This day: 21.09.2025

A 5.6 Mw earthquake shakes the Albanian port of Durrës. Forty-nine people are injured in the capital, Tirana.

On 26 November 2019 at 03:54 CET (UTC+1), northwestern Albania was struck by a magnitude 6.4 earthquake with an epicentre 16 kilometres (9.9 mi) west-southwest of Mamurras. The earthquake lasted at least 50 seconds and was felt in Albania's capital Tirana, and in places as far away as Bari, Taranto and Belgrade, 370 kilometres (230 mi) northeast of the epicentre. The maximum felt intensity was VIII (Severe) on the Modified Mercalli intensity scale. A total of 51 people were killed in the earthquake, with about 3,000 injured. It was the second earthquake to strike the region within three months. It was the strongest earthquake to hit Albania in more than 40 years, its deadliest earthquake in 99 years and the world's deadliest earthquake in 2019.

LGBT rights activist Zak Kostopoulos is beaten to death on a busy street in Athens

Zacharias "Zak" Kostopoulos was a Greek-American activist, defending the rights of LGBT people, HIV-positive people, sex workers, and refugees. He worked as a drag performer under the stage name Zackie Oh. He was killed on a busy street near Omonoia Square, Athens in broad daylight on 21 September 2018. First beaten by civilians and later by the police, he died while on the way to the hospital. Two men were found guilty of his murder.

Adventist Health System agreed to pay $118.7 million to settle allegations of fraud. It was the largest a hospital network has ever paid.

Adventist Health System Sunbelt Healthcare Corporation, commonly referred to as AdventHealth, is a Seventh-day Adventist nonprofit organization headquartered in Altamonte Springs, Florida, that operates facilities in ten states across the United States. It is the largest not-for-profit Protestant health care provider in the country. In 2021, it was the second largest hospital network in Florida. In February 2023, it was the fifteenth largest in the country. In 2025, AdventHealth operates 56 hospitals on fifty-four campuses.

Al-Shabaab Islamic militants attack the Westgate shopping mall in Kenya, killing at least 67 people.

Harakat al-Shabaab al-Mujāhideen, simply known as al-Shabaab, or by its state name, the Islamic Emirate of Somalia, is a Sunni Islamist militant and political movement based in Somalia. It is involved in the ongoing Somali Civil War as an Islamist group, regularly invoking takfir to rationalize its terrorist attacks on Somali civilians and civil servants. Allied to the pan-Islamist militant organization al-Qaeda, it is also in a more limited capacity active elsewhere in East Africa, and has forged ties with other insurgent groups like AQIM and AQAP.

Three Egyptian militants open fire on a group of Israeli soldiers in a southern Israel cross-border attack.

Egyptians are an ethnic group native to the Nile Valley in Egypt. Egyptian identity is closely tied to geography. The population is concentrated in the Nile Valley, a small strip of cultivable land stretching from the First Cataract to the Mediterranean and enclosed by desert both to the east and to the west. This unique geography has been the basis of the development of Egyptian society since antiquity.

The Galileo spacecraft is terminated by sending it into Jupiter's atmosphere.

Galileo was an American robotic space probe that studied the planet Jupiter and its moons, as well as the asteroids Gaspra and Ida. Named after the Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei, it consisted of an orbiter and an entry probe. It was delivered into Earth orbit on October 18, 1989, by Space Shuttle Atlantis, during STS-34. Galileo arrived at Jupiter on December 7, 1995, after gravitational assist flybys of Venus and Earth, and became the first spacecraft to orbit an outer planet.

America: A Tribute to Heroes is broadcast by over 35 network and cable channels, raising over $200 million for the victims of the September 11 attacks.

America: A Tribute to Heroes was a benefit concert created by the heads of the four major American broadcast networks; Fox, ABC, NBC and CBS. Joel Gallen was selected by them to produce and run the show. Actor George Clooney organized celebrities to perform and to staff the telephone bank.

