September 2

1666 The Great Fire of London, which devastates the city, begins.

1789 The Treasury Department, headed by Alexander Hamilton, is created in New York City.

1792 Verdun, France, surrenders to the Prussian Army.

1798 The Maltese people revolt against the French occupation, forcing the French troops to take refuge in the citadel of Valetta in Malta.

1870 Napoleon III capitulates to the Prussians at Sedan, France.

1885 In Rock Springs, Wyoming Territory, 28 Chinese laborers are killed and hundreds more chased out of town by striking coal miners.

1898 Sir Herbert Kitchner leads the British to victory over the Mahdists at Omdurman and takes Khartoum.

1910 Alice Stebbins Wells is admitted to the Los Angeles Police Force as the first woman police officer to receive an appointment based on a civil service exam.

1915 Austro-German armies take Grodno, Poland.

1944 Troops of the U.S. First Army enter Belgium.

1945 Japan signs the document of surrender aboard the USS Missouri, ending World War II

1945 Vietnam declares its independence and Nationalist leader Ho Chi Minh proclaims himself its first president.

1956 Tennessee National Guardsmen halt rioters protesting the admission of 12 African-Americans to schools in Clinton.

1963 Alabama Governor George Wallace calls state troopers to Tuskegee High School to prevent integration.

1963 The US gets its first half-hour TV weeknight national news broadcast when CBS Evening News expands from 15 to 30 minutes.

1970 NASA cancels two planned missions to the moon.

1975 Joseph W. Hatcher of Tallahassee, Florida, becomes the state’s first African-American supreme court justice since Reconstruction.

1992 The US and Russia agree to a joint venture to build a space station.

1996 The Philippine government and Muslim rebels sign a pact, formally ending a 26-year long insurgency.

1998 Jean Paul Akayesu, former mayor of a small town in Rwanda, found guilty of nine counts of genocide by the UN’s International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda.

Born on September 2

1838 Lydia Kamekeha Liliuokalani, last sovereign before annexation of Hawaii by the United States.

1850 Eugene Field, poet and journalist.

1877 Frederick Soddy, named an isotope and received 1921 Nobel prize for chemistry.

1901 Adolph Rupp, basketball coach at the University of Kentucky who achieved a record 876 victories.

1946 Dan White, politician; assassinated San Francisco mayor George Moscone and San Francisco Supervisor Harvey Milk.

1948 Christa McAuliffe, the first civilian passenger on a space mission. During that mission, she and the six other crew members on the space shuttle Challenger perished in an explosion shortly after launch.

1948 Terry Bradshaw, athlete, TV sports analyst, actor; first quarterback to win four Super Bowls (Pittsburgh Steelers); Pro Football Hall of Fame.

1951 Mark Harmon, actor (St. Elsewhere, NCIS TV series).

1952 Jimmy Connors, former World No. 1 tennis player; reached more Grand Slam quarterfinals than any other male.

1964 Keanu Reeves, actor (Speed, The Matrix trilogy).

More about: