Sept. 1:

1914, the passenger pigeon, once one of the most abundant bird species on earth, went extinct as the last known example, named Martha, died in captivity at the Cincinnati Zoo.

1939, Nazi Germany invaded Poland, an event regarded as the start of World War II.

1983, 269 people were killed when a Korean Air Lines Boeing 747 was shot down by a Soviet jet fighter after the airliner entered Soviet airspace.

2004, Islamic terrorists took more than a thousand people hostage in a school in Beslan, North Ossetia, Russia; the siege would end three days later in gunfire and explosions, leaving 334 people dead — more than half of them children.

Sept. 2:

1864, during the Civil War, Union Gen. William T. Sherman’s forces occupied Atlanta.

1945, Japan formally surrendered in ceremonies aboard the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay, ending World War II.

1963, Alabama Gov. George C. Wallace prevented the integration of Tuskegee High School by encircling the building with state troopers.

2019, a fire swept a boat carrying recreational scuba divers that was anchored near an island off the Southern California coast; the captain and four other crew members were able to escape the flames, but 34 people who were trapped below died.

Sept. 3:

1783, representatives of the United States and Britain signed the Treaty of Paris, which officially ended the Revolutionary War and recognized U.S. sovereignty.

1894, the United States celebrated the first federal Labor Day holiday.

1976, America’s Viking 2 lander touched down on Mars to take the first close-up, color photographs of the red planet’s surface.

2019, Walmart said it would stop selling ammunition for handguns and short-barrel rifles, and the store chain requested that customers not openly carry firearms in its stores; the announcement followed a shooting at a Walmart store in Texas that left 22 people dead.

Sept. 4:

1781, Los Angeles was founded by Spanish settlers under the leadership of Governor Felipe de Neve.

1957, Arkansas Gov. Orval Faubus ordered Arkansas National Guardsmen to prevent nine Black students from entering all-white Central High School in Little Rock.

1972, U.S. swimmer Mark Spitz became the first to win seven medals at a single Olympic Games, winning a seventh gold at the Munich Olympics in the 400-meter medley relay.

2016, elevating the “saint of the gutters” to one of the Catholic Church’s highest honors, Pope Francis canonized Mother Teresa, praising her radical dedication to society’s outcasts and her courage in shaming world leaders for the “crimes of poverty they themselves created.”

Sept. 5:

1774, the first Continental Congress assembled in Philadelphia.

1972, Palestinian militants attacked the Israeli Olympic delegation at the Munich Games, killing two and taking nine others hostage; five of the militants, a German police officer and all nine hostages were killed in the following 24 hours.

1986, four hijackers who had seized a Pan Am jumbo jet on the ground in Karachi, Pakistan, opened fire on the jet’s passengers; a total of 20 passengers and crew members were killed before Pakistani commandos stormed the jetliner.

1991, the 35th annual Naval Aviation Symposium held by the Tailhook Association opened in Las Vegas; during the four-day gathering, there were reports that as many as 90 people, most of them women, were sexually assaulted or otherwise harassed. (The episode triggered the resignation of Navy Secretary Henry L. Garrett III.)

Sept. 6:

1901, President William McKinley was shot and mortally wounded by anarchist Leon Czolgosz at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York. (McKinley died eight days later and was succeeded by his vice president, Theodore Roosevelt.)

1975, 18-year-old tennis star Martina Navratilova of Czechoslovakia, in New York for the U.S. Open, requested political asylum in the United States.

1997, a public funeral was held for Princess Diana at Westminster Abbey in London, six days after her death in a car crash in Paris.

2006, President George W. Bush acknowledged for the first time that the CIA was running secret prisons overseas and said “tough” interrogation techniques had forced terrorist leaders to reveal plots to attack the United States and its allies.

Sept. 7:

1940, Nazi Germany began an intense bombing campaign of Britain during World War II with an air attack on London; known as The Blitz, the eight-month campaign resulted in more than 40,000 civilian deaths.

1977, the Panama Canal Treaty, which called for the U.S. to turn over control of the waterway to Panama at the end of 1999, was signed in Washington by U.S. President Jimmy Carter and Panamanian leader Omar Torrijos.

1996, rapper Tupac Shakur was shot and mortally wounded on the Las Vegas Strip; he died six days later.

– Associated Press