1907 Ocean liner RMS Lusitania begins her maiden voyage sailing from Liverpool to New York City.

1909 Eugene Lefebvre becomes first pilot to die in an airplane craft, while test piloting new French-built Wright biplane at Juvisy.

1940 Beginning of The Blitz as the German Luftwaffe bomb London for the first of 57 consecutive nights losing 41 bombers as the Germans prepare to invade Britain.

1664 Dutch surrender colony of New Netherlands (including New York) to 300 English soldiers.

1858 Abraham Lincoln supposedly says in a speech "You may fool all the people some of the time; you can even fool some of the people all the time; but you can’t fool all of the people all the time"

1914 HMS (formerly RMS) Oceanic, sister ship of RMS Titanic, sinks off Scotland.

1914 Private Thomas Highgate becomes the first British soldier to be executed for desertion during WW1

1941 Siege of Leningrad by German, Finnish, and eventually Spanish troops begins; battle lasted over 28 months, as Russia repels the invasion; well over a million lives.

1944 First V-2 rockets land in London and Antwerp.

1948 British De Havilland DH108-fighter flies faster than sound.

1974 US President Gerald Ford pardons former President Richard Nixon of all federal crimes.

1543 Mary Stuart, at nine months old, is crowned "Queen of Scots" in the central Scottish town of Stirling.

1776 Congress officially renames the country as the United States of America (from the United Colonies)

1914 First fully mechanized unit in the British Army created - the Canadian Automobile Machine Gun Brigade (WWI)

1943 15 German JU-88's sink Italian flag ship Roma.

1945 Japanese in South Korea, Taiwan, China, Indochina surrender to Allies.

2015 Queen Elizabeth II becomes Great Britain's longest-reigning monarch at 63 years and seven months, beating the previous record set by her great-great-grandmother, Queen Victoria.

1776 George Washington asks for a spy volunteer, Nathan Hale volunteers.

1813 American Naval Commander Oliver Hazard Perry defeats the British in Battle of Lake Erie.

1905 Japanese battleship Mikasa explodes.

1939 Canada, under the leadership of Mackenzie King, declares war on Germany.

1940 Buckingham Palace hit by German bomb.

1942 RAF drops 100,000 bombs on Dusseldorf.

1943 German troops occupy Rome and take took over the protection of Vatican City.

1943 Italian fleet anchors at Malta.

1944 Lieutenant-General Frederick Browning against Montgomery "But, sir, I think we might be going a bridge too far"

1945 Vidkun Quisling sentenced to death for collaborating with Nazis.

1945 Mike the Headless Chicken is decapitated in Fruita, Colorado; he survives for another 18 months before choking to death.

2001 Two passenger planes hijacked by Al Qaeda terrorists crash into New York's World Trade Towers causing the collapse of both and deaths of 2,606 people.

2001 Terrorists hijack a passenger plane and crash it into the Pentagon causing the deaths of 125 people.

2001 Attempt by passengers and crew of United Airlines Flight 93 to retake control of their hijacked plane from terrorists causes plane to crash in Pennsylvania field killing all 64 people on board.

1919 Adolf Hitler joins the obscure German Worker's Party as its seventh member, agreeing not with worker's rights, but with its German Nationalism and antisemitism.

1933 Leó Szilárd, waiting for a red light on Southampton Row in Bloomsbury, conceives idea of a nuclear chain reaction.

1941 First German ship in WW II captured by US ship (Busko)

1943 Waffen-SS (Skorzeny) frees Benito Mussolini at Gran Sasso.

1944 Second Quebec Conference: Franklin D. Roosevelt, Winston Churchill and the Combined Chiefs of Staff meet in Quebec City, Canada to discuss Allied occupation zones, the Morgenthau Plan, U.S. Lend-Lease aid to Britain and the role of the Royal Navy.

1970 Supersonic airliner Concorde lands for the first time at Heathrow airport.

The inspiration for 9/11!!??
 

1907 Lusitania arrives in New York City after record 5 day crossing of Atlantic.

1940 Buckingham Palace damaged by German bombs.

1942 German forces attack Stalingrad.

1944 Amon Göth removed as head of Kraków-Płaszów concentration camp by the SS for stealing state property.

1971 Two North Ireland Loyalists are mortally injured when the bomb they were preparing exploded prematurely in a house in Bann Street, Belfast.

1812 Great Fire of Moscow begins as Napoleon approaches the city and retreating Russians burn it - fire continues to burn for five days.

1814 Francis Scott Key pens the poem "Defence of Fort M'Henry", later known as "The Star-Spangled Banner" while witnessing the bombardment of Fort McHenry from a ship in Baltimore harbor.

1914 Lord Kitchener: "Your country needs you" appears as front cover design for the London Opinion magazine.

1942 German troops occupy train station Stalingrad-1

1958 Two rockets designed by the German engineer Ernst Mohr, the first German post-war rockets, reach the upper atmosphere.

1971 Two British soldiers are killed in separate shooting incidents in County Tyrone, Northern Ireland.

1978 The Provisional Irish Republican Army explode over 50 bombs in towns across Northern Ireland over the next 5 days, injuring 37 people.

2001 Historic National Prayer Service held at Washington National Cathedral for victims of the September 11 attacks. A similar service is held in Canada on Parliament Hill, the largest vigil ever held in the nation's capital.

