September 24 in History

Year 787 (DCCLXXXVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Julian calendar. The denomination 787 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years.

Michael III (Ancient Greek: Μιχαήλ, romanized: Michaḗl; 9/10 January 840 – 24 September 867), also known as Michael the Drunkard, was Byzantine emperor from 842 to 867. Michael III was the third and traditionally last member of the Amorian (or Phrygian) dynasty. He was given the disparaging epithet the Drunkard (ὁ Μέθυσος) by the hostile historians of the succeeding Macedonian dynasty, but modern historical research has rehabilitated his reputation to some extent, demonstrating the vital role his reign played in the resurgence of Byzantine power in the 9th century. He was also the youngest person to bear the imperial title (aged 4-8 months), as well as the youngest to succeed as senior emperor (aged 2) in the Roman Empire. In 867, Michael was assassinated by his successor, Basil I.

The Battle of San Juan de Ulúa was fought between English privateers and Spanish forces at San Juan de Ulúa (in modern Veracruz, Mexico). The English flotilla of six armed merchant ships under John Hawkins had been trading along the Spanish Main with the cooperation of local Spanish officials. However, the central Spanish authorities considered this to be illegal smuggling that violated the Treaty of Tordesillas (which England did not recognise). Hawkins' fleet anchored at San Juan de Ulúa to resupply and repair following a storm. They were found there by two Spanish galleons carrying Martín Enríquez de Almanza, the newly appointed viceroy of New Spain. The two commanders agreed a truce that would allow both fleets to use the anchorage. The Spanish never intended to follow its terms and secretly prepared to attack the English ships. When the English became suspicious of the preparations, Spanish forces began their attack by capturing English cannons on the shore and attempted to board the English ships. The boarding parties were initially repulsed, but the shore cannons were turned against the English ships, causing heavy damage. Two English vessels escaped, and the other four were either sunk or captured. The Spanish lost one ship. The English considered the battle an example of Spanish treachery, and the Spanish considered it a necessary response to criminal activity. Resentment engendered by the battle was considered a cause of the Anglo-Spanish War which broke out 17 years later.

The Battle of Rowton Heath, better known as the Battle of Rowton Moor, occurred on 24 September 1645 during the English Civil War. The Parliamentarians, commanded by Sydnam Poyntz, inflicted a significant defeat on the Royalists under the personal command of King Charles I, inflicting heavy losses and preventing Charles from relieving the siege of Chester. Before the battle, Charles had been attempting to link up with the Marquess of Montrose in Scotland following the Royalist defeat in the Battle of Naseby. Although his attempts were unsuccessful, they were disruptive enough that the Committee of Both Kingdoms ordered Sydnam Poyntz to pursue the King with approximately 3,000 horse. After Charles was informed that Chester, his only remaining port, was under siege, he marched intending to relieve the defenders, ordering 3,000 horse under the command of Marmaduke Langdale to camp outside the city while he and 600 others travelled into Chester itself on 23 September 1645. The intent was to attack the besieging Parliamentarians from both sides, Charles mistakenly believing that Poyntz had failed to follow them. In fact he was barely 15 miles (24 km) behind, and moved to attack Langdale's force in the early hours of 24 September. Although Langdale drove Poyntz off, the Parliamentarians besieging Chester sent reinforcements, and Langdale was forced to retreat to Rowton Heath, closer to Chester, and wait for his own reinforcements. This force, under Charles Gerard and Lord Bernard Stewart, was prevented from joining them, and Langdale was instead attacked by both Poyntz's force and the reinforcement. After being driven off the field and failing in an attempt to regroup at Chester itself, the Royalists retreated as dusk fell. Royalist casualties were high, with 600 killed, including Stewart, and 900 taken prisoner. This defeat prevented Charles from relieving the defenders in Chester, which fell to the Parliamentarians on 3 February 1646.

Shivaji I was an Indian ruler and a member of the Bhonsle dynasty. Shivaji inherited a fiefdom from his father who served as a retainer for the Sultanate of Bijapur, which later formed the genesis of the Maratha Kingdom. In 1674, he was formally crowned the Chhatrapati of his realm at Raigad Fort.

