September 9, 1932: The steamer *Observation * blows up in the East River in New York. 72 are killed. Most of the dead are iron workers travelling to their job at the construction site of the Rikers Island prison.
September 10, 1899: A string of powerful earthquakes strike Alaska. The Yakutat Quakemay have been as strong as an 8.0. It is estimated that an area around this earthquake was raised almost 47 feet(!), the largest such land displacement ever measured from an earthquake.
September 11, 1878: An explosion at the Prince of Wales Colliery in Abercarn, Waleskills at least 268 miners.
September 11, 2001 - Alice Trillin died. She was the wife of author Calvin Trillin, who mentioned her in his many works. She died in NYC, but of heart failure in a hospital.
September 11, 2001: Coordinated terrorist attacks against the U.S. making use of four hijacked airliners kill almost 3000 people.
September 12, 1942: The RMS *Laconia * is sunk by a German U-boat. Over 1500 aboard die.
September 13, 1918: The Weesp Train Disasterkills 41 and injures another 42 in the Netherlands.
September 13, 379 – Yax Nuun Ahiin I is crowned as 15th Ajaw of Tikal
September 24, 1919: An unnamed hurricane strikes Corpus Christi, Texas and kills many hundreds of people.
September 14, 1752 – The British Empire adopts the Gregorian calendar, skipping eleven days (the previous day was September 2).
**September 15, 1944 **: The Great Atlantic Hurricanemakes landfall in Rhode Island.
September 16, 1920: In what at the time was the deadliest terrorist act in American history, a horse-drawn wagon loaded with dynamite explodes on Wall Street in New York City. 38 are killed and hundreds wounded. The bomb was detonated in front of the headquarters of J.P. Morgan & Sons, leading many to blame communists and other anti-capitalists. No group or individual ever claimed responsibility. The culprits were never found or identified.
September 17, 1862: The Battle of Antitem.
This is the bloodiest single day in US military history. Over 22,700 casualties occurred, including over 3600 deaths in this single-day battle in rural Sharpsburg, Maryland.
September 18, 1944: The Japanese Cargo ship *Junyo Maru *is sunk by the British submarine HMS Tradewind in the Indian Ocean. Because the Japanese did not place Red Cross symbols on the ship, the British submarine officers had no way of knowing what was aboard the ship. The *Junyo Maru *was packed with POWs and Javanese slave laborers. The total number of prisoners aboard the ship exceeded 6200. They were being transported to Sumatra as slaves to build a railroad. Conditions aboard the ship for the prisoners have been described as extraordinarily cruel.
Overy 5500 people died in the sinking. At the time this was the deadliest maritime disaster in history. 800 or so prisoners were rescued from the water by the Japanese, only to be sent to their original terrible objective. Only about 100 of these would ultimately survive the war.
September 25, 1911: An explosion destroys the French battleship *Liberte *while moored in Toulon Harbor. 250 officers and crew die.
September 26, 1954: The Japanese commercial train ferry Toya Maru sinks in a typhoon killing over 1150 passengers and crew.
September 27, 1854: The SS Arctic luxury passenger steamer collides with a smaller ship and sinks in the Atlantic off the coast of Newfoundland. This is one of the earliest of the major Atlantic maritime tragedies and one of the most infamous. Despite the call for “women and children first” for the too few lifeboats, many of the crew mutiny instead and take to the lifeboats themselves. 325 die in the sinking, including all 88 women and children aboard the ship. 75 others survive. No one is held accountable.
September 28, 1994: The MS *Estonia *passenger ship sinks in the Baltic Sea killing over 850. The reason for the sinking is murky at best, and subsequent treatment of the wreck and its site have raised numerous conspiracy theories.
September 29, 1957: The Kyshtym Disaster, one of the worst nuclear accidents ever, occurs in Russia. A waste tank at a nuclear plant near the Ural Mountains explodes sending a radioactive cloud across a large area. Approximately 300 are killed initially. Estimates of future deaths relating to this accident are as high as 8000.
September 30, 1888: Elizabeth Stride and Catherine Eddowes are murdered. Both crimes are attributed to Jack the Ripper.