Al-Qaeda hijackers crash four airliners into US targets (2001), and Indigenous warriors attack Santiago to free captive chiefs (1541). Born on this day: Ferdinand Marcos, Franz Beckenbauer and D.H. Lawrence. Died: Nikita Khrushchev, Mohammed Ali Jinnah and David Ricardo.
34 events, 66 births and 64 deaths on this date.
Nineteen hijackers seized four passenger jets, crashing two into the World Trade Center in New York and one into the Pentagon near Washington. The fourth came down in Pennsylvania, and 2,977 people died.
Robert on Flickr · CC BY-SA 2.0Warriors led by Michimalonco struck the young Spanish settlement of Santiago, hoping to win release for eight of their chiefs held prisoner by the colonists. The raid showed how fiercely local peoples resisted the new Spanish rule.
After four months of failed assaults on the Knights of St John, the Ottoman army pulled back from Malta's shores. The withdrawal ended a siege that had threatened Christian control of the central Mediterranean.
After a long cruise from Earth, NASA's Mars Global Surveyor entered orbit around the Red Planet, ready to map its surface and atmosphere. The spacecraft went on to send back years of detailed images and data that reshaped scientists' view of Mars.
Hungary's government declared that East Germans sheltering in its temporary camps could now travel on to West Germany. The decision opened a route out of the East that the communist state could not easily close, and it helped set off the wider collapse of the Eastern Bloc's borders that year.
Duke William I of Aquitaine handed Berno, abbot of Gigny, a estate near Mâcon to build a new monastery, placing it beyond the reach of any feudal lord. The move helped launch Cluny, which grew into one of the most influential monastic houses in medieval Europe.
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Ferdinand Marcos was a Filipino lawyer who served as president from 1965 to 1986. He is remembered for ruling under martial law from 1972 and for being driven from power by the People Power Revolution.
Unknown author Unknown author · Public domain
Beckenbauer, nicknamed der Kaiser, was a German footballer who invented the modern sweeper role and captained West Germany to the 1974 World Cup. He later managed West Germany to victory in 1990, making him one of only three men to win the World Cup as both player and manager.
Panini Group · Public domain
Born in Eastwood, Nottinghamshire, Lawrence became one of the most debated English novelists of the twentieth century. His books Sons and Lovers and Lady Chatterley's Lover were both put on trial for obscenity, though he is now widely read for his fiction and poetry.
Unknown author Unknown author (passport office) · Public domain
Khrushchev led the Soviet Union from Stalin's death until 1964 and is remembered for denouncing Stalin's purges in his 1956 Secret Speech. He also presided over the Cuban Missile Crisis, which brought the world close to nuclear war.
TASS / distributed by Associated Press · Public domain
Jinnah was a barrister who led the All-India Muslim League and became the first Governor-General of Pakistan. He is remembered as the founder of Pakistan, the state created when British India was partitioned in 1947.
Unknown author Unknown author · Public domain
The stockbroker turned economist developed the theory of comparative advantage, arguing that nations gain by trading goods they make most efficiently. He died in 1823 of septicaemia after an ear infection.
Thomas Phillips · Public domain
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