The Judiciary Act of 1789 (ch. 20, 1 Stat. 73) is a United States federal statute enacted on September 24, 1789, during the first session of the First United States Congress. It established the federal judiciary of the United States. Article III, Section 1 of the Constitution prescribed that the "judicial power of the United States, shall be vested in one Supreme Court, and such inferior Courts" as Congress saw fit to establish. It made no provision for the composition or procedures of any of the courts, leaving this to Congress to decide. The existence of a separate federal judiciary was controversial during the debates over the ratification of the Constitution. Anti-Federalists had denounced the judicial power as a potential instrument of national tyranny. Indeed, of the ten amendments that eventually became the Bill of Rights, five (the fourth through the eighth) dealt primarily with judicial proceedings. Even after ratification, some opponents of a strong judiciary urged that the federal court system be limited to only a Supreme Court and, perhaps, local admiralty judges. Congress, however, decided to establish a system of federal trial courts with broader jurisdiction, thereby creating an arm for enforcement of national laws within each state.

The Provisional Government (Dutch: Voorlopig Bewind; French: Gouvernement provisoire) was the first iteration of the Belgian state, formed in the midst of the Belgian Revolution. After Dutch forces were expelled from Brussels on 27 September 1830, the recently created Revolutionary Committee transformed into the Provisional Government. The independence of Belgium as a state was officially declared on 4 October. On 7 February 1831, the Constitution of Belgium was proclaimed and Erasme Louis Surlet de Chokier was declared regent. With Belgium now under a constitutional monarchy, the Provisional Government was dissolved.

The Sultanate of Brunei or simply Brunei, also known as the Bruneian Empire, was a Malay sultanate centred around Brunei on the northern coast of Borneo in Southeast Asia. Brunei became a sovereign state around the 15th century, when it substantially expanded after the fall of Malacca to the Portuguese, extending throughout coastal areas of Borneo and the Philippines, before it declined in the 17th and 18th centuries. It became a British protectorate in the 19th century.

The Mexican–American War, also known in the United States as the Mexican War and in Mexico as the United States intervention in Mexico, (April 25, 1846 – February 2, 1848) 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. Sectional politics over slavery in the United States had previously prevented annexation because Texas would have been admitted as a slave state, upsetting the balance of power between Northern free states and Southern slave states. In the 1844 United States presidential election, Democrat James K. Polk was elected on a platform of expanding U.S. territory to Oregon, California (also Mexican territory), and Texas by any means, with the 1845 annexation of Texas furthering that goal. However, the boundary between Texas and Mexico was disputed, with the Republic of Texas and the U.S. asserting it to be the Rio Grande and Mexico claiming it to be the more northerly Nueces River. Polk sent a diplomatic mission to Mexico in an attempt to buy the disputed territory, together with California and everything in between for $25 million (equivalent to $798 million in 2024), an offer the Mexican government refused. Polk then sent a group of 80 soldiers across the disputed territory to the Rio Grande, ignoring Mexican demands to withdraw. Mexican forces interpreted this as an attack and repelled the U.S. forces on April 25, 1846, a move that Polk used to convince the Congress of the United States to declare war. Beyond the disputed area of Texas, U.S. forces quickly occupied the regional capital of Santa Fe de Nuevo México along the upper Rio Grande. U.S. forces also moved against the province of Alta California and then turned south. The Pacific Squadron of the U.S. Navy blockaded the Pacific coast in the lower Baja California Territory. The U.S. Army, under Major General Winfield Scott, invaded the Mexican heartland via an amphibious landing at the port of Veracruz on March 9 and captured the capital, Mexico City, in September 1847. Although Mexico was defeated on the battlefield, negotiating peace was politically complex. Some Mexican factions refused to consider any recognition of its loss of territory. Although Polk formally relieved his peace envoy, Nicholas Trist, of his post as negotiator, Trist ignored the order and successfully concluded the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. It ended the war, and Mexico recognized the cession of present-day Texas, California, Nevada, and Utah as well as parts of present-day Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, and Wyoming. The U.S. agreed to pay $15 million (equivalent to $479 million in 2024) for the physical damage of the war and assumed $3.25 million of debt already owed by the Mexican government to U.S. citizens. Mexico relinquished its claims on Texas and accepted the Rio Grande as its northern border with the United States. The U.S. victory and territorial expansion Polk had spearheaded inspired patriotism among some sections of the United States, but the war and treaty drew fierce criticism for the casualties, monetary cost, and heavy-handedness. The question of how to treat the new acquisitions intensified the debate over slavery in the United States. Some scholars see the Mexican–American War as leading to the American Civil War. Many officers who had trained at West Point Academy gained experience in the war and later played prominent leadership roles during the Civil War. In Mexico, the war worsened domestic political turmoil and led to a loss of national prestige, as it suffered large losses of life in both its military and civilian population, had its financial foundations undermined, and lost more than half of its territory.