Ross Parker is murdered in Peterborough, England, by a gang of ten British Pakistani youths.

Ross Andrew Parker, from Peterborough, England, was a seventeen-year-old white English male murdered in an unprovoked racially motivated crime. He bled to death after being stabbed, beaten with a hammer and repeatedly kicked by a gang of British Pakistani men. The incident occurred in Millfield, Peterborough, ten days after the September 11 attacks.

The Chi-Chi earthquake occurs in central Taiwan, leaving about 2,400 people dead.

The Chi-Chi earthquake, was a 7.3 M_L or 7.7 M_w earthquake which occurred in Jiji (Chi-Chi), Nantou County, Taiwan on 21 September 1999 at 01:47:12 local time. 2,415 people were killed, 11,305 injured, and NT$300 billion worth of damage was done. It is the second-deadliest earthquake in Taiwan's recorded history, after the 1935 Shinchiku-Taichū earthquake.

St. Olaf's Church, a stone church from the 16th century in Tyrvää, Finland, is burnt down by a burglar.

St. Olaf's Church in Tyrvää is a late medieval fieldstone church in Tyrvää, Sastamala, Finland. It is located on the shore of lake Rautavesi. The church was built approximately in 1510–1516 and burnt down by a burglar on 21 September 1997.

The Defense of Marriage Act is passed by the United States Congress.

The Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) was a United States federal law passed by the 104th United States Congress and signed into law by President Bill Clinton on September 21, 1996. It banned federal recognition of same-sex marriage by limiting the definition of marriage to the union of one man and one woman, and it further allowed states to refuse to recognize same-sex marriages granted under the laws of other states.

Russian President Boris Yeltsin triggers a constitutional crisis when he suspends parliament and scraps the constitution.

Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin was a Russian politician and statesman who served as President of Russia from 1991 to 1999. He was a member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) from 1961 to 1990. He later stood as a political independent, during which time he was viewed as being ideologically aligned with liberalism.

A Transair Georgian Airlines Tu-134 is shot down by a missile in the Black Sea near Sokhumi, Georgia.

From 20 to 23 September 1993, during the Sukhumi massacre, separatists in Sukhumi, Abkhazia blocked Georgian troops' overland supply routes as part of the war in Abkhazia. In response, the Georgian government used Sukhumi Babushara Airport to ferry supplies to troops stationed in Sukhumi. Abkhaz forces attacked the airport in an attempt to further block the supply routes.

Armenia gains independence from the Soviet Union.

Armenia, officially the Republic of Armenia, is a landlocked country in the Armenian highlands of West Asia. It is a part of the Caucasus region and is bordered by Turkey to the west, Georgia to the north and Azerbaijan to the east, and Iran and the Azerbaijani exclave Nakhchivan to the south. Yerevan is the capital, largest city and financial center.

Brunei joins the United Nations.

Brunei, officially Brunei Darussalam, is a country in Southeast Asia, situated on the northern coast of the island of Borneo. Apart from its coastline on the South China Sea, it is completely surrounded by the Malaysian state of Sarawak, with its territory bifurcated by the Sarawak district of Limbang. Brunei is the only sovereign state entirely on Borneo; the remainder of the island is divided between its multi-landmass neighbours of Malaysia and Indonesia. As of 2023, the country had a population of 455,858, of whom approximately 180,000 resided in the capital and largest city of Bandar Seri Begawan. Its official language is Malay, and Sunni Islam is the state religion of the country, although other religions are nominally tolerated. The government of Brunei is an absolute monarchy ruled by the Sultan, and it implements a fusion of English common law and jurisprudence inspired by Islam, including sharia.

Belize is granted full independence from the United Kingdom.

Belize is a country on the north-eastern coast of Central America. It is bordered by Mexico to the north, the Caribbean Sea to the east, and Guatemala to the west and south. It also shares a maritime boundary with Honduras to the southeast. Despite being in central America, Belize identifies with the Caribbean region, and is a member of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) and the Commonwealth Caribbean, the historical British West Indies.