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14 September 1962: At Edwards Air Force Base, in the high desert of southern California, Major Fitzhugh L. Fulton, Jr., United States Air Force, with Captain William R. Payne, USAF, and civilian flight test engineer C.R. Haines, flew a Convair B-58A-10-CF Hustler, serial number 59-2456, to a record 26,017.93 meters (85,360.66 feet) while carrying a 5,000 kilogram payload. This set a Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI) World Record for Altitude in both the 2,000 kilogram (4,409.25 pounds) and 5,000 kilogram (11,023.11 pounds) classes.

https://www.thisdayinaviation.com/14...FIsnQfKqkZ7C4k

1812 French army under Napoleon Bonaparte reaches the Kremlin in Moscow.

1916 first use of tanks in warfare, "Little Willies" at Battle of Flers-Courcelette, part of the Battle of the Somme.

1931 British naval fleet mutinies at Invergordon over pay cuts.

1938 British PM Neville Chamberlain visits Adolf Hitler at Berchtesgaden.

1940 UK Prime Minister Winston Churchill visits Royal Air Force 11th Fighter Group on what would be the fiercest day of the Battle of Britain.

1940 Battle of Britain Day: climax of the Battle of Britain, tide begins to turn as the Royal Air Force repulses a major Luftwaffe attack, losing 29 aircraft to the Germans' 57-61

1944 British bombers hit German battleship Tirpitz with Tallboy bombs.

1966 First British nuclear ballistic missile submarine HMS Resolution launched.

1620 The Mayflower departs Plymouth, England, with 102 Pilgrims and about 30 crew for the New World.

1941 Adolf Hitler orders that for every dead German, 100 Yugoslavs should be killed.

1942 Japanese attack on Port Moresby repelled.

1974 US President Gerald Ford announces conditional amnesty for US Vietnam War deserters.

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Today in Naval History

September 16

1814
A squadron from the schooner USS Carolina attacks and raids the base of the pirate Jean Lafitte, at Barataria, La., capturing six schooners and other small craft while the pirates flee the attack.

1823
Samuel Southard becomes the seventh Secretary of the Navy, serving until March 3, 1829. During his tenure, he enlarges the Navy, improves administration, purchases land for the first Naval Hospitals, begins construction of the first Navy dry docks, undertakes surveying U.S. coastal waters and promotes exploration in the Pacific Ocean.

1854
Mare Island, Calif. becomes the first permanent U.S. naval installation on the west coast, with Cmdr. David G. Farragut as its first base commander.

1922
Cmdr. Halsey Powell in USS Edsall (DD 219 becomes the senior officer directing the evacuation of 250,000 Greek refugees from Turkey after war between Greece and Turkey.

1944
USS Barb (SS 220) sinks the Japanese 11,700-ton tanker, Azusa, and the 20,000-ton escort carrier, Unyo, 200 miles southeast of Hong Kong. Additionally, while off Yokosuka, Japan, USS Sea Devil (SS 400) sinks the Japanese submarine I-364.

1947
The National Security Act becomes effective after the bill signed by President Harry S. Truman on July 26, 1947. The Act realigns and reorganizes the U.S. Armed Forces, foreign policy, and Intelligence Community apparatus in the aftermath of World War II. The Act merges the Department of War and the Department of the Navy into the National Military Establishment, headed by the Secretary of Defense, Adm. James Forrestal.

1958
USS Grayback (SSG 574) fires the first operational launch of a Regulus II surface-to- surface guided missile, while off the coast of California.

1966
USS Oriskany (CVA 34) helicopters rescue 44 men of British merchant ship, Aug. Moon, as she was breaking up in heavy seas on Pratas Reef 175 miles southeast of Hong Kong.

1994
USS Charlotte (SSN 766) is commissioned at Naval Station Norfolk. The 16th of the Los Angeles-class(improved) attack submarines, the boat is the fourth Navy ship to be named for the North Carolina city.

1916 WWI flying ace The Red Baron of the German Luftstreitkräfte, wins his first aerial combat near Cambrai, France.

1929 British troops begin withdrawal from occupied Germany.

1938 British premier Neville Chamberlain leaves Munich.

1939 German U-29 sinks British aircraft carrier Courageous, 519 die.

1939 Soviet Union invades Eastern Poland allowing Germans to advance West, taking 217,000 Poles prisoner, without a formal declaration of war.

1940 Adolf Hitler indefinitely postpones Operation Sealion, the planned German invasion of Great Britain.

1944 Operation Market Garden: In the largest airborne operation of WWII, Allied paratroopers land in the Netherlands in a failed attempt to capture the Arnhem bridge over the Rhine.

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Today in Naval History
September 17

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2S-lput9DY&t=1s

1787
The Continental Convention signs the Constitution of the United States at Philadelphia, Pa., replacing the Articles of the Confederation. Named in honor of the Constitution, USS Constitution is launched in 1797 and to date is the world's oldest commissioned U.S. Navy ship in service.

1852
A party of Marines from USS Jamestown land at Buenos Aires, Argentina, to protect Americans during a revolution. During this time, USS Jamestown serves as part of the Brazil Squadron.

1861
During the Civil War, a landing party from USS Massachusetts takes possession of Ship Island, Miss., forcing the Confederates to evacuate.

1902
Landing parties of Marines and Sailors from the sternwheel gunboat USS Cincinnati go ashore at Coln, Panama (later Colombia) to protect American property during a period of unrest.

1944
The Naval Task Force under Rear Adm. William H. P. Blandy lands Army troops on Angaur, Palau Islands, supported by Navy carrier aircraft from USS Wasp (CV 7)and shore bombardment from USS Tennessee. Two days later, Marines land. On Sept. 20, the island is declared secure.

2011
USNS Spearhead (JHSV 1) is christened and launched at Mobile, Ala. The joint high-speed vessel provides rapid transport of military equipment and personnel in theater.