On this day: September 10

Events on September 10

• 422 Election of pope Celestine I following the death of pope Boniface I earlier that month. Wikipedia
• 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. Wikipedia
• 1419 John the Fearless, Duke of Burgundy is assassinated by adherents of the Dauphin, the future Charles VII of France. Wikipedia
• 1509 The "Minor Judgement Day" earthquake struck in the Sea of Marmara, devastating much of Constantinople and killing more than 1,000 people. Wikipedia
• 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. Wikipedia
• 1573 German pirate Klein Henszlein and 33 of his crew are beheaded in Hamburg. Wikipedia
• 1622 Fifty-five Christians were executed in Nagasaki during the Great Genna Martyrdom, part of persecution towards Christians in Japan by the Tokugawa shogunate. Wikipedia
• 1622 Fifty-five Christians are executed in Nagasaki during the Great Genna Martyrdom. Wikipedia
• 1724 Johann Sebastian Bach led the first performance of Jesu, der du meine Seele, BWV 78, a chorale cantata based on a passion hymn by Johann Rist. Wikipedia
• 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. Wikipedia
• 1776 American Revolutionary War: Nathan Hale volunteers to spy for the Continental Army. Wikipedia
• 1779 American Revolutionary War: Captain William Pickles of the Continental Navy boarded and captured the British sloop HMS West Florida at the Battle of Lake Pontchartrain. Wikipedia
• 1858 George Mary Searle discovered the asteroid 55 Pandora from the Dudley Observatory near Albany, New York; it was his only asteroid discovery. Wikipedia
• 1898 Empress Elisabeth of Austria is assassinated by Luigi Lucheni. Wikipedia
• 1918 Russian Civil War: The Red Army captures Kazan. Wikipedia
• 1937 Led by the United Kingdom and France, nine nations met at the Nyon Conference to address international piracy in the Mediterranean Sea. Wikipedia
• 1939 World War II: The submarine HMS Oxley is mistakenly sunk by the submarine HMS Triton near Norway and becomes the Royal Navy's first loss of a submarine in the war. Wikipedia
• 1945 Mike the Headless Chicken was decapitated on a farm in Colorado; he survived another 18 months as part of sideshows before choking to death. Wikipedia
• 1960 Running barefoot in the marathon event at the Rome Olympics, Abebe Bikila became the first athlete from sub-Saharan Africa to win an Olympic gold medal. Wikipedia
• 1974 After centuries of Portuguese rule, the country of Guinea-Bissau was formally recognized as independent. Wikipedia
• 1974 Guinea-Bissau gains independence from Portugal. Wikipedia
• 1990 Pope John Paul II consecrated the Basilica of Our Lady of Peace, one of the largest churches in the world, in Yamoussoukro, Ivory Coast. Wikipedia
• 2007 Former Prime Minister of Pakistan Nawaz Sharif returns to Pakistan after seven years in exile, following a military coup in October 1999. Wikipedia
• 2008 The Large Hadron Collider at CERN, described as the biggest scientific experiment in history, is powered up in Geneva, Switzerland. Wikipedia
• 2025 American political activist Charlie Kirk was shot and killed at an event at Utah Valley University. Wikipedia
• 2025 American right-wing political activist Charlie Kirk is assassinated while onstage at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah. Wikipedia