Sandra Day O'Connor is unanimously approved by the U.S. Senate as the first female Supreme Court justice.

Sandra Day O'Connor was an American attorney, politician, and jurist who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1981 to 2006. Nominated by President Ronald Reagan, O'Connor was the first woman to serve as a U.S. Supreme Court justice. A moderate conservative, she was considered a swing vote. Before O'Connor's tenure on the Court, she was an Arizona state judge and earlier an elected legislator in Arizona, serving as the first female majority leader of a state senate as the Republican leader in the Arizona Senate. Upon her nomination to the Court, O'Connor was confirmed unanimously by the United States Senate.

Orlando Letelier is assassinated in Washington, D.C., at the order of Augusto Pinochet.

Marcos Orlando Letelier del Solar was a Chilean economist, politician, and diplomat during the presidency of Salvador Allende. A refugee from the military dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet, Letelier accepted several academic positions in Washington D.C. after his exile from Chile. In 1976, agents of Dirección de Inteligencia Nacional (DINA), the Pinochet regime's secret police, assassinated Letelier in Washington in a car bombing. The agents had been working in collaboration with members of the Coordination of United Revolutionary Organizations, an anti-Castro militant group.

Seychelles joins the United Nations.

Seychelles, officially the Republic of Seychelles, is an island country and archipelagic state consisting of 155 islands in the Indian Ocean. Its capital and largest city, Victoria, is 1,500 kilometres east of mainland Africa. Nearby island countries and territories include the Maldives, Comoros, Madagascar, Mauritius, and the French overseas departments of Mayotte and Réunion to the south; and the Chagos Archipelago to the east. Seychelles is the smallest country in Africa as well as the least populated sovereign African country, with an estimated population of 100,600 in 2022.

Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos begins authoritarian rule by declaring martial law.

Ferdinand Emmanuel Edralin Marcos Sr. was a Filipino lawyer, politician, and kleptocrat who served as the tenth president of the Philippines from 1965 to 1986. Ruling the country as a dictator under martial law from 1972 to 1981, he granted himself expanded powers under the 1973 Constitution, describing his philosophy as "constitutional authoritarianism". He was eventually deposed in 1986 by the People Power Revolution and was succeeded as president by Corazon Aquino.

Bahrain, Bhutan and Qatar join the United Nations.

Bahrain, officially the Kingdom of Bahrain, is an island country in West Asia. Situated on the Persian Gulf, it comprises a small archipelago of 50 natural islands and an additional 33 artificial islands, centered on Bahrain Island, which makes up around 83 percent of the country's landmass. Bahrain is situated between Qatar and the northeastern coast of Saudi Arabia, to which it is connected by the King Fahd Causeway. The population is 1,501,635 as of 2023, of whom 712,362 are Bahraini nationals and 789,273 are expatriates spanning 2,000 ethnicities. Bahrain spans some 760 square kilometres (290 sq mi) and is the third-smallest nation in Asia after Maldives and Singapore. The capital and largest city is Manama.

Mexicana de Aviación Flight 801, a Boeing 727-100 passenger plane, crashes during a landing attempt in Mexico City, killing 27 of the 118 occupants.

Mexicana de Aviación Flight 801 was a scheduled international flight from Chicago-O'Hare International Airport in Illinois bound for Mexico City International Airport, Mexico City. On September 21, 1969, the Boeing 727-100 crashed during its final approach to Mexico City International Airport. The aircraft broke apart upon impact, killing 27 of the 118 occupants on board. The cause of the crash was never determined.

The Gambia, Maldives and Singapore are admitted as members of the United Nations.

The Gambia, officially the Republic of The Gambia, is a country in West Africa. Geographically, The Gambia is the smallest country in continental Africa; it is surrounded by Senegal on all sides except for the western part, which is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean.

Malta gains independence from the United Kingdom, but remains in the Commonwealth.

