September 10
Events
Pre-1600
- 506 - The bishops of Visigothic Gaul meet in the Council of Agde.
- 1089 - The first synod of pope Urban II starts in Melfi, with seventy bishops and twelve abbots in attendance. The synod issues several decrees about church law and deals with the relation with the Greek part of the Church.
- 1419 - John the Fearless, Duke of Burgundy is assassinated by adherents of the Dauphin, the future Charles VII of France.
- 1509 - An earthquake known as "The Lesser Judgment Day" hits Constantinople.
- 1515 - Thomas Wolsey is invested as a Cardinal.
- 1547 - The Battle of Pinkie, the last full-scale military confrontation between England and Scotland, resulting in a decisive victory for the forces of Edward VI.
- 1561 - Fourth Battle of Kawanakajima: Takeda Shingen defeats Uesugi Kenshin in the climax of their ongoing conflicts.
- 1570 - Spanish Jesuit missionaries land in present-day Virginia to establish the short-lived Ajacán Mission.
- 1573 - German pirate Klein Henszlein and 33 of his crew are beheaded in Hamburg.
1601–1900
- 1607 - Edward Maria Wingfield is ousted as first president of the governing council of the Colony of Virginia; he is replaced by John Ratcliffe.
- 1608 - John Smith is elected council president of Jamestown, Virginia.
- 1622 - Fifty-five Christians are executed in Nagasaki during the Great Genna Martyrdom.
- 1640 - Reapers' War: Junta de Braços of the Principality of Catalonia summoned. It assumes the sovereignty and enacts a series of revolutionary mesures which will lead to the Catalan Republic.
- 1724 - Johann Sebastian Bach leads the first performance of Jesu, der du meine Seele, BWV 78, a chorale cantata based on a passion hymn by Johann Rist.
- 1776 - American Revolutionary War: Nathan Hale volunteers to spy for the Continental Army.
- 1798 - At the Battle of St. George's Caye, British Honduras defeats Spain.
- 1813 - The United States defeats a British Fleet at the Battle of Lake Erie during the War of 1812.
- 1846 - Elias Howe is granted a patent for the sewing machine.
- 1858 - George Mary Searle discovers the asteroid 55 Pandora.
- 1897 - Lattimer massacre: A sheriff's posse kills 19 unarmed striking immigrant miners in Lattimer, Pennsylvania, United States.
- 1898 - Empress Elisabeth of Austria is assassinated by Luigi Lucheni.
1901–present
- 1918 - Russian Civil War: The Red Army captures Kazan.
- 1919 - The Republic of German-Austria signs the Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye, ceding significant territories to Italy, Yugoslavia, and Czechoslovakia.
- 1932 - The New York City Subway's third competing subway system, the municipally owned IND, is opened.
- 1936 - The first world individual Speedway World Championship was held at London's Wembley Stadium.
- 1937 - Nine nations attend the Nyon Conference to address international piracy in the Mediterranean Sea.
- 1939 - World War II: The submarine is mistakenly sunk by the submarine near Norway and becomes the Royal Navy's first loss of a submarine in the war.
- 1939 - World War II: The Canadian declaration of war on Germany receives royal assent.
- 1942 - World War II: The British Army carries out an amphibious landing on Madagascar to re-launch Allied offensive operations in the Madagascar Campaign.
- 1943 - World War II: In the course of Operation Achse, German troops begin their occupation of Rome.
- 1960 - At the Summer Olympics in Rome, Abebe Bikila becomes the first sub-Saharan African to win a gold medal, winning the marathon in bare feet.
- 1961 - In the Italian Grand Prix, a crash causes the death of German Formula One driver Wolfgang von Trips and 15 spectators who are hit by his Ferrari, the deadliest accident in F1 history.
- 1967 - The people of Gibraltar vote to remain a British dependency rather than becoming part of Spain.
- 1974 - Guinea-Bissau gains independence from Portugal.
- 1976 - A British Airways Hawker Siddeley Trident and an Inex-Adria DC-9 collide near Zagreb, Yugoslavia, killing 176.
- 1977 - Hamida Djandoubi, convicted of torture and murder, is the last person to be executed by guillotine in France.
- 2000 - Operation Barras successfully frees six British soldiers held captive for over two weeks and contributes to the end of the Sierra Leone Civil War.
- 2001 - Antônio da Costa Santos, mayor of Campinas, Brazil is assassinated.
- 2001 - During his appearance on the British TV game show Who Wants to be a Millionaire?, contestant Charles Ingram reaches the £1 million top prize, but it was later revealed that he had cheated to the top prize by listening to coughs from his wife and another contestant.
- 2002 - Switzerland, traditionally a neutral country, becomes a full member of the United Nations.
- 2007 - Former Prime Minister of Pakistan Nawaz Sharif returns to Pakistan after seven years in exile, following a military coup in October 1999.
