September 12 in History

The Battle of Marathon took place in 490 BC during the first Persian invasion of Greece. It was fought between the citizens of Athens, aided by Plataea, against a Persian force commanded by Datis and Artaphernes. The battle was the culmination of the first attempt by Persia under King Darius I to subjugate Greece. The Greek army inflicted a crushing defeat on the more numerous Persians, marking a turning point in the Greco-Persian Wars. The first Persian invasion was a response to Athenian involvement in the Ionian Revolt, when the city-states of Athens and Eretria each sent a force to support the cities of Ionia in their attempt to overthrow Persian rule. The Athenians and Eretrians had succeeded in capturing and burning Sardis, but they were then forced to retreat with heavy losses. In response to this raid, Darius swore to burn down the two cities that had aided the failed revolt. According to Herodotus, Darius had his bow brought to him and then shot an arrow "upwards towards heaven", saying as he did so: "Zeus, that it may be granted me to take vengeance upon the Athenians!" Herodotus further writes that Darius charged one of his servants to say "Master, remember the Athenians" three times before dinner each day. At the time of the battle, Sparta and Athens were the two largest city-states in Greece. Once the Ionian revolt was finally crushed by the Persian victory at the Battle of Lade in 494 BC, Darius began making plans to subjugate Greece. In 490 BC, he sent a naval task force under Datis and Artaphernes across the Aegean Sea, to subjugate the Cyclades islands and then to make punitive attacks on Athens and Eretria. Reaching the island of Euboea in mid-summer after a successful campaign in the Aegean, the Persians proceeded to besiege and capture Eretria. The Persian force then sailed for Attica, landing in the bay near the town of Marathon. The Athenians, joined by a small force from Plataea, marched to Marathon, and succeeded in blocking the two exits from the plain of Marathon. The Athenians also sent a message to the Spartans asking for support. When the messenger arrived in Sparta, the Spartans were already involved in a religious festival and gave this as a reason for not coming to help the Athenians. The Athenians and their allies chose a location for the battle, with marshes and mountainous terrain, that prevented the Persian cavalry from joining the Persian infantry. Miltiades, the Athenian general, ordered a general attack against the Persian forces, composed primarily of missile troops. He reinforced his flanks, luring the Persians' best fighters into his center. The inward wheeling flanks enveloped the Persians, routing them. The Persian army broke in panic towards their ships, and large numbers were slaughtered. The defeat at Marathon marked the end of the first Persian invasion of Greece, and the Persian force retreated to Asia. Darius then began raising a huge new army with which he meant to completely subjugate Greece; however, in 486 BC, his Egyptian subjects revolted, indefinitely postponing any Greek expedition. After Darius died, his son Xerxes I restarted the preparations for a second invasion of Greece, which finally began in 480 BC. The Battle of Marathon was a watershed in the Greco-Persian wars, showing the Greeks that the Persians could be beaten; the eventual Greek triumph in these wars can be seen to have begun at Marathon. The battle also showed the Greeks that they were able to win battles without the Spartans, as Sparta was seen as the major military force in Greece. This victory was overwhelmingly won by the Athenians, and Marathon raised Greek esteem of them. The following two hundred years saw the rise of the Classical Greek civilization, which has been enduringly influential in Western society, and so the Battle of Marathon is often seen as a pivotal moment in Mediterranean and European history, and is often celebrated today.

Isaac II Komnenos Angelos or Angelus (Greek: Ἰσαάκιος Κομνηνός Ἄγγελος, romanized: Isaákios Komnēnós Ángelos; September 1156 – 28 January 1204) was Byzantine Emperor from 1185 to 1195, and co-Emperor with his son Alexios IV Angelos from 1203 to 1204. In an 1185 revolt against the Emperor Andronikos Komnenos, Isaac seized power and rose to the Byzantine throne, establishing the Angelos family as the new imperial dynasty. His father Andronikos Doukas Angelos was a military leader in Asia Minor (c. 1122 – aft. 1185) who married Euphrosyne Kastamonitissa (c. 1125 – aft. 1195). Andronikos Doukas Angelos was the son of Constantine Angelos and Theodora Komnene (b. 15 January 1096/1097), the youngest daughter of Emperor Alexios I Komnenos and Irene Doukaina. Thus Isaac was a member of the extended imperial clan of the Komnenoi.

The Albigensian Crusade, also known as the Cathar Crusade (1209–1229), was a military and ideological campaign initiated by Pope Innocent III to eliminate Catharism in Languedoc, what is now southern France. The Crusade was prosecuted primarily by the French crown and promptly took on a political aspect. It resulted in the significant reduction of practicing Cathars and a realignment of the County of Toulouse with the French crown. The distinct regional culture of Languedoc was also diminished.

