September 15: International Day of Democracy; Independence Day inCosta Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Nicaragua (1821); Battle of Britain Day in the United Kingdom

• 1830 – The Liverpool and Manchester Railway opened(train pictured) as the first locomotive-hauled railway to connect two major cities.
• 1862 – American Civil War: Confederate forces capturedthe Union garrison at Harpers Ferry, Virginia, taking more than 12,000 prisoners.
• 1916 – Tanks, the "secret weapons" of the British Army during the First World War, were first used in combat at the Battle of the Somme inSomme, Picardy, France.
• 1935 – Nazi Germany enacted the Nuremberg