The Giffard dirigible or Giffard airship was an airship built in France in 1852 by Henri Giffard, it was the first powered and steerable airship to fly. The craft featured an elongated hydrogen-filled envelope that tapered to a point at each end. From this was suspended a long beam with a triangular, sail-like rudder at its aft end, and beneath the beam a platform for the pilot and steam engine. Due to the highly flammable nature of the lifting gas, special precautions were taken to minimise the potential for the envelope to be ignited by the engine beneath it. The engine's exhaust was diverted downwards to a long pipe projecting below the platform, and the area surrounding the boiler's stoke hole was surrounded by wire gauze. On 24 September 1852, Giffard flew the airship from the hippodrome at Place de l'Etoile to Élancourt, covering the 27 km (17 mi) in around 3 hours, demonstrating maneuvering along the way. The engine, however, was not sufficiently powerful to allow Giffard to fly against the wind to make a return journey.

Auguste Febvrier-Despointes (French pronunciation: [oɡyst fɛvʁije depwɛ̃t]; 1796 – 5 March 1855) was a French counter admiral. He served as the first commandant of New Caledonia from 24 September 1853 to 1 January 1854.

On September 24, 1869, a gold panic broke out in the United States, triggering a financial crisis. The panic, which became known as Black Friday, was the result of a conspiracy between two investors, Jay Gould, later joined by his partner James Fisk, and Abel Corbin, a small time speculator who had married Virginia (Jennie) Grant, the younger sister of President Ulysses S. Grant. They formed the Gold Ring to corner the gold market and force up the price of the metal on the New York Gold Exchange. The scandal took place during the Grant Presidency. The Secretary of the Treasury, George S. Boutwell, had a policy to sell Treasury gold at biweekly intervals for a sinking fund to pay off the national debt. Along with other, non-routine gold sales, this infusion of cash acted to stabilize the dollar. The economy had gone through tremendous upheaval during the Civil War 1861–1865 and was not yet fully restored. Gould, hoping to take advantage of Corbin's relationship with his brother-in-law, President Grant, persuaded Corbin to introduce him to Grant. Gould and Fisk hoped that befriending the President would get them privy information about the government's gold policy—and even prevent the sale of gold—and thereby manipulate the market. It did not work, being foiled by the government, yet resulted in a scandal that undermined both the credibility of Grant's presidency and the national economy. Gould and Fisk used their personal appearances with Grant to gain credibility on Wall Street in addition to using their insider information. During the first week of September, Grant's Secretary of the Treasury George S. Boutwell received a letter from Grant. It told him that gold sales would be harmful to Western farmers, a notion planted by Gould and Fisk. Boutwell countermanded his own order to sell a great deal of gold, suspending non-routine Treasury gold sales for the rest of the month. At the same time, Gould, now joined by Fisk, continued buying gold through New York City's Gold Room, raising the price of gold. After learning about the nature of their scheme, Grant first told Corbin to unload his gold holdings before ordering the release of $4 million in government gold on September 24 (equivalent to $80 million in 2024). Grant's move immediately drove down the price of gold, crushing the Gold Ring's corner on the market. A panic on Wall Street ensued and the country went through months of economic turmoil, although a national depression was averted. Gould and Fisk hired the best defense available. Favored by Tweed Ring judges, the conspiratorial partners escaped prosecution. An 1870 government investigation, headed by fellow Republican James A. Garfield, exonerated Grant of any illicit involvement in the conspiracy.