Malta, officially the Republic of Malta, is an island country in Southern Europe located in the Mediterranean Sea, between Sicily and North Africa. It consists of an archipelago 80 km (50 mi) south of Italy, 284 km (176 mi) east of Tunisia, and 333 km (207 mi) north of Libya. The two official languages are Maltese and English. The country's capital is Valletta, which is the smallest capital city in the European Union (EU) by both area and population.

The North American XB-70 Valkyrie, the world's fastest bomber, makes its maiden flight from Palmdale, California.

The North American Aviation XB-70 Valkyrie is a retired prototype version of the planned B-70 nuclear-armed, deep-penetration supersonic strategic bomber for the United States Air Force Strategic Air Command. Designed in the late 1950s by North American Aviation (NAA) to replace the B-52 Stratofortress and B-58 Hustler, the six-engine, delta-winged Valkyrie could cruise for thousands of miles at Mach 3+ while flying at 70,000 feet (21,000 m).

Pamir, a four-masted barque, was shipwrecked and sank off the Azores during Hurricane Carrie.

Pamir was a four-masted barque built for the German shipping company F. Laeisz. One of their famous Flying P-Liners, named after the Pamir Mountains, she was the last commercial sailing ship to round Cape Horn, in 1949. By 1957, she had been outmoded by modern bulk carriers and could not operate at a profit. Her shipping consortium's inability to finance much-needed repairs or to recruit sufficient sail-trained officers caused severe technical difficulties. On 21 September 1957, she was caught in Hurricane Carrie and sank off the Azores, with only six survivors rescued after an extensive search.

Lieutenant No Kum-sok, a North Korean pilot, defects to South Korea with his jet fighter.

No Kum-sok was a North Korean–born American engineer and aviator who served as a senior lieutenant in the Korean People's Army Air and Anti-Air Force during the Korean War. Under colonial rule, No was required to adopt a Japanese name, Okamura Kiyoshi. Approximately two months after the end of hostilities, he defected to South Korea in a MiG-15 aircraft, and was subsequently granted political asylum in the United States. He then adopted the English name Kenneth H. Rowe.

The Holocaust in Ukraine: On the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur, Nazis send over 1,000 Jews of Pidhaitsi to Bełżec extermination camp.

The Holocaust saw the systematic mass murder of Jews in the Reichskommissariat Ukraine, the General Government, the Crimean General Government and some areas which were located to the east of Reichskommissariat Ukraine, in the Transnistria Governorate and Bessarabia, Northern Bukovina and the Hertsa region and Carpathian Ruthenia during World War II. The listed areas are currently parts of Ukraine.

The Holocaust in Ukraine: In Dunaivtsi, Ukraine, Nazis murder 2,588 Jews.

Dunaivtsi is a city in Kamianets-Podilskyi Raion, Khmelnytskyi Oblast, Ukraine. It is located on the river Ternavka, 22 km away from the railway station Dunaivtsi and 68 km from the Khmelnytskyi. Reinforcement plant, repair and engineering works and butter-processing plant are located in the city. The city also houses a control center of the State Space Agency of Ukraine. Dunaivtsi hosts the administration of Dunaivtsi urban hromada, one of the hromadas of Ukraine. Current population is 15,078 (2024).

The Holocaust in Poland: At the end of Yom Kippur, Germans order Jews to permanently move from Konstantynów to Biała Podlaska.

The Holocaust saw the ghettoization, robbery, deportation and mass murder of Jews, alongside other groups under similar racial pretexts in occupied Poland by the Nazi Germany. Over three million Polish Jews were murdered, primarily at the Chełmno, Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka and Auschwitz extermination camps, who made up half of the Jewish Holocaust victims.

The Boeing B-29 Superfortress makes its maiden flight.