- 2008 - The Large Hadron Collider at CERN, described as the biggest scientific experiment in history, is powered up in Geneva, Switzerland.
- 2017 - Hurricane Irma makes landfall on Cudjoe Key, Florida as a Category 4, after causing catastrophic damage throughout the Caribbean. Irma resulted in 134 deaths and $77.2 billion in damage.
- 2024 – Polaris Dawn, the first private crewed spaceflight to involve a spacewalk, is launched from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
- 2025 – American right-wing political activist Charlie Kirk is assassinated while onstage at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah.
Births
Pre-1600
- 877 - Eutychius, patriarch of Alexandria
- 904 - Guo Wei, posthumously known as Emperor Taizu of Later Zhou
- 1423 - Eleanor, Princess of Asturias
- 1487 - Pope Julius III
- 1497 - Wolfgang Musculus, German theologian
- 1547 - George I, Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt
- 1550 - Alonso Pérez de Guzmán, 7th Duke of Medina Sidonia, Spanish general
- 1561 - Hernando Arias de Saavedra, Paraguayan-Argentinian soldier and politician
- 1588 - Nicholas Lanier, English singer-songwriter and lute player
1601–1900
- 1624 - Thomas Sydenham, English physician and author
- 1638 - Maria Theresa of Spain
- 1655 - Caspar Bartholin the Younger, Danish anatomist
- 1659 - Henry Purcell, English organist and composer
- 1714 - Niccolò Jommelli, Italian composer
- 1753 - John Soane, English architect and academic, designed the Royal Academy and Freemasons' Hall
- 1758 - Hannah Webster Foster, American author
- 1786 - Nicolás Bravo, Mexican soldier and politician, 11th President of Mexico
- 1786 - William Mason, American surgeon and politician
- 1787 - John J. Crittenden, American statesman and politician
- 1787 - Justina Jeffreys, Jamaican-born British gentlewoman
- 1788 - Jacques Boucher de Crèvecœur de Perthes, French archaeologist and author
- 1793 - Harriet Arbuthnot, English diarist
- 1801 - Marie Laveau, American voodoo practitioner
- 1821 - William Jervois, English captain, engineer, and politician, 10th Governor of South Australia
- 1836 - Joseph Wheeler, American general and politician
- 1839 - Isaac K. Funk, American minister and publisher, co-founded Funk & Wagnalls
- 1839 - Charles Sanders Peirce, American mathematician, statistician, and philosopher
- 1844 - Abel Hoadley, English-Australian candy maker, created the Violet Crumble
- 1852 - Hans Niels Andersen, Danish businessman, founded the East Asiatic Company
- 1852 - Alice Brown Davis, American tribal chief
- 1860 - Marianne von Werefkin, Russian-Swiss painter
- 1864 - Carl Correns, German botanist and geneticist
- 1866 - Jeppe Aakjær, Danish author and poet
- 1871 - Charles Collett, English engineer
- 1872 - Ranjitsinhji, Indian cricketer
- 1874 - Mamie Dillard, African American educator, clubwoman and suffragist
- 1875 - George Hewitt Myers, American forester and philanthropist
- 1876 - Hugh D. McIntosh, Australian businessman
- 1880 - Georgia Douglas Johnson, American poet and playwright
- 1880 - Laura Cornelius Kellogg, Native American activist
- 1884 - Herbert Johanson, Estonian architect
- 1885 - Johannes de Jong, Dutch cardinal
- 1885 - Carl Clinton Van Doren, American critic and biographer
- 1886 - H.D., American poet, novelist, and memoirist
- 1887 - Giovanni Gronchi, Italian soldier and politician, 3rd President of the Italian Republic
- 1887 - Kenneth Mason, English soldier and geographer
- 1887 - Govind Ballabh Pant, Indian lawyer and politician, 1st Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh
- 1888 - Israel Abramofsky, Russian-American painter
- 1889 - Ivar Böhling, Finnish wrestler
- 1890 - Bob Heffron, New Zealand-Australian miner and politician, 30th Premier of New South Wales
- 1890 - Elsa Schiaparelli, Italian-French fashion designer
- 1890 - Franz Werfel, Austrian-Bohemian author, poet, and playwright
- 1890 - Mortimer Wheeler, British archaeologist and officer
- 1892 - Arthur Compton, American physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate
- 1894 - Alexander Dovzhenko, Soviet screenwriter/producer/director of Ukrainian origin
- 1895 - Viswanatha Satyanarayana, Indian poet and author
- 1896 - Adele Astaire, American actress and dancer
- 1896 - Robert Taschereau, Canadian lawyer, judge, and politician, 11th Chief Justice of Canada
- 1896 - Ye Ting, Chinese general
- 1897 - Georges Bataille, French philosopher, novelist, and poet
- 1897 - Hilde Hildebrand, German actress and singer
- 1898 - Bessie Love, American actress
- 1898 - Waldo Semon, American chemist and engineer