The Cobblers on the Heath (or Heath Cobblers in Douglas Robinson's 1993 translation; Finnish: Nummisuutarit) is a play by Aleksis Kivi, considered one of the greatest Finnish writers. The play was originally written in 1864. However, the play's official premiere took place only three years after Kivi's death; it was performed for the first time in Oulu on 24 September 1875. The play is divided into five acts: the first act takes place in the room of Topias, the master cobbler, the second in the spacious house of Karri, the owner, and the third takes us to Hämeenlinna and the Halfway House Inn (’Puolmatkan krouvi’). The fourth act takes place in a forest, while the fifth and final act is played out outside Topias's room. In Finland, Heath Cobblers has been considered a masterpiece of dramatic literature, which has also been translated into more than ten languages. As many as three film adaptations have also been made on the basis of the Heath Cobblers, The Village Shoemakers in 1923, and other adaptations in 1938 and 1957.

The Battle of Shiroyama (城山の戦い, Shiroyama no tatakai) took place on 24 September 1877, in Kagoshima, Japan. It was the final battle of the Satsuma Rebellion, where the heavily outnumbered samurai under Saigō Takamori made their last stand against Imperial Japanese Army troops under the command of General Yamagata Aritomo and Admiral Kawamura Sumiyoshi. The battle culminated in the annihilation of Saigō and his army, marking the end of the Satsuma Rebellion. The Imperial Army's victory consolidated their power, and the Satsuma Rebellion was the last instance of internal mutiny seen in the Empire of Japan.

The 1890 Manifesto (also known as the Woodruff Manifesto, the Anti-polygamy Manifesto, or simply "the Manifesto") is a statement which officially advised against any future plural marriage in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church). Issued by church president Wilford Woodruff in September 1890, the Manifesto was a response to mounting anti-polygamy pressure from the United States Congress, which by 1890 had disincorporated the church, escheated its assets to the U.S. federal government, and imprisoned many prominent polygamist Mormons. Upon its issuance, the LDS Church in conference accepted Woodruff's Manifesto as "authoritative and binding". The Manifesto was a dramatic turning point in the history of the LDS Church. It advised church members against entering into any marriage prohibited by the law of the land, and made it easier for Utah to become a U.S. state. Nevertheless, even after the Manifesto, the church quietly continued to perform a small number of plural marriages in the United States, Mexico, and Canada, thus necessitating a Second Manifesto during U.S. congressional hearings in 1904. Though neither Manifesto dissolved existing plural marriages, plural marriage in the LDS Church gradually died by attrition during the early-to-mid 20th century. The Manifesto was canonized in the LDS Church standard works as Official Declaration 1 and is considered by mainstream Mormons to have been prompted by divine revelation (although not a revelation itself), in which Woodruff was shown that the church would be thrown into turmoil if they did not comply with it. Some Mormon fundamentalists rejected the manifesto.

Devils Tower (also known as Matȟó Thípila or Bear Lodge) is a laccolithic butte, composed of igneous rock in the Bear Lodge Ranger District of the Black Hills, near Hulett and Sundance in Crook County, northeastern Wyoming, above the Belle Fourche River. It rises 1,267 feet (386 m) above the Belle Fourche River, standing 867 ft (264 m) from summit to base. The summit is 5,112 ft (1,558 m) above sea level. Devils Tower National Monument was the first United States national monument, established on September 24, 1906, by President Theodore Roosevelt. The monument's boundary encloses an area of 1,347 acres (545 ha).

Violent attacks by armed mobs of White Americans against Black Americans in Atlanta, Georgia, began after newspapers, on the evening of September 22, 1906, published several unsubstantiated and luridly detailed reports of the alleged rapes of four white local women by black men. The violence lasted through September 24, 1906. The events were reported by newspapers around the world, including the French Le Petit Journal which described the "lynchings in the USA" and the "massacre of Negroes in Atlanta," the Scottish Aberdeen Press & Journal under the headline "Race Riots in Georgia," and the London Evening Standard under the headlines "Anti-Negro Riots" and "Outrages in Georgia." The final death toll of the conflict is unknown and disputed, but officially at least 25 African Americans and two whites died. Unofficial reports ranged from 10 to 100 black Americans killed during the massacre. According to the Atlanta History Center, some black Americans were hanged from lampposts; others were shot, beaten or stabbed to death. They were pulled from street cars and attacked on the street; white mobs invaded black neighborhoods, destroying homes and businesses.