The Boeing B-29 Superfortress is a retired American four-engined propeller-driven heavy bomber, designed by Boeing and flown primarily by the United States during World War II and the Korean War. Named in allusion to its predecessor, the Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress, the Superfortress was designed for high-altitude strategic bombing, but also excelled in low-altitude night incendiary bombing, and in dropping naval mines to blockade Japan. Silverplate B-29s dropped the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the only aircraft ever to drop nuclear weapons in combat.

Romanian Prime Minister Armand Călinescu is assassinated by the Iron Guard.

Armand Călinescu was a Romanian economist and politician, who served as 39th Prime Minister from March 1939 until his assassination six months later. He was a staunch opponent of the fascist Iron Guard and may have been the real power behind the throne during the dictatorship of King Carol II. He survived several assassination attempts but was finally killed by members of the Iron Guard with German assistance.

The Great Hurricane of 1938 makes landfall on Long Island in New York. The death toll is estimated at 500–700 people.

The 1938 New England Hurricane was one of the deadliest and most destructive tropical cyclones to strike the United States. The storm formed near the coast of Africa on September 9, becoming a Category 5 hurricane on the Saffir–Simpson hurricane scale, before making landfall as a Category 3 hurricane on Long Island on Wednesday, September 21. It is estimated that the hurricane killed 682 people, damaged or destroyed more than 57,000 homes and caused property losses estimated at $306 million. Also, numerous others estimate the real damage between $347 million and almost $410 million. Damaged trees and buildings were still seen in the affected areas as late as 1951. It remains the most powerful and deadliest hurricane to ever strike New York State and New England in history, perhaps eclipsed in landfall intensity only by the Great Colonial Hurricane of 1635.

J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit is published for the first time. (September 22 is celebrated by some fans as Hobbit Day, however.)

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was an English writer and philologist. He was the author of the high fantasy works The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.

A large typhoon hits western Honshū, Japan, killing more than 3,000 people.

In September 1934, a violent typhoon caused tremendous devastation in Japan, leaving more than 3,000 people dead in its wake. Dubbed the Muroto typhoon , the system was first identified on September 13 over the western Federated States of Micronesia. Moving generally northwest, it eventually brushed the Ryukyu Islands on September 20. Turning northeast, the typhoon accelerated and struck Shikoku and southern Honshu the following morning. It made landfalls in Muroto, Kaifu, Awaji Island, and Kobe. A pressure of 911.9 hPa (26.93 inHg) was observed in Muroto, making the typhoon the strongest ever recorded to impact Japan at the time. This value was also the lowest land-based pressure reading in the world on record at the time; however, it was surpassed the following year during the 1935 Labor Day hurricane. After clearing Japan, the now extratropical storm traveled east and weakened. Turning north by September 24, the system deepened and impacted the Aleutian Islands; it was last noted the following day over western Alaska.

Salvador Lutteroth establishes Mexican professional wrestling.

Salvador Lutteroth González was a Mexican professional wrestling promoter of the mid-twentieth century. Lutteroth's organization, Empresa Mexicana de Lucha Libre (EMLL), was the dominant Mexican wrestling promotional enterprise from its founding in 1933 until Lutteroth left the company in the 1950s. Under its current name of Consejo Mundial de Lucha Libre (CMLL), it is, to date, the longest-running active professional wrestling promotion in the world presenting three weekly shows. Lutteroth was known as the "father of lucha libre," and, in his position as promoter and booker of the dominant promotion, was the most powerful man in Mexican wrestling, and one of the most powerful wrestling executives in the world. He was, in large part, responsible for the widespread fame of the most famous Mexican professional wrestlers of the mid-twentieth century, such as Octavio Gaona, the first Mexican wrestler to win the middleweight championship of the world by defeating Gus Kallio, Carlos Tarzán López, El Santo, Gory Guerrero, René Guajardo, Karloff Lagarde, Enrique Llanes, and the international league wrestler Medico Asesino, Rito Romero, Dorrel Dixon and Mil Máscaras, who wrestled in the United States, Japan, and Europe.

