What Happened on September 2nd in History

The last execution of a Finn in Finland takes place when soldier Olavi Laiho is executed by shooting in Oulu.

Finland, or the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It borders Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of Bothnia to the west and...

World War II: The Japanese Instrument of Surrender is signed by Japan and the major warring powers aboard the battleship USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay, thus marking the official end to the war.

The Japanese Instrument of Surrender was the printed agreement that formalized the surrender of Japan, marking the end of hostilities in World War II. It was signed by representatives from Japan and...

Communist leader Ho Chi Minh proclaimed the Democratic Republic of Vietnam after the end of the Nguyễn dynasty.

Hồ Chí Minh, colloquially known as Uncle Ho among other aliases and sobriquets, was a Vietnamese revolutionary and statesman who founded the Democratic Republic of Vietnam in 1945. He served as its...

The Interim Government of India is formed, headed by Jawaharlal Nehru as vice president with the powers of a Prime Minister.

The Interim Government of India, also known as the Provisional Government of India, formed on 2 September 1946 from the newly elected Constituent Assembly of India, had the task of assisting the...

President Ngô Đình Diệm of South Vietnam becomes the first foreign head of state to make a state visit to Australia.

Ngô Đình Diệm was a South Vietnamese politician who was the final prime minister of the State of Vietnam (1954–1955) and later the first president of South Vietnam from 1955 until his capture and...

A USAF RC-130 is shot down by fighters over Armenia when it strays into Soviet airspace while conducting a sigint mission. All crew members are killed.

The Lockheed RC-130 Hercules are retired variants of the C-130 Hercules, designed for photographic or electronic reconnaissance missions.

The first election of the Tibetan Parliament-in-Exile. The Tibetan community observes this date as Democracy Day.

The Tibetan Parliament in Exile (TPiE), officially the Parliament of the Central Tibetan Administration, is the unicameral and highest legislative organ of the Central Tibetan Administration, the...

CBS Evening News becomes U.S. network television's first half-hour weeknight news broadcast, when the show is lengthened from 15 to 30 minutes.

The CBS Evening News is the flagship evening television news program of CBS News, the news division of the CBS television network in the United States. The CBS Evening News is a daily evening...

Operation OAU begins during the Nigerian Civil War.

Operation OAU was a battle between Nigerian 3 Marine Commando Division (3MCDO) and Biafran 12 Division in modern day south-eastern Nigeria. Operation OAU was an intermittent battle that may have...

NASA announces the cancellation of two Apollo missions to the Moon, Apollo 15 (the designation is re-used by a later mission), and Apollo 19.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is an independent agency of the U.S. federal government responsible for the United States' civil space program and for research in aeronautics and...

Aeroflot Flight 3630, a Tupolev Tu-124 en route from southern Russia to Lithuania, crashes after the pilots lost control of the aircraft at cruise altitude between Rostov-on-Don Airport and Vilnius Airport, on the second leg of the flight; all 37 passengers and crew are killed.

Aeroflot Flight 3630 was a regularly scheduled passenger flight operated by Aeroflot from Mineralnye Vody, Stavropol Krai, to Vilnius, capital of Lithuania SSR with a stop over at Rostov-on-Don...

Seven people are shot and killed and 12 wounded in the Milperra massacre, a shootout between the rival motorcycle gangs Bandidos and Comancheros in Sydney, Australia.

The Milperra Massacre, Milperra bikie shoot-out or Father's Day Massacre was a gunfight between rival motorcycle gang members on 2 September 1984, in Milperra, a south-western suburb of Sydney, New...

Sri Lankan Civil War: Sri Lankan Tamil politicians and former MPs M. Alalasundaram and V. Dharmalingam are shot dead.

The Sri Lankan civil war was fought in Sri Lanka from 1983 to 2009. Beginning on 23 July 1983, it was an intermittent insurgency against the government by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam led by...

In Moscow, the trial begins for 19-year-old pilot Mathias Rust, who flew his Cessna airplane into Red Square in May.

Mathias Rust is a German aviator. In 1987, as a teenage amateur pilot, he flew from Helsinki, Finland, to Moscow, without authorization. According to Russian claims, he was tracked several times by...

Transnistria is unilaterally proclaimed a Soviet republic; the Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev declares the decision null and void.

Transnistria, officially known as the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic (PMR) and locally as Pridnestrovie, is a landlocked breakaway state internationally recognised as part of Moldova....