His Majesty's Airship No. 1 was designed and built by Vickers, Sons and Maxim at their works in Barrow-in-Furness, Lancashire, England, as an aerial scout airship for the Royal Navy. It was the first British rigid airship to be built, and was constructed in a direct attempt to compete with the German airship programme. Often referred to as "Mayfly", a nickname given to it by the lower deck (i.e. the non-commissioned component of a naval ship's crew), in public records it is designated 'HMA Hermione' because the naval contingent at Barrow were attached to HMS Hermione, a cruiser moored locally preparing to act as its tender. When it was moved from its shed in Cavendish Dock to conduct full trials on 24 September 1911 it broke in two before it could attempt its first flight as a result of being subject to strong winds. Although Mayfly never flew, its brief career provided valuable training and experimental data for British airship crews and designers.

James Harold "Jimmy" Doolittle (December 14, 1896 – September 27, 1993) was an American military general and aviation pioneer who received the Medal of Honor for his raid on Japan during World War II, known as the Doolittle Raid in his honor. He made early coast-to-coast flights and record-breaking speed flights, won many flying races, and helped develop and flight-test instrument flying. According to the FAA, he was the first pilot ever to perform a successful instrument flight. Doolittle grew up in Nome, Alaska. He attended the University of California, Berkeley, where he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in 1922. That year, he made the first cross-country flight in an Airco DH.4, and in 1925, was awarded a doctorate in aeronautics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the first such doctorate degree issued in the United States. In 1927, he performed the first outside loop, thought at the time to be a fatal aerobatic maneuver, and two years later, in 1929, pioneered the use of "blind flying", where a pilot relies on flight instruments alone, which later won him the Harmon Trophy and made all-weather airline operations practical. Doolittle was a flying instructor during World War I and a reserve officer in the United States Army Air Corps, but was recalled to active duty during World War II. He was awarded the Medal of Honor for personal valor and leadership as commander of the Doolittle Raid, a bold long-range retaliatory air raid on some of the Japanese main islands on April 18, 1942, four months after the attack on Pearl Harbor. The raid used 16 North American B-25B Mitchell medium bombers with reduced armament to decrease weight and increase range, each with a crew of five and no escort fighter aircraft. It was a major morale booster for the United States and Doolittle was celebrated as a hero, making him one of the most important national figures of the war. Doolittle was promoted to lieutenant general and commanded the Twelfth Air Force over North Africa, the Fifteenth Air Force over the Mediterranean, and the Eighth Air Force over Europe. He retired from the Air Force in 1959 but remained active in many technical fields. Doolittle was inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame in 1967, eight years after retirement and only five years after the Hall was founded. He was eventually promoted to general in 1985, presented to him by President Ronald Reagan 43 years after the Doolittle Raid. In 2003, he topped Air & Space/Smithsonian magazine's list of the greatest pilots of all time, and ten years later, Flying magazine ranked Doolittle sixth on its list of the 51 Heroes of Aviation. He died in 1993 at the age of 96, and was buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was an Indian lawyer, anti-colonial nationalist, and political ethicist who employed nonviolent resistance to lead the successful campaign for India's independence from British rule, and whose legacy would later inspire movements for civil rights and freedom across the world. The honorific Mahātmā, first applied to him in 1914 in South Africa, is now used throughout the world.

Earl Wesley Bascom (June 19, 1906 – August 28, 1995) was an American-Canadian painter, printmaker, sculptor, cowboy, rodeo performer, inventor, and Hollywood actor. Raised in Canada, he portrayed in works of fine art his own experiences of cowboying and rodeoing across the American and Canadian West. Bascom was awarded the Pioneer Award by the ProRodeo Hall of Fame in 2016 and inducted into several halls of fame including the Canadian Pro Rodeo Hall of Fame in 1984. Bascom was called the "Cowboy of Cowboy Artists," the "Dean of Rodeo Cowboy Sculpture" and the "Father of Modern Rodeo." He was a participant member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Cathay Pacific Airways Limited, or simply Cathay Pacific, is the flag carrier of Hong Kong, with its head office and main hub located at Hong Kong International Airport. The airline's operations and its subsidiaries have scheduled passenger and cargo services to more than 190 destinations and more than 60 countries worldwide including codeshares and joint ventures. Cathay Pacific operates a fleet consisting of Airbus A321neo, Airbus A330, Airbus A350, and Boeing 777 aircraft. Cathay Cargo (previously Cathay Pacific Cargo) operates two models of Boeing 747, the B747-400ERF and B747-8F. Defunct wholly owned subsidiary airline Cathay Dragon, which ceased operations in 2020, operated to 44 destinations in the Asia-Pacific region from its Hong Kong base. In 2010, Cathay Pacific and Cathay Cargo, together with Cathay Dragon, transported nearly 27 million passengers and more than 1.8 million tons of cargo and mail. Cathay Pacific was founded on 24 September 1946 by Australian Sydney H. de Kantzow and American Roy C. Farrell. As of May 2026, its major shareholders are Swire Pacific and Air China. Cathay Pacific is one of the founding members of Oneworld alliance. As of 2025, Skytrax ranks the airline as a 5-star airline and as the third best airline in the world.