A storage silo in Oppau, Germany, explodes, killing 500–600 people.

The Oppau explosion occurred on September 21, 1921, when approximately 4,500 tonnes of a mixture of ammonium sulfate and ammonium nitrate fertilizer stored in a tower silo exploded at a BASF plant in Oppau, now part of Ludwigshafen, Germany, killing 500–600 people and injuring about 2,000 more.

Empress Dowager Cixi seizes power and ends the Hundred Days' Reform in China.

Empress Dowager Cixi was a Manchu noblewoman of the Yehe Nara clan who had de facto control of the Chinese government in the late Qing dynasty as empress dowager and regent for almost 50 years, from 1861 until her death in 1908. Selected as a concubine of the Xianfeng Emperor in her adolescence, she gave birth to a son, Zaichun, in 1856. After the Xianfeng Emperor's death in 1861, his five-year-old son became the Tongzhi Emperor, and Cixi assumed the role of co-empress dowager alongside Xianfeng's widow, Empress Dowager Ci'an. Cixi ousted a group of regents appointed by the late emperor and assumed the regency along with Ci'an. Cixi then consolidated control over the dynasty when she installed her nephew as the Guangxu Emperor at the death of the Tongzhi Emperor in 1875. Ci'an continued as co-regent until her death in 1881.

Anglo-Egyptian conquest of Sudan: British forces under the command of Horatio Kitchener take Dongola.

The Anglo-Egyptian conquest of Sudan in 1896–1899 was a reconquest of territory lost by the Khedives of Egypt in 1884–1885 during the Mahdist War. The British had failed to organise an orderly withdrawal of the Egyptian Army from Sudan, and the defeat at Khartoum left only Suakin and Equatoria under Egyptian control after 1885. The conquest of 1896–1899 defeated and destroyed the Mahdist State and re-established Anglo-Egyptian rule, which remained until Sudan became independent in 1956.

Taiping Rebellion: The Ever Victorious Army defeats Taiping forces at the Battle of Cixi.

The Taiping Rebellion, also known as the Taiping Civil War, Revolution, or Movement, was a civil war in China between the Qing dynasty and the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. The conflict lasted 14 years, from its outbreak in 1850 until the fall of Taiping-controlled Nanjing—which they had renamed Tianjing "heavenly capital"—in 1864. The last rebel forces were defeated in August 1871. Estimates of the conflict's death toll range between 20 million and 30 million people, representing 5–10% of China's population at that time. While the Qing ultimately defeated the rebellion, the victory came at a great cost to the state's economic and political viability.

Second Opium War: An Anglo-French force defeats Chinese troops at the Battle of Palikao.

The Second Opium War, also known as the Second Anglo-Chinese War or Arrow War, was fought between the United Kingdom and France against the Qing dynasty of China between 1856 and 1860. It was the second major conflict in the Opium Wars, which were fought over the right to import opium to China, and resulted in a second defeat for the Qing and the forced legalisation of the opium trade. It caused many Chinese officials to believe that conflicts with the Western powers were no longer traditional wars, but part of a looming national crisis.

The crew of schooner Ancud, led by John Williams Wilson, takes possession of the Strait of Magellan on behalf of the Chilean government.

The schooner Ancud was the ship sent by Chile in 1843 to claim sovereignty over the Strait of Magellan and establish Fuerte Bulnes, the first Chilean settlement in the strait. It was built for the purpose in the city of San Carlos de Ancud and commanded by John Williams Wilson, a British-born Chilean captain.

War of 1812: British forces abandon their unsuccessful siege of Fort Erie.

The War of 1812 was fought by the United States and its allies against the United Kingdom and its allies in North America. It began when the United States declared war on Britain on 18 June 1812. Although peace terms were agreed upon in the December 1814 Treaty of Ghent, the war did not officially end until the peace treaty was ratified by the United States Congress on 17 February 1815.