The Battle of Portopí (12 September 1229) was an open field military conflict between the Almohad troops that occupied the island of Majorca and the Christian army led by King James I the Conqueror with the aim of annexing it to the Crown of Aragon in order to expand their domain and return it back to Christiandom. It was carried out at various points in the current Sierra de Na Burguesa (formerly called Sierra de Portopí), approximately halfway between the current resort town of Santa Ponsa and the City of Majorca (present Palma de Mallorca). It was the second major battle in the campaign for the conquest of the island of Majorca initiated by the Aragonese king.

The Treaty of Alcañices or Treaty of Alcanises was signed in Alcañices between King Denis of Portugal and King Fernando IV of Castile in 1297. Denis was the grandson of King Alfonso X of Castile and essentially an administrator and not a warrior king. He went to war with the kingdom of Castile in 1295, relinquishing the villages of Serpa and Moura, but gained Olivença and reaffirmed Portugal's possession of the Algarve and defined the modern borders between the two Iberian countries. The treaty also established an alliance of friendship and mutual defense, leading to a peace of 40 years between the two nations. Fernando then married Denis's daughter, Infanta Constance of Portugal, making her Queen of Castile. The only area still disputed is the village of Olivenza, which was under Portuguese sovereignty from 1297 to 1801, when it was occupied by Spain during the War of the Oranges and ceded that year under the Treaty of Badajoz, treaty which was declared null by Portugal during the Congress of Vienna. As of today, Spain controls the village.

The first siege of Gibraltar was a battle of the Spanish Reconquista that took place in 1309. The battle pitted the forces of the Crown of Castile (mostly those from the military councils of the city of Seville) under the command of Juan Núñez II de Lara and Alonso Pérez de Guzmán, against the forces of the Emirate of Granada who were under the command of Sultan Muhammed III and his brother, Abu'l-Juyush Nasr. The battle resulted in a victory for the Crown of Castile, one of the few victories in what turned out to be a disastrous campaign. The taking of Gibraltar greatly increased the relative power of Castile on the Iberian Peninsula though the actual city was later recaptured by Muslim forces during the third siege of Gibraltar in 1333.

Henry Hudson (c. 1565 – disappeared 23 June 1611) was an English sea explorer and navigator during the early 17th century, best known for his explorations of present-day Canada and parts of the Northeastern United States. In 1607 and 1608, Hudson made two attempts on behalf of English merchants to find a rumoured Northeast Passage to Cathay via a route above the Arctic Circle. In 1609, he landed in North America on behalf of the Dutch East India Company and explored the region around the modern New York metropolitan area. Looking for a Northwest Passage to Asia on his ship Halve Maen ("Half Moon"), he sailed up the Mahicannittuk (Mohican), (a.k.a., Ka'nón:no [Mohawk] and Muhheakantuck [Lenape]), later named the Hudson River, and thereby laid the foundation for Dutch colonization of the region. His contributions to the exploration of the New World were significant and lasting. His voyages helped to establish European contact with the native peoples of North America and contributed to the development of trade and commerce. On his final expedition, while still searching for the Northwest Passage, Hudson became the first European to see Hudson Strait and the immense Hudson Bay. In 1611, after wintering on the shore of James Bay, Hudson wanted to press on to the west, but most of his crew mutinied. The mutineers cast Hudson, his son, and six others adrift; what then happened to the Hudsons and their companions is unknown.

On 12 September 1634, a Hospitaller gunpowder factory in Valletta, Malta accidentally blew up, killing 22 people and causing severe damage to a number of buildings. The factory had been built at some time in the late 16th or early 17th centuries, replacing an earlier one in Fort St. Angelo in Birgu. It was located in the lower part of Valletta, close to the Slaves' Prison. The explosion damaged the nearby Jesuit church and college. The church's façade was rebuilt in around 1647 by the architect Francesco Buonamici, while the damaged parts of the college were also rebuilt after the explosion. The gunpowder factory was not rebuilt. In around 1667, a new factory was constructed in Floriana, far away from any residential areas. This factory was incorporated into the Ospizio complex in the early 18th century.