"The Sources of Soviet Conduct", commonly "X Article", is an article written by George F. Kennan and published under the pseudonym "X" in the July 1947 issue of Foreign Affairs magazine. It introduced the term "containment" to widespread use and advocated the strategic use of that concept against the Soviet Union. It expanded on ideas expressed by Kennan in a confidential February 1946 telegram, formally identified by Kennan's State Department number, "511", but informally dubbed the "long telegram" for its size. Kennan composed the long telegram in response to inquiries about the implications of a February 1946 speech by Joseph Stalin. Though the speech was in line with previous statements by Stalin, it provoked fear in the American press and public; Time magazine called it "the most warlike pronouncement uttered by any top-rank statesman since V-J Day". The long telegram explained Soviet motivations by recounting the history of Russian rulers as well as the ideology of Marxism–Leninism. It argued that the Soviet leaders used the ideology to characterize the external world as hostile, allowing them to justify their continued hold on power despite a lack of popular support. Washington bureaucrats quickly read the confidential message and accepted it as the best explanation of Soviet behavior. The reception elevated Kennan's reputation within the State Department as one of the government's foremost Soviet experts. After hearing Kennan speak about Soviet foreign relations at the Council on Foreign Relations in January 1947, international banker R. Gordon Wasson suggested that he share his views in an article for Foreign Affairs. Kennan revised a piece he had submitted to Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal in late January 1947, but his role in government precluded him from publishing under his name. His superiors granted him approval to publish the piece provided it was released anonymously; Foreign Affairs attributed the article only to "X". Expressing similar sentiments to that of the long telegram, the piece was strong in its anti-communism, introducing and outlining a basic theory of containment. The article was widely read; though it does not mention the Truman Doctrine, having mostly been written before Truman's speech, it quickly became seen as an expression of the doctrine's policy. Retrospective commentators dispute the impact of the article, although Henry Kissinger referred to it as "the diplomatic doctrine of the era".

Honda Motor Co., Ltd., commonly known as Honda, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate automotive manufacturer headquartered at the Toranomon Alcea Tower in Toranomon, Minato, Tokyo, Japan.

The AEC Routemaster is a front-engined double-decker bus that was designed by London Transport and built by the Associated Equipment Company (AEC) and Park Royal Vehicles. The first prototype was completed in September 1954 and the last one was delivered in 1968. The layout of the vehicle was conventional for the time, with a half-cab, front-mounted engine and open rear platform, although the coach version was fitted with rear platform doors. Forward entrance vehicles with platform doors were also produced as was a unique front-entrance prototype with the engine mounted transversely at the rear. The first Routemasters entered service with London Transport in February 1956 and the last were withdrawn from regular service in December 2005, although two TfL heritage routes were subsequently operated by Routemasters in central London until 2019. Most Routemasters were built for London Transport, although small numbers were built for British European Airways and the Northern General Transport Company. A total of 2,876 Routemasters were built, of which 1,230 are still in existence as of September 2024. A pioneering design, the Routemaster outlasted several of its replacement types in London, survived the privatisation of the former London Transport bus operators and was used by other operators around the UK. In modern UK public transport bus operation, the old-fashioned features of the standard Routemaster were both praised and criticised. The open platform, while exposed to the elements, allowed boarding and alighting in places other than official stops; and the presence of a conductor allowed minimal boarding time and optimal security, but with greater labour costs. Compared to modern buses, the high floor design was inaccessible for disabled people, and made boarding with heavy luggage or pushchairs challenging. In 2006, the Routemaster was voted one of Britain's top 10 design icons which included Concorde, the Mini, the Supermarine Spitfire, the London tube map, the World Wide Web and the K2 telephone box. In 2009, the Routemaster was selected by the Royal Mail for their "British Design Classics" commemorative postage stamp issue. In the late 2000s, work began on a New Routemaster bus inspired by the Routemaster's traditional design. It entered service in February 2012.

