1630 – The city of Boston is founded.
1778 – The Treaty of Fort Pitt is signed. It is the first formal treaty between the United States and a Native American tribe.
1859 – Joshua A. Norton declares himself “Norton I, Emperor of the United States.”
1862 – American Civil War: George B. McClellan halts the northward drive of Robert E. Lee’s Confederate Army in the single-day Battle of Antietam, the bloodiest day in American military history.
1908 – The Wright Flyer flown by Orville Wright, with Lieutenant Thomas Selfridge as passenger, crashes, killing Selfridge, who becomes the first airplane fatality.
1916 – World War I: Manfred von Richthofen (“The Red Baron”), a flying ace of the German Luftstreitkrдfte, wins his first aerial combat near Cambrai, France.
1939 – World War II: The Soviet invasion of Poland begins.
1939 – World War II: German submarine U-29 sinks the British aircraft carrier HMS Courageous.
1941 – World War II: Soviet forces enter Tehran during the Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran.
1954 – The novel Lord of the Flies by William Golding is first published.
1991 – The first version of the Linux kernel (0.01) is released to the Internet.
2001 – The New York Stock Exchange reopens for trading after the September 11 attacks, the longest closure since the Great Depression.
2006 – Fourpeaked Mountain in Alaska erupts, marking the first eruption for the volcano in at least 10,000 years.
2011 – Occupy Wall Street movement begins in Zuccotti Park.
