1908)

From 2001

• 2001 – June Salter, Australian actress (b. 1932)
• 2004 – Johnny Ramone, American guitarist (The Ramones) (b. 1948)
• 2005 – Sidney Luft, American director (b. 1915)
• 2006 – Oriana Fallaci, Italian journalist and writer (b. 1929)
• 2007 – Colin McRae, Scottish rally driver (b. 1968)
• 2008 – Richard Wright, English musician (Pink Floyd) (b. 1943)
• 2009 – Timothy Bateson, English actor (b. 1926)
• 2014 – Post Bahadur Bogati, Nepalese politician (b. 1953)
• 2014 – Yitzhak Hofi, Israeli general (b. 1927)
• 2014 – Eugene I. Gordon, American physicist (b. 1930)
• 2014 – John Anderson, Jr., American politician, Governor of Kansas (b. 1917)
• 2014 – Jackie Cain, American jazz singer (b. 1928)
• 2014 – Jeremy Ball, Australian actor and politician (b. 1969)
• 2015 – Meir Pa'il, Israeli politician and military historian (b. 1926)
• 2015 – Bernard Van De Kerckhove, Belgian racing driver (b. 1941)
• 2015 – Mihai Volontir, Moldovan actor (b. 1934)
• 2015 – Harry J. Lipkin, Israeli nuclear physicist (b. 1921)
• 2017 – María Cristina Arango Vega, First Lady of Colombia (b. 1928)
• 2017 – Violet Brown, Jamaican supercentenarian (b. 1900)
• 2017 – Dwijen Sharma, Bangladeshi naturalist and science writer (b. 1929)
• 2017 – Harry Dean Stanton, American actor (b. 1926)
• 2017 – Albert Speer Jr., German architect (b. 1934)
• 2018 – Kirin Kiki, Japanese actress (b. 1943)
• 2018 – Dudley Sutton, English actor (b. 1933)
• 2018 – José Manuel de la Sota, Argentine politician (b. 1949)
• 2018 – Victor Veselago, Soviet-Russian physicist (b. 1929)
• 2018 – Fritz Wintersteller, Austrian mountaineer (b. 1927)
• 2018 – Zhu Xu, Chinese actor (b. 1930)
• 2019 – Chadlia Caid Essebsi, First Lady of Tunisia (b. 1936)
• 2019 – Lol Mahamat Choua, 4th President of Chad (b. 1939)
• 2019 – Roberto Leal, Portuguese-Brazilian singer-songwriter (b. 1951)
• 2019 – Phyllis Newman, American actress and singer (b. 1933)
• 2019 – Ric Ocasek, American singer, songwriter and record producer (b. 1944)
• 2019 – Mike Stefanik, American racing driver (b. 1958)

• Battle of Britain Day (United Kingdom)
• Grito de Dolores (Mexico)
• Independence Day (Guatemala, El Salvador, Costa Rica, Honduras, Nicaragua)
• International Day of Democracy
• Engineers' Day (India)