The 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) ("Screaming Eagles") is a light infantry division of the United States Army that specializes in air assault operations. The 101st is designed to plan, coordinate, and execute brigade-sized air assault operations that can be conducted in one period of darkness, at distances up to 500 nautical miles (926 kilometers), to seize key terrain and hold it for up to 14 days. In recent years, the 101st was active in security force assistance and counterinsurgency operations in Iraq, in Afghanistan in 2015–2016, and in Syria, as part of Operation Inherent Resolve in 2018–2021. Established in 1918, the 101st Division was first constituted as an airborne unit in 1942. During World War II, it gained renown for its role in Operation Overlord (the D-Day landings and airborne landings on 6 June 1944, in Normandy, France); Operation Market Garden; the liberation of the Netherlands; and its action during the Battle of the Bulge around the city of Bastogne, Belgium. During the Vietnam War, the 101st Airborne Division fought in several major campaigns and battles, including the Battle of Hamburger Hill in 1969 and the Battle of Fire Support Base Ripcord in 1970. In mid-1968, the division was reorganized and redesignated as an airmobile division and in 1974, the division was again redesigned as an air assault division. The titles reflect the division's shift from airplanes to helicopters as the primary method of delivering troops into combat. At the height of the war on terrorism, the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) had over 200 aircraft. This shrank to just over 100 aircraft with the inactivation of the 159th Combat Aviation Brigade in 2015. In 2019, media reports suggested the Army was working to restore the 101st's aviation capabilities so it can return to lifting an entire brigade in one air assault. The 101st's headquarters is at Fort Campbell, Kentucky. Many members of the 101st are graduates of the U.S. Army Air Assault School, which is co-located with the division. The school is known as one of the Army's most difficult courses; only about half of those who begin it will graduate. The Screaming Eagles were referred to as "the tip of the spear" by former U.S. Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates, and the most potent and tactically mobile of the U.S. Army's divisions by General Edward C. Meyer, then Chief of Staff of the Army.

TAI Flight 307 was a scheduled flight operated by Transports Aériens Intercontinentaux (TAI) between France and the Ivory Coast via Mali operated by a Douglas DC-7C. On 24 September 1959, the aircraft crashed during its departure from Bordeaux–Mérignac Airport, France when it flew into trees. All of the flight crew and 45 of the 56 passengers on board were killed; the other 11 passengers were seriously injured.

USS Enterprise (CVN-65), formerly CVA(N)-65, is a decommissioned United States Navy aircraft carrier. In 1958, she became the first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier in the United States Navy, and the world, as well as the eighth United States naval vessel to bear the name. Like her predecessor of World War II fame, she is nicknamed "Big E". At 1,123 feet (342 m), she is the longest naval vessel ever built and the only ship of her class, which was originally planned to have five other ships. Her 93,284-long-ton (94,781 t) displacement ranks her class as the third-largest carrier class, after the Nimitz class and the Gerald R. Ford class. Enterprise had a crew of some 4,600 service members.

Japan Air Lines Flight 472 was a flight from London to Tokyo via Frankfurt, Rome, Beirut, Tehran, Bombay, Bangkok and Hong Kong. On September 24, 1972, the Douglas DC-8 landed at Juhu Aerodrome near Bombay, India instead of the city's much larger Santacruz Airport and overran the runway, resulting in the aircraft being written off after being damaged beyond economic repair. All 122 on board survived, although nine passengers and two crew members were injured.

Guinea-Bissau, officially the Republic of Guinea-Bissau, is a country in West Africa that covers 36,125 square kilometres (13,948 sq mi) with an estimated population of 2,080,000. It borders Senegal to its north and Guinea to its southeast.