The Great Turkish War was a series of conflicts between the Ottoman Empire and the Holy League consisting of the Holy Roman Empire, Poland-Lithuania, Venice, Russia, and the Kingdom of Hungary. Intensive fighting began in 1683 and ended with the signing of the Treaty of Karlowitz in 1699. The war was a resounding defeat for the Ottoman Empire, which for the first time lost substantial territory, in Hungary and the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, as well as in part of the western Balkans. The war was also the first instance of Russia joining an alliance with Western Europe. The French did not join the Holy League, as France had agreed to reviving an informal Franco-Ottoman alliance in 1673, in exchange for Louis XIV being recognized as a protector of Catholics in the Ottoman domains. Initially, Louis XIV took advantage of the conflict to extend France's eastern borders, seizing Luxembourg in the War of the Reunions, but deciding that it was unseemly to be fighting the Holy Roman Empire at the same time of its struggle with the Ottomans, he agreed to the Truce of Ratisbon in 1684. However, as the Holy League made gains against the Ottoman Empire, capturing Belgrade by 1688, the French began to worry that their Habsburg rivals would grow too powerful and eventually turn on France. Therefore, the French besieged Philippsburg on 27 September 1688, breaking the truce and triggering the separate Nine Years' War against the Grand Alliance, which included the Dutch Republic, the Holy Roman Empire and, after the Glorious Revolution, England as well. The war drew Imperial resources to the west and relieved the Turks. This was partially compensated by the entrance of Russia into the war in 1687. While the war started off with the Ottomans facing Imperial forces in the west, the Venetians to the south, and Poland-Lithuania to the north, which stretched Ottoman military resources across multiple fronts. As a result, they positioned about 60,000 men against the Holy Roman Empire, 37,000 against the Polish-Lithuanians, 35,000 against the Venetians, and a smaller force against Russians between 1684 and 1687. As a result, the advance made by the Holy League stalled, allowing the Ottomans to retake Belgrade in 1690. The war then fell into a stalemate, and peace was concluded in 1699, which began following the Battle of Zenta in 1697 when an Ottoman attempt to retake their lost possessions in Hungary was crushed by the Holy League. The war largely overlapped with the Nine Years' War (1688–1697), which took up the vast majority of the Habsburgs' attention while it was active. In 1695, for instance at the height of Imperial military deployment in the west, the Holy Roman Empire states had 263,000 troops in the field, with England, the Dutch Republic, and Spain contributing another 173,000, specifically to the conflict against France. Of those 263,000, only 74,000, or about one quarter, were positioned against the Turks; ~190,000 were positioned against the French. Overall, from 1683 to 1699, the Imperial States had on average 88,100 men fighting the Turks, while from 1688 to 1697, they had on average 127,410 fighting the French.

The Battle of North Point was fought on September 12, 1814, between General John Stricker's Maryland Militia and a British force led by Major-general Robert Ross. Although the Americans were driven from the field, they were able to do so in good order having inflicted significant casualties on the British, killing Ross and demoralizing the troops under his command. Some of Ross's units became lost among woods and swampy creeks during the battle, with others in similar states of confusion. This combination of setbacks prompted Colonel Arthur Brooke to delay the British advance against Baltimore, giving to the Americans valuable time so to properly prepare for the defense of the city as Stricker was retreating back to the main defenses to bolster the existing force. The engagement was a part of the larger Battle of Baltimore, an American victory in the War of 1812.

The Mexican–American War, also known in the United States as the Mexican War and in Mexico as the United States intervention in Mexico, was an invasion of Mexico by the United States. It followed the 1845 American annexation of Texas, which Mexico still considered its territory because it refused to recognize the Treaties of Velasco, signed by President Antonio López de Santa Anna after he was captured by the Texian Army during the 1836 Texas Revolution. The Republic of Texas was de facto an independent country, but most of its Anglo-American citizens who had moved from the United States to Texas after 1822 wanted to be annexed by the United States.

The rise of federalism in Switzerland began on 12 September 1848, with the creation of a federal constitution in response to a 27-day civil war, the Sonderbundskrieg. The 1848 constitution represented the first time, other than when the short-lived Helvetic Republic had been imposed, that the Swiss had a central government instead of being simply a collection of autonomous cantons bound by treaties.

SS Central America, known as the Ship of Gold, was a 280-foot (85 m) sidewheel steamer that operated between Central America and the East Coast of the United States during the 1850s. She was originally named the SS George Law, after George Law of New York. The ship sank in a hurricane in September 1857, along with 425 of her 578 passengers and crew and 30,000 pounds (13,600 kg) of gold, contributing to the Panic of 1857.

Harare is the capital and largest city of Zimbabwe. The city proper has an area of 982.3 km2 (379.3 sq mi), a population of 1,849,600 as of the 2022 census, and an estimated 2,487,209 people in its metropolitan province. The city is situated in north-eastern Zimbabwe in the country's Mashonaland region. Harare Metropolitan Province incorporates the city and the municipalities of Chitungwiza, Epworth and Ruwa. The city sits on a plateau at an elevation of 1,483 metres above sea level, and its climate falls into the subtropical highland category.

The Tirah campaign, often referred to in contemporary British accounts as the Tirah expedition, was an Indian frontier campaign from September 1897 to April 1898. Tirah is a mountainous tract of country in what was formerly known as Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan, now Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

The Newport Transporter Bridge (Welsh: Pont Gludo Casnewydd) is a transporter bridge that crosses the River Usk in Newport, South East Wales. The bridge is the lowest crossing on the river. Built in 1906, it is a Grade I listed structure. Only a few dozen transporter bridges were ever built, and fewer than 10 remain in use worldwide. The Newport bridge has been the only operational transporter bridge in Britain since 2019 when the Tees Transporter Bridge was closed as unsafe. It was closed in 2025 for extensive repairs, which are expected to wrap up in late 2026.