British Secretary of War Lord Castlereagh and Foreign Secretary George Canning meet in a duel on Putney Heath, with Castlereagh wounding Canning in the thigh.

The Secretary of State for War and the Colonies was a British cabinet-level position responsible for the army and the British colonies. The Secretary was supported by an Under-Secretary of State for War and the Colonies.

French Revolution: The National Convention abolishes the monarchy.

The French Revolution was a period of political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the Coup of 18 Brumaire on 9 November 1799. Many of the revolution's ideas are considered fundamental principles of liberal democracy, and its values remain central to modern French political discourse. It was caused by a combination of social, political, and economic factors which the existing regime proved unable to manage.

American Revolutionary War: Benedict Arnold gives the British the plans to West Point.

The American Revolutionary War, also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, was the armed conflict that comprised the final eight years of the broader American Revolution, in which American Patriot forces organized as the Continental Army and commanded by George Washington defeated the British Army. The conflict was fought in North America, the Caribbean, and the Atlantic Ocean. The war's outcome seemed uncertain for most of the war. But Washington and the Continental Army's decisive victory in the Siege of Yorktown in 1781 led King George III and the Kingdom of Great Britain to negotiate an end to the war in the Treaty of Paris two years later, in 1783, in which the British monarchy acknowledged the independence of the Thirteen Colonies, leading to the establishment of the United States as an independent and sovereign nation.

Part of New York City is burned shortly after being occupied by British forces.

New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States. It is located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive with its respective county. The city is the geographical and demographic center of both the Northeast megalopolis and the New York metropolitan area, the largest metropolitan area in the United States by both population and urban area. New York is a global center of finance and commerce, culture, technology, entertainment and media, academics and scientific output, the arts and fashion, and, as home to the headquarters of the United Nations, international diplomacy.

A British government army led by Sir John Cope is defeated in less than 15 minutes by the Jacobite forces of Prince Charles Edward Stuart.

Sir John Cope was a British soldier, and Whig Member of Parliament, representing three separate constituencies between 1722 and 1741. He is now chiefly remembered for his defeat at Prestonpans, the first significant battle of the Jacobite rising of 1745 and which was commemorated by the tune "Hey, Johnnie Cope, Are Ye Waking Yet?", which still features in modern Scottish folk music and bagpipe recitals.

The Treaty of Arras is promulgated, causing Burgundy to switch sides in the Hundred Years' War.

The Congress of Arras was a diplomatic congregation established at Arras in the summer of 1435 during the Hundred Years' War, between representatives of England, France and Burgundy. It was the first negotiation since the Treaty of Troyes and replaced the fifteen-year agreement between Burgundy and England that would have seen the dynasty of Henry V inherit the French crown. Historian Richard Vaughan has called it "Europe's first real peace congress".

Livonian Crusade: The Estonian leader Lembitu and Livonian leader Caupo of Turaida are killed in the Battle of St. Matthew's Day.

The Livonian crusade consists of the various military Christianisation campaigns in medieval Livonia – modern Latvia and Estonia – during the Papal-sanctioned Northern Crusades in the 12th–13th century.

Anglo-Norman invasion of Ireland: The Kingdom of Dublin falls to Anglo-Norman invaders.

The Anglo-Norman invasion of Ireland took place during the late 12th century, when Anglo-Normans gradually conquered and acquired large swathes of land in Ireland over which the monarchs of England then claimed sovereignty. The Anglo-Normans claimed the invasion was sanctioned by the papal bull Laudabiliter. Gaelic Ireland then consisted of several kingdoms, with a High King claiming lordship over most of the other kings. The Anglo-Norman invasion was a watershed in Ireland's history, marking the beginning of almost 800 years of British presence in Ireland.

Emperor Avitus enters Italy with a Gallic army and consolidates his power.

Eparchius Avitus was Roman emperor of the Western Empire from July 455 to October 456. He was a senator of Gallic extraction and a high-ranking officer both in the civil and military administration, as well as Bishop of Piacenza.