The monarchy of Cambodia is the constitutional monarchy of the Kingdom of Cambodia. The king of Cambodia is the head of state and head of the ruling Royal House of Norodom. In the contemporary period, the king's power has been limited to that of a symbolic figurehead. The monarchy had been in existence since at least 50 AD except during its abolition from 1970 to 1993. Since 1993, the king of Cambodia has been an elected monarch, making Cambodia one of the few elective monarchies of the world. The king is elected for life by the Royal Council of the Throne, which consists of several senior political and religious figures. Candidates are chosen from among male descendants of King Ang Duong who are at least 30 years old, from the two royal houses of Cambodia.

The Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) is a multilateral treaty to ban nuclear weapons test explosions and any other nuclear explosions, for both civilian and military purposes, in all environments. It was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on 10 September 1996, but has not entered into force, as it has not been ratified by all the required states. The treaty will establish the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization to oversee monitoring, which is currently done by a Preparatory Commission.

Hurricane Rita was the most intense tropical cyclone on record in the Gulf of Mexico, tied with Hurricane Milton of 2024, as well as being one of the most intense Atlantic hurricanes on record overall. Part of the record-breaking 2005 Atlantic hurricane season, which included three of the ten most intense Atlantic hurricanes in terms of barometric pressure ever recorded, Rita was the seventeenth named storm, tenth hurricane, fifth major hurricane, and third Category 5 hurricane of the 2005 season. It was also the earliest-forming 17th named storm in the Atlantic until Tropical Storm Rene in 2020. Rita formed near The Bahamas from a tropical wave on September 18, 2005, that originally developed off the coast of West Africa. It moved westward, and after passing through the Florida Straits, Rita entered an environment of abnormally warm waters. Moving west-northwest, it rapidly intensified to reach peak winds of 180 mph (285 km/h), achieving Category 5 status on September 21. However, it weakened to a Category 3 hurricane before making landfall in Johnson's Bayou, Louisiana, between Sabine Pass, Texas, and Holly Beach, Louisiana, with winds of 115 mph (185 km/h). Rapidly weakening over land, Rita degenerated into a large low-pressure area over the lower Mississippi Valley by September 26.

The Saffron Revolution was a series of economic and political protests and demonstrations that took place during August, September and October 2007 in Myanmar. The protests were triggered by the decision of the national military government to remove subsidies on the sales prices of fuel. The national government is the only supplier of fuels and the removal of the price subsidy immediately caused diesel and petrol prices to increase by 66–100% and the price of compressed natural gas for buses to increase 500% in less than a week.

Thabo Mvuyelwa Mbeki is a South African politician and economist who served as the second president of South Africa from 1999 until his resignation in 2008. He previously served as deputy president under Nelson Mandela from 1994 to 1999.

The 2009 G20 Pittsburgh Summit was the third meeting of the G20 heads of state and heads of government, held in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States, to discuss financial markets and the world economy.

South African Airlink Flight 8911, a positioning flight from Durban International Airport to Pietermaritzburg Airport, operated by a British Aerospace Jetstream 41, crashed into the grounds of Merebank Secondary School, Durban shortly after take-off on 24 September 2009, injuring the three occupants of the aircraft and one on the ground. The captain of the flight subsequently died of his injuries on 7 October 2009.

Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM), unofficially known as Mangalyaan, is a space probe orbiting Mars since 24 September 2014. It was launched on 5 November 2013 by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). It was India's first interplanetary mission and it made ISRO the fourth space agency to achieve Mars orbit, after Soviet space program, NASA, and the European Space Agency. It made India the first Asian nation to reach Martian orbit. It also made ISRO the first national space agency in the world to do so with an indigenously developed propulsion system and the second national space agency to succeed on its maiden attempt, after the European Space Agency accomplished this in 2003 using a Roscosmos Soyuz/Fregat rocket.

On 24 September 2015, a fatal crowd crush resulted in the death of more than 2,000 individuals, many of whom were suffocated or crushed, during the annual Hajj pilgrimage in Mina, Mecca, Saudi Arabia, making it the deadliest Hajj disaster in history. Estimates of the number of dead vary: the Associated Press reported 2,411 dead, while Agence France-Presse reported 2,236 killed. Based on the total of the individual national reports cited in the table below, at least 2,431 people died. The government of Saudi Arabia officially reported two days after the event that there had been 769 deaths and 934 injured. These figures remained official at the time of the next year's Hajj and were never updated. The largest number of victims were from Iran, followed by Mali and Nigeria.

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.