Gustav Mahler was an Austro-Bohemian Romantic composer, and one of the leading conductors of his generation. As a composer he acted as a bridge between the 19th-century tradition and the modernism of the early 20th century. While in his lifetime his status as a conductor was established beyond question, his own music gained wide popularity only after periods of relative neglect, which included a ban on its performance in much of Europe during the Nazi era. After 1945 his compositions were rediscovered by a new generation of listeners; Mahler then became one of the most frequently performed and recorded of all composers, a position he has sustained into the 21st century.

The Armenian genocide was the systematic destruction of the Armenian people and identity in the Ottoman Empire during World War I. Spearheaded by the ruling Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), it was implemented primarily through the mass murder of around one million Armenians during death marches to the Syrian desert and the forced Islamization of others, primarily women and children.

Southern Rhodesia was a landlocked, self-governing colony of the British Empire in what is today the country of Zimbabwe. The colony's territory was initially conquered and administered by the British South Africa Company (BSAC), which was founded in 1888 by Cecil Rhodes for the purpose of occupying and settling the region. Following years of growing white immigration into the region, in 1922 the settler minority voted to reject entering into a union with South Africa in favour of establishing a settler-run legislative assembly under the framework of responsible government.

Leo Szilard (; Hungarian: Leó Szilárd [ˈlɛoː ˈsilaːrd]; born Leó Spitz; February 11, 1898 – May 30, 1964) was a Hungarian-born American physicist, biologist, and inventor who made numerous important discoveries in nuclear physics and the biological sciences. He conceived the nuclear chain reaction in 1933, and patented the idea in 1936. In late 1939 he wrote the Einstein–Szilard letter for Albert Einstein's signature that resulted in the Manhattan Project that built the atomic bomb, and then in 1945 wrote the Szilard petition asking president Harry S. Truman to demonstrate the bomb without dropping it on civilians. According to György Marx, he was one of the Hungarian scientists known as The Martians. Szilard initially attended Palatine Joseph Technical University in Budapest, but his engineering studies were interrupted by service in the Austro-Hungarian Army during World War I. He left Hungary for Germany in 1919, enrolling at Technische Hochschule (Institute of Technology) in Berlin-Charlottenburg (now Technische Universität Berlin), but became bored with engineering and transferred to Friedrich Wilhelm University, where he studied physics. He wrote his doctoral thesis on Maxwell's demon, a long-standing puzzle in the philosophy of thermal and statistical physics. Szilard was the first scientist of note to recognize the connection between thermodynamics and information theory. Szilard coined and submitted the earliest known patent applications and the first publications for the concept of the electron microscope (1928), the cyclotron (1929), and also contributed to the development of the linear accelerator (1928) in Germany. Between 1926 and 1930, he worked with Einstein on the development of the Einstein refrigerator. After Adolf Hitler became chancellor of Germany in 1933, Szilard urged his family and friends to flee Europe while they still could. He moved to England, where he helped found the Academic Assistance Council, an organization dedicated to helping refugee scholars find new jobs. While in England, he discovered a means of isotope separation known as the Szilard–Chalmers effect, alongside Thomas A. Chalmers. Foreseeing another war in Europe, Szilard moved to the United States in 1938, where he worked with Enrico Fermi and Walter Zinn on means of creating a nuclear chain reaction. He was present when this was achieved within the Chicago Pile-1 on December 2, 1942. He worked for the Manhattan Project's Metallurgical Laboratory at the University of Chicago on aspects of nuclear reactor design, where he was the chief physicist. He drafted the Szilard petition advocating a non-lethal demonstration of the atomic bomb, but the Interim Committee chose to use them in a military strike instead. Together with Enrico Fermi, he applied for a nuclear reactor patent in 1944. He publicly sounded the alarm against the possible development of salted thermonuclear bombs, a new kind of nuclear weapon that might annihilate mankind. His inventions, discoveries, and contributions related to biological science are also equally important; they include the discovery of feedback inhibition and the invention of the chemostat. According to Theodore Puck and Philip I. Marcus, Szilard gave essential advice which made the earliest cloning of the human cell a reality. Diagnosed with bladder cancer in 1960, he underwent a cobalt-60 treatment that he had designed. He helped found the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, where he became a resident fellow. Szilard founded Council for a Livable World in 1962 to deliver "the sweet voice of reason" about nuclear weapons to Congress, the White House, and the American public. He died in his sleep of a heart attack in 1964.

Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Germany in the Nazi era from 1933 until his suicide in 1945. He rose to power as the leader of the Nazi Party, becoming the chancellor of Germany in 1933 and then taking the title of Führer und Reichskanzler in 1934. Germany's invasion of Poland on 1 September 1939 under his leadership marked the outbreak of the Second World War. Throughout the ensuing conflict, Hitler was closely involved in the direction of German military operations and was central to the perpetration of the genocide of about six million Jews in the Holocaust as well as the deaths of millions of other victims.

In archaeology, cave paintings are a type of parietal art, found on the wall or ceilings of caves. The term usually implies prehistoric origin. Several groups of scientists suggest that the oldest of such paintings were created not by Homo sapiens, but by Denisovans and Neanderthals, though this is contested.