The 7.7 Mw  Nicaragua earthquake affected the west coast of Nicaragua. With a Ms–Mw disparity of half a unit, this tsunami earthquake triggered a tsunami that caused most of the damage and casualties, with at least 116 killed. Typical runup heights were 3–8 meters (9.8–26.2 ft).

The 1992 Nicaragua earthquake occurred off the coast of Nicaragua at 6:16 p.m. on 1 September. Some damage was also reported in Costa Rica. At least 116 people were killed and several more were...

Swissair Flight 111 crashes near Peggy's Cove, Nova Scotia; all 229 people on board are killed.

Swissair Flight 111 was a scheduled international passenger flight from John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City, United States, to Cointrin Airport in Geneva, Switzerland. The flight...

The UN's International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda finds Jean-Paul Akayesu, the former mayor of a small town in Rwanda, guilty of nine counts of genocide.

The United Nations (UN) is a global intergovernmental organization established by the signing of the Charter of the United Nations on 26 June 1945 with the articulated mission of maintaining...

Google launches its Google Chrome web browser.

Google LLC is an American multinational technology corporation focused on information technology, online advertising, search engine technology, email, cloud computing, software, quantum computing,...

The Andhra Pradesh, India helicopter crash occurred near Rudrakonda Hill, 40 nautical miles (74 km) from Kurnool, Andhra Pradesh, India. Fatalities included Y. S. Rajasekhara Reddy, the Chief Minister of the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh.

The 2009 Andhra Pradesh helicopter crash occurred on 2 September 2009 near Rudrakonda Hill, 40 nautical miles (74 km) from Kurnool, Andhra Pradesh, India. The helicopter was a Bell 430 helicopter...

Israel-Palestinian conflict: the 2010 Israeli-Palestinian peace talks are launched by the United States.

Israel and the Palestinians are engaged in an ongoing military and political conflict about land and self-determination within the former territory of Mandatory Palestine. Key aspects of the...

The Eastern span replacement of the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge opens at 10:15 pm at a cost of $6.4 billion, after the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake damaged the old span.

The eastern span replacement of the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge was a construction project to replace a seismically unsound portion of the Bay Bridge with a new self-anchored suspension bridge...

National Museum of Brazil fire, A massive fire destroys most of the Paço de São Cristóvão, which houses the National Museum of Brazil, in Rio de Janeiro. The museum holds important archaeοlogical and anthropological objects, including the remains of the Luzia Woman, Marajoara vases and Egyptian mummies.

The National Museum of Brazil was heavily damaged by a large fire which began about 19:30 local time on 2 September 2018. Although some items were saved, it is believed that 92% of its archive of 20...

Hurricane Dorian, a category 5 hurricane, devastates the Bahamas, killing at least five.

Hurricane Dorian was an extremely powerful and catastrophic tropical cyclone, which became the most intense on record to strike the Bahamas. It is tied with the 1935 Labor Day hurricane and...

The dive boat MV Conception catches fire and sinks near Santa Cruz Island, killing 34.

The sinking of MV Conception occurred on September 2, 2019 after the 75-foot (23 m) dive boat caught fire and eventually sank off the coast of Santa Cruz Island, California, United States, killing...

Eighteen people are killed and 23 others are injured by a suicide bombing at a Sunni mosque in Herat, Afghanistan.

On 2 September 2022, a suicide bombing occurred at a mosque in Herat, northwestern Afghanistan.

India's first solar observation mission: The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) successfully launches Aditya-L1 from Satish Dhawan space centre.

Aditya-L1 is a coronagraphy spacecraft for studying the solar atmosphere, designed and developed by ISRO and various other Indian Space Research Institutes. It is orbiting at about 1.5 million km...

Four people are killed in a mass shooting targeting homeless people on a Chicago Transit Authority train in Forest Park, Illinois, United States.

The Chicago "L" is the rapid transit system serving the city of Chicago and some of its surrounding suburbs in the U.S. state of Illinois. Operated by the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA), it is the...

A suicide bombing in Kabul, Afghanistan, kills 6 people and injures 13.

On September 2, 2024, a suicide bomber detonated explosives strapped to his body outside a government building in Afghanistan's capital Kabul, killing six people and injuring 13 others.

At least 129 inmates are killed and 59 more injured in an attempted prison break at Makala Prison in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo.

On 2 September 2024, an attempted jailbreak at Makala Central Prison in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo, resulted in the deaths of at least 129 people and more than 59 other injuries. A...