Born on September 10

• 1487 Pope Julius III (died 1555) Wikipedia
• 1588 Nicholas Lanier, English singer-songwriter and lute player (died 1666) Wikipedia
• 1659 Henry Purcell, English organist and composer (died 1695) Wikipedia
• 1839 Charles Sanders Peirce, American mathematician, statistician, and philosopher (died 1914) Wikipedia
• 1890 Franz Werfel, Austrian-Bohemian author, poet, and playwright (died 1945) Wikipedia
• 1892 Arthur Compton, American physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1962) Wikipedia
• 1894 Alexander Dovzhenko, Soviet screenwriter/producer/director of Ukrainian origin (died 1956) Wikipedia
• 1897 Georges Bataille, French philosopher, novelist, and poet (died 1962) Wikipedia
• 1907 Dorothy Hill, Australian geologist and palaeontologist (died 1997) Wikipedia
• 1933 Karl Lagerfeld, German-French fashion designer and photographer (died 2019)[citation needed] Wikipedia
• 1937 Jared Diamond, American biologist, geographer, and author Wikipedia
• 1940 Buck Buchanan, American football player (died 1992)[citation needed] Wikipedia
• 1941 Christopher Hogwood, English harpsichord player and conductor, founded the Academy of Ancient Music (died 2014) Wikipedia
• 1941 Stephen Jay Gould, American paleontologist, biologist, and author (died 2002) Wikipedia
• 1941 Gunpei Yokoi, Japanese video game designer, invented Game Boy (died 1997) Wikipedia
• 1948 Margaret Trudeau, Canadian actress and talk show host, spouse of Pierre Trudeau, the 15th Prime Minister of Canada Wikipedia
• 1958 Chris Columbus, American director, producer, and screenwriter Wikipedia
• 1960 Colin Firth, English actor and producer Wikipedia
• 1963 Randy Johnson, American baseball player[citation needed] Wikipedia
• 1964 Jack Ma, Chinese businessman, co-founder of Alibaba Group [citation needed] Wikipedia
• 1968 Guy Ritchie, English director, producer, and screenwriter Wikipedia
• 1980 Tetsuya Yamagami, Japanese assassin of Shinzo Abe Wikipedia

Died on September 10

• 210 BC Qin Shi Huang, first emperor of China (born 259 BC) Wikipedia
• 602 Dugu Qieluo, empress of the Chinese Sui dynasty (born 544) Wikipedia
• 689 Guo Zhengyi, official of the Chinese Tang dynasty Wikipedia
• 710 Li Chongfu, imperial prince of the Chinese Tang dynasty (born c. 680) Wikipedia
• 1797 Mary Wollstonecraft, English philosopher, historian, and novelist (born 1759) Wikipedia
• 1842 Letitia Christian Tyler, American wife of John Tyler, 11th First Lady of the United States (born 1790) Wikipedia
• 1845 Joseph Story, American lawyer, politician, and Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States (born 1779) Wikipedia
• 1898 Empress Elisabeth of Austria (born 1837) Wikipedia
• 1975 George Paget Thomson, English physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1892) Wikipedia
• 1979 Agostinho Neto, Angolan politician, 1st President of Angola (born 1922) Wikipedia
• 1983 Felix Bloch, Swiss-American physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1905) Wikipedia
• 2007 Jane Wyman, American actress (born 1917) Wikipedia
• 2023 Ian Wilmut, British embryologist (born 1944) Wikipedia
• 2025 Charlie Kirk, American right-wing political activist (born 1993) Wikipedia

Holidays and observances

• Amerindian Heritage Day (Guyana) Wikipedia
• Children's Day (Honduras) Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Alexander Crummell (Episcopal Church) Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Ambrose Barlow Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Aubert Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Blessed Sebastian Kimura, Charles Spinola, and Martyrs of Nagasaki Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Edmund James Peck (Anglican Church of Canada) Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Nicholas of Tolentino Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Theodard of Maastricht Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: September 10 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics) Wikipedia
• Gibraltar National Day Wikipedia
• Saint George's Caye Day (Belize) Wikipedia
• Teachers' Day (China) Wikipedia
• World Suicide Prevention Day Wikipedia

The events, births, deaths and observances above are from the English Wikipedia article “September 10” and the articles it links to (authors and history), retrieved 2026-10-09 through the Wikimedia “On this day” feed. They are licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0; this selection is shared under the same licence. We picked the 26 events, 22 births and 14 deaths with the widest coverage across Wikipedia's language editions (counted from Wikidata) and sorted them by year; the wording is unchanged apart from removing references to pictures.