World War II, or the Second World War, was a global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies and the Axis powers. Nearly all of the world's countries participated, with many engaging in total war on an unprecedented scale. World War II was the deadliest conflict in history, causing the deaths of 60 to 75 million people, a majority of whom were civilians. Millions died as a result of massacres, starvation, disease, and genocides including the Holocaust. After the Allied victory, Germany, Austria, Japan, and Korea were occupied, and German and Japanese leaders were tried for war crimes.

The Battle of Edson's Ridge, also known as the Battle of the Bloody Ridge, Battle of Raiders Ridge, and Battle of the Ridge, was a land battle of the Pacific campaign of World War II between the Imperial Japanese Army and Allied (mainly United States Marine Corps) ground forces. It took place from 12 to 14 September 1942, on Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands, and was the second of three separate major Japanese ground offensives during the Guadalcanal campaign. In the battle, U.S. Marines under the overall command of U.S. Major General Alexander Vandegrift repulsed an attack by the Japanese 35th Infantry Brigade under the command of Japanese Major General Kiyotake Kawaguchi. The Marines were defending the Lunga perimeter that guarded Henderson Field on Guadalcanal, which was captured from the Japanese by the Allies in landings on Guadalcanal on 7 August 1942. Kawaguchi's unit was sent to Guadalcanal in response to the Allied landings with the mission of recapturing the airfield and driving the Allied forces from the island. Underestimating the strength of Allied forces on Guadalcanal—over 12,000 men—Kawaguchi's 6,000 soldiers conducted several nighttime frontal assaults on the U.S. defenses. The main Japanese assault occurred around Lunga ridge south of Henderson Field, defended by troops from several U.S. Marine Corps units, primarily troops from the 1st Raider and 1st Parachute Battalions under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Merritt A. Edson. Although the Marine defenses were almost overrun, Kawaguchi's attack was ultimately defeated after fierce fighting, with heavy losses for the Japanese. Because of the key participation by Edson's unit in defending the ridge, the ridge was commonly referred to as "Edson's" ridge in historical accounts of the battle in Western sources. After Edson's Ridge, the Japanese continued to send troops to Guadalcanal for further attempts to retake Henderson Field, affecting Japanese offensive operations in other areas of the South Pacific. According to the participants on both sides, Edson's Ridge was the closest the Japanese came to winning the overall battle for Guadalcanal.

The Gran Sasso raid on 12 September 1943 freed Benito Mussolini from imprisonment in a hotel on the Gran Sasso d'Italia massif. The World War II operation was codenamed Operation Oak (German: Unternehmen Eiche) by the German military. This raid, carried out by German paratroopers and Waffen-SS was personally ordered by Adolf Hitler, approved by General Kurt Student, and planned and executed by Major Harald Mors. Hauptsturmführer Otto Skorzeny’s role was more opportunistic and subordinate, at best. Operation Oak was marketed as a stunning military feat by Nazi propagandists, aiming to provide a morale boost at a low point in the war for Germany. In fact, the Germans controlled the territory around the hotel and were never in great danger.

World War II in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia began on 6 April 1941, when the country was invaded and swiftly conquered by Axis forces and partitioned among Germany, Italy, Hungary, Bulgaria and their client regimes. Shortly after Germany attacked the USSR on 22 June 1941, the Comintern issued directives to all communist parties to come to the Soviet Union's aid, following which the communist-led Yugoslav Partisans launched a guerrilla liberation war fighting against the Axis forces and their locally established puppet regimes, including the Axis-allied Independent State of Croatia (NDH) and the Government of National Salvation in the German-occupied territory of Serbia. This was dubbed the National Liberation War and Socialist Revolution in post-war Yugoslav communist historiography. Simultaneously, a multi-side civil war was waged between the Yugoslav communist Partisans, the Serbian royalist Chetniks, the Axis-allied Croatian Ustaše and Home Guard, Serbian Volunteer Corps and State Guard, Slovene Home Guard, as well as Nazi-allied Russian Protective Corps troops.

John Fitzgerald Kennedy, also known as JFK, was the 35th president of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963. He was the youngest person elected president, at 43 years, and the first Catholic president. Kennedy served at the height of the Cold War, and the majority of his foreign policy concerned relations with the Soviet Union and Cuba. A member of the Democratic Party, Kennedy represented Massachusetts in both houses of the United States Congress before his presidency.

Jack St. Clair Kilby was an American electrical engineer who took part, along with Robert Noyce of Fairchild Semiconductor, in the realization of the first integrated circuit while working at Texas Instruments in 1958. For this invention, Kilby shared the 2000 Nobel Prize in Physics.

The Soviet Union, officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from its formation in 1922 until its dissolution in 1991. It was the world's third-most populous country, the largest by area, and bordered twelve other countries. A diverse multinational state, it was organized as a federal union of national republics, with the largest and most populous being the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (SFSR). The world's flagship communist state, it was governed by the Communist Party under Marxism–Leninism, through soviet councils. The Soviet economy was also centrally planned. Its capital and largest city was Moscow.

