1783 Treaty of Paris signed in Paris ends the American Revolutionary War between Great Britain and United States of America.

1939 German submarine U-30, commanded by Oberleutnant Fritz-Julius Lemp, sinks British passenger ship SS Athenia; 117 people die, among them 28 Americans.

1939 World War II: Britain declares war on Germany after invasion of Poland. France follows 6 hours later quickly joined by Australia, New Zealand, South Africa & Canada.

1940 Adolf Hitler orders an invasion of Great Britain for Sept 21 (Operation Seelöwe/Sealion)

1940 US gives Britain 50 destroyers in exchange for Newfoundland base lease.

1941 1st use of Zyclon-B gas in Auschwitz (on Russian prisoners of war)

1944 Holocaust diarist Anne Frank sent to Auschwitz concentration camp.

1954 The German U-Boat U-505 began its move from a specially constructed dock to its final site at Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry.

1886 Apache Chief Geronimo surrenders ending last major US-Indian war.

1914 France, Russia, and Britain agree in a Pact of London that none will make a separate peace.

1939 Netherlands & Belgium declare neutrality.

1940 Nazi collaborator Mussert puts the fate of Netherlands in Hitler's hands.

1941 US destroyer Greer fires on German submarine U-652

1945 US regains possession of Wake Island from Japan.

1970 An Irish Republican Army (IRA) member, Michael Kane (35), is killed in the premature explosion of the bomb he was planting at an electricity transformer in Belfast.

1666 After St Paul's Cathedral and much of the city had been burned down over four days, The Great Fire of London is finally extinguished.

1886 Queen Victoria establishes Distinguished Service Order (DSO)

1913 1st aircraft to loop the loop - Adolphe Pégoud in France.

1997 Funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales held at Westminster Abbey in London.

7th September 1940 1st day of the Blitz of London for 57 conscutive days and nights


The September raid caught the RAF off guard all of eleventh groups fighters were up covering airfields as the German bomber fleets crossed the coast they turned north west to the east end port area London burned Raf Fighter Command regrouped.
This was the turning point in the Battle of Britain German bombers had further to go and come back also they would loose much of their fighter protection german fighters could only stay 10 minuets over London also Liegh Mallorys so called big wing of 12th Groups fighters were now close enough to join the battle.


https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q...tail&FORM=VIRE

1812 Battle of Borodino: Napoleon Bonapartre wins a pyrrhic victory against Russian General Mikhail Kutuzov in the most ferocious battle of the Napoleonic era, 70,000 are killed.

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

1940 Beginning of The Blitz as the German Luftwaffe bomb London for the 1st of 57 consecutive nights losing 41 bombers as the Nazis prepare to invade Britain.

1942 First flight of the Consolidated B-32 Dominator.

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

1914 HMS (formerly RMS) Oceanic, two weeks into its service with the Royal Navy, runs aground off, Foula, Shetland, Scotland in good weather and eventually sinks.

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

1941 WWII: 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 are lost.

1944 1st V-2 rockets land in London & Antwerp.

1966 The Severn Bridge between England and Wales is officially opened by Queen Elizabeth II

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

1994 Last US, British & French troops leave West Berlin.

1894 London taxi driver George Smith is the first to be fined for drunk driving.

1919 NYC welcomes home General John J. Pershing and 25,000 WWI soldiers.

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

1940 Buckingham Palace hit by German bomb in London.

1942 British RAF drops 100,000 bombs on Dusseldorf, Germany.

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

1945 Vidkun Quisling sentenced to death for collaborating with Nazis.

1939 British submarine Triton torpedoes British submarine Oxley.

1940 Nazi Germany begins Operation Seelöwe (Sealion - aborted invasion of England)

1941 FDR orders US Navy that any Axis ship found in American waters be shot at on sight.

1945 Hideki Tojo, Japanese Prime Minister during most of World War II, attempts suicide rather than face war crimes tribunal but fails - later he is hanged.

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.

/\ This being a naval forum...
 

1814: An American fleet scored a decisive victory over the British in the Battle of Lake Champlain in the war of 1812.:arrgh!:

1941 FDR orders US Navy that any Axis ship found in American waters be shot at on sight.

This is an interesting one because CinC Eastern Seaboard, US Admiral King, would have nothing to do with intercepts passed on by the UK because he was vehemently anti English. He left the seaboard lit up, he refused to organise US shipping into the suggested convoy system and as a result US civilians died in horrific circumstances on 175 ships during what the German U Boats called the 'happy time'. When NO precautions were taken. One U Boat commander logged. Sat on the surface off Coney Island watching the people enjoying themselves on the fun fair. A ship passed, highlighted against the fair lights, we sank it".

Roosevelt called Admiral King's lack of action as criminal. I don't know what was done. Gross dereliction of duty comes to mind. He should have been executed as 'giving succour to the enemy'

1792 Court martial begins for instigators of the mutiny on the Bounty on board HMS Duke in Portsmouth harbour, presided over by Vice-Admiral Samuel Hood.

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 1st German ship in WW II captured by US ship (Busko)

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

1990 US, United Kingdom, France, USSR, East & West Germanys sign agreements allowing 2 Germanys to merge.

2003 The United Nations lifts sanctions against Libya after that country agreed to accept responsibility and recompense the families of victims in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103.

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 harbour.

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

1918 WWI: Austria-Hungary sends a note to the Allies requesting peace discussions, but the Allies reject the offer.

1939 First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill visits Scapa Flow, Orkney.

1939 World’s 1st practical helicopter, the VS-300 designed by Igor Sikorsky takes (tethered) flight in Stratford, Connecticut.

1942 German troops occupy train station Stalingrad-1

1942 US Navy Admiral Chester Nimitz presents the 1st Medal of Honor of WWII, for courage and valor beyond the call of duty during the attack on Pearl Harbor, to sailor John William Finn; ceremony took place in Pearl Harbor aboard USS Enterprise.

1956 IBM introduces the RAMAC 305, 1st commercial computer with a hard drive that uses magnetic disk storage, weighs over a ton.

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.

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.

1928 Scottish bacteriologist Alexander Fleming discovers penicillin while studying influenza.

1938 British PM Neville Chamberlain visits Adolf Hitler at Berchtesgaden.

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

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.

1942 US aircraft carrier Wasp torpedoed at Guadalcanal.

1944 British bombers hit German battleship Tirpitz with Tallboy bombs.

1948 F-86 Sabre sets world aircraft speed record of 1080 kph

1970 Officers of the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) in Northern Ireland vote narrowly in favour of remaining unarmed.

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.

1934 USSR joins League of Nations (Netherland, Switzerland & Portugal vote no)

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.