Bonanza is an American Western television series that ran on NBC from September 12, 1959, to January 16, 1973. Lasting 14 seasons and 431 episodes, Bonanza is NBC's longest-running Western, the second-longest-running Western series on American network television, and one of the longest-running, live-action American series. The show continues to air in syndication. The show is set in the 1860s and centers on the wealthy Cartwright family, who live in the vicinity of Virginia City, Nevada, bordering Lake Tahoe. The series initially starred Lorne Greene, Pernell Roberts, Dan Blocker and Michael Landon and later featured Guy Williams, David Canary, Mitch Vogel and Tim Matheson. The show is known for presenting pressing moral dilemmas.

The African and Malagasy Union (AMU) was an intergovernmental organization created to promote cooperation among newly independent states in Francophone Africa. The organization derives its name from the name of the continent of Africa and from the former Malagasy Republic, now Madagascar. Created in 1961, the scope and form of the organization changed significantly from 1963-1966, and ultimately disbanded in 1985.

Air France Flight 2005 of 12 September 1961 was a scheduled international passenger flight from Paris-Orly Airport to Casablanca Airport with a stop at Rabat-Salé Airport. The Sud Aviation Caravelle aircraft crashed that day at 21:09 GMT near a place called Douar Doum 8.4 kilometres from the threshold of runway 04 and 1.4 kilometres to the left of the extended centreline at a height of 87.5 metres (287 ft) above sea level, killing all 77 people on board, including 6 crew members. The weather was foggy and unfavourable for landing.

John Fitzgerald Kennedy, also known as JFK, was the 35th president of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963. He was the youngest person elected president, at 43 years, and the first Catholic president. Kennedy served at the height of the Cold War, and the majority of his foreign policy concerned relations with the Soviet Union and Cuba. A member of the Democratic Party, Kennedy represented Massachusetts in both houses of the United States Congress before his presidency.

Gemini 11 was the ninth crewed spaceflight mission of NASA's Project Gemini, which flew from September 12 to 15, 1966. It was the 17th crewed American flight and the 25th spaceflight to that time. Astronauts Pete Conrad and Dick Gordon performed the first direct-ascent rendezvous with an Agena Target Vehicle, docking with it 1 hour 34 minutes after launch; used the Agena rocket engine to achieve a record high-apogee Earth orbit; and created a small amount of artificial gravity by spinning the two spacecraft connected by a tether. Gordon also performed two extra-vehicular activities for a total of 2 hours 41 minutes.

Philippine Air Lines Flight 158 was a flight from Mactan–Cebu International Airport to Manila International Airport near Manila which crashed on September 12, 1969. The aircraft, a BAC One-Eleven, struck a mango tree on the hill in sitio Kulaike, Antipolo, Rizal, located 22 km (12 nmi) east of its destination while on a VOR approach to runway 24. Of the 42 passengers and five crew members on board, only one passenger and one flight attendant survived. It was the deadliest aviation accident in the Philippines involving commercial aircraft until the crash of Philippine Airlines Flight 206 in 1987 and the deadliest involving a BAC One-Eleven until it was surpassed by Austral Líneas Aéreas Flight 9 in 1977.

In September 1970, members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) hijacked four airliners bound for New York City and one for London. Three aircraft were forced to land at Dawson Field, a remote desert airstrip near Zarqa, Jordan, formerly Royal Air Force Station Zarqa, which then became PFLP's "Revolutionary Airport". By the end of the incident, one hijacker had been killed and one injury reported. This was the second instance of mass aircraft hijacking, after three aircraft from communist Czechoslovakia were hijacked and taken to Munich, West Germany, in 1950.

Haile Selassie I was Emperor of Ethiopia from 1930 to 1974. He rose to power as the Regent Plenipotentiary of Ethiopia under Empress Zewditu between 1916 and 1930.

Several independent sectors of South African society opposed apartheid through various means, including nonviolent resistance, civil disobedience, guerrilla warfare, terrorism, and conventional warfare. Mass action against the ruling National Party (NP) government, coupled with South Africa's growing international isolation and economic sanctions, were instrumental in leading to negotiations to end apartheid, which began formally in 1990 and ended with South Africa's first multiracial elections under a universal franchise in 1994.

The 43rd government of Turkey, also known as the 6th Demirel Government or the Unwillingly Nationalist Front Government, was a minority government led by Süleyman Demirel of Justice Party (AP).

On September 12, 1980, Florida Commuter Airlines Flight 65, operating from West Palm Beach, Florida to Freeport, Bahamas, crashed into the Atlantic Ocean near West End Settlement on Grand Bahama Island. The Douglas DC-3A used on the flight was not recovered and all 34 persons on board were killed.

Wells Fargo & Company is an American multinational financial services company. The company operates in 35 countries and serves more than 70 million customers worldwide. It is a systemically important financial institution according to the Financial Stability Board, and is considered one of the "Big Four Banks" in the United States, alongside JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, and Citigroup.

The Soviet Union, officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from its formation in 1922 until its dissolution in 1991. It was the world's third-most populous country, the largest by area, and bordered twelve other countries. A diverse multinational state, it was organized as a federal union of national republics, with the largest and most populous being the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (SFSR). The world's flagship communist state, it was governed by the Communist Party under Marxism–Leninism, through soviet councils. The Soviet economy was also centrally planned. Its capital and largest city was Moscow.

Dwight Eugene Gooden, nicknamed "Dr. K" and "Doc", is an American former professional baseball pitcher who played 16 seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB). Gooden pitched from 1984 to 1994 and from 1996 to 2000 for the New York Mets, New York Yankees, Cleveland Indians, Houston Astros, and Tampa Bay Devil Rays. In a career spanning 430 games, he pitched 2,800+2⁄3 innings and posted a win–loss record of 194–112, with a 3.51 earned run average (ERA), and 2,293 strikeouts.

Hurricane Gilbert was a large and extremely powerful tropical cyclone that formed during the 1988 Atlantic hurricane season, which peaked as a Category 5 hurricane. The storm brought widespread destruction to the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico, and is tied with 1969's Hurricane Camille as the third-most intense tropical cyclone at landfall in the Atlantic Ocean. It was also the most intense tropical cyclone on record in the Atlantic basin in terms of barometric pressure, until it was surpassed by Hurricane Wilma in 2005. Gilbert was also one of the largest tropical cyclones ever observed in the Atlantic basin. At one point, its tropical storm-force winds measured 575 mi (925 km) in diameter. In addition, Gilbert was the most intense tropical cyclone in recorded history to strike Mexico.

The Allied Control Council (ACC) or Allied Control Authority, also referred to as the Four Powers, was the governing body of the Allied occupation zones in Germany (1945–1949/1991) and Austria (1945–1955) following the end of World War II in Europe. Its members were the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, the United States, and France. Following the defeat of the Nazis, Germany and Austria were occupied as two different areas, both by the same four Allies. Both were later divided into four zones by the 1 August 1945 Potsdam Agreement. The organisation was based in Schöneberg, West Berlin.

Space Shuttle Discovery is a retired American Space Shuttle orbiter. The spaceplane was one of the orbiters from NASA's Space Shuttle program and the third of five fully operational orbiters to be built. Its first mission, STS-41-D, flew from August 30 to September 5, 1984. Over 27 years of service it launched and landed 39 times, aggregating more spaceflights than any other spacecraft as of December 2024. The Space Shuttle launch vehicle had three main components: the Space Shuttle orbiter, a single-use central fuel tank, and two reusable solid rocket boosters. Nearly 25,000 heat-resistant tiles cover the orbiter to protect it from high temperatures on re-entry.

Manuel Rubén Abimael Guzmán Reinoso, also known by his nom de guerre Chairman Gonzalo, was a Peruvian Maoist revolutionary and guerrilla leader. He founded the organization Communist Party of Peru – Shining Path (PCP-SL) in 1969 and led a rebellion against the Peruvian government until his capture by authorities on 12 September 1992. He was then sentenced to life imprisonment for terrorism and treason.

STS-51 was a NASA Space Shuttle Discovery mission that launched the Advanced Communications Technology Satellite (ACTS) in September 1993. Discovery's 17th flight also featured the deployment and retrieval of the SPAS-ORFEUS satellite and its IMAX camera, which captured spectacular footage of Discovery in space. A spacewalk was also performed during the mission to evaluate tools and techniques for the STS-61 Hubble Space Telescope (HST) servicing mission later that year. STS-51 was the first shuttle mission to fly a Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver, a Trimble TANS Quadrex. It was mounted in an overhead window where limited field of view (FoV) and signal attenuation from the glass severely impacted receiver performance. Full triple-redundant 3-string GPS would not happen until 14 years later with STS-118 in 2007.

Ansett Australia, originally Ansett Airways, was a major Australian airline group based in Melbourne, Victoria. The company operated domestically within Australia, and from the 1990s, to destinations in Asia. Air New Zealand bought half of the company in 1996 and the remainder in 2000. As Ansett's losses mounted in 2001, the New Zealand government was reluctant to allow Singapore Airlines to increase its stake in Air New Zealand and recapitalise the group, while the Australian government favoured a rival proposal from Qantas. Following 65 years of operation, the airline was placed into voluntary administration on 12 September 2001 and grounded two days later, with the loss of about 16,000 jobs. A scaled-back operation resumed later that month while the administrators sought a buyer, but it ceased on 4 March 2002 after a proposed sale to a consortium led by Lindsay Fox and Solomon Lew fell through, and the group's remaining assets were then sold under a deed of company arrangement. Ansett's last flight touched down on 5 March 2002. Qantas took over most of Ansett's share of the domestic market.

The United Nations (UN) is an international intergovernmental organization established by the signing of the Charter of the United Nations on 26 June 1945 with the articulated mission of maintaining international peace and security, to develop friendly relations among states, to promote international cooperation, and to serve as a centre for harmonizing the actions of states in achieving those goals.

The Iraq War, also referred to as the Second Gulf War, was a protracted armed conflict in Iraq from 2003 to 2011. It began with the invasion by a United States–led coalition, which resulted in the overthrow of the Ba'athist government of Saddam Hussein. During the US occupation of Iraq, the conflict persisted as an insurgency that arose against coalition forces and the newly established Iraqi government. US forces were officially withdrawn in 2011. In 2014, the US became re-engaged in Iraq, leading a new coalition under Combined Joint Task Force – Operation Inherent Resolve, as the conflict evolved into the ongoing Islamic State insurgency.

Typhoon Maemi, known in the Philippines as Typhoon Pogi, was the most powerful typhoon to strike South Korea since record-keeping began in the country in 1904. The fourteenth named storm, eighth typhoon and third super typhoon of the 2003 Pacific typhoon season, Maemi developed from a disturbance in a monsoon trough on September 4. It strengthened into Tropical Storm Maemi, named by the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA). Moving northwestward, it became a typhoon on September 8. It briefly crossed into the warning territory of PAGASA, which gave it the local name Pogi. Favorable conditions facilitated more rapid strengthening; the storm developed a well-defined eye and reached peak maximum sustained winds of 195 km/h (120 mph) on September 10. While near peak intensity, Maemi decelerated and began turning to the north-northeast. Soon after, the eyewall passed over Miyako-jima, Japan with a minimum barometric pressure of 912 mbar (26.9 inHg), the fourth-lowest pressure recorded in the nation. Due to warm sea surface temperatures, Maemi was able to maintain much of its intensity before it made landfall just west of Busan, South Korea, on September 12. The typhoon underwent extratropical transition in the Sea of Japan the next day, although its remnants persisted for several days, lashing northern Japan with strong winds.

Israel and the Palestinians are engaged in an ongoing military and political conflict about land and self-determination within the former territory of Mandatory Palestine. Key aspects of the conflict have included Palestinian refugees, the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, the status of Jerusalem, Israeli settlements, borders, security, water rights, the permit regime in the West Bank and in the Gaza Strip, Palestinian freedom of movement, and the Palestinian right of return.

Joseph Ejercito Estrada, also known by the nickname Erap, is a Filipino retired politician and former actor who served as the 13th president of the Philippines from 1998 until his removal from office in 2001. He served as the 14th mayor of San Juan from 1969 to 1986, the ninth vice president under Fidel V. Ramos from 1992 to 1998, and the 26th mayor of Manila, the country's capital, from 2013 to 2019. His presidency was the third-shortest in Philippine history, after Emilio Aguinaldo and Sergio Osmeña.

The 2007 Bengkulu earthquakes were a series of megathrust earthquakes that struck the Sunda Trench off the coast of Sumatra, Indonesia, with three of magnitude 7 or greater. A series of tsunami bulletins was issued for the area. The most powerful of the series had a magnitude of 8.4, which makes it in the top 20 of the largest earthquakes ever recorded on a seismograph.

The 2008 Chatsworth train collision occurred at 4:22:23 p.m. PDT on September 12, 2008, when a Union Pacific Railroad freight train and a Metrolink commuter rail passenger train collided head-on in the Chatsworth neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, United States.

On 12 September 2012 at about 12:20 local time, Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky Air Flight 251, operated by an Antonov An-28, crashed while attempting to land at Palana Airport in Russia. Both pilots were killed, together with 8 of the 12 passengers. All 4 survivors were in serious condition. The aircraft descended below minima on approach in instrument meteorological conditions and impacted a forested slope. Alcohol was found in the blood of both flight crew.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is an independent agency of the U.S. federal government responsible for the United States' civil space program, as well as research in aeronautics and space. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., NASA operates ten field centers across the US and is organized into three mission directorates: Human Spaceflight, Research and Technology, and Science. Established in 1958 amid the Space Race, NASA succeeded the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) to give the US space program a distinct civilian orientation focused on peaceful applications. Since then, it has led most American spaceflight programs, including Project Mercury, Project Gemini, the Apollo program, Skylab, the Space Shuttle, the International Space Station (ISS), and the ongoing multinational Artemis program.

The Synagogue Church Of All Nations (SCOAN) is a charismatic Christian megachurch located in Lagos, Nigeria. The Church was founded in 1987 and has a presence across the globe with over 50,000 individuals attending service weekly.

Siberian Light Aviation Flight 51 was a passenger flight on September 12, 2021, by a Let L-410 Turbolet plane, from Irkutsk north to Kazachinskoje, Irkutsk Oblast, Siberia, near Lake Baikal. The plane crashed about 4 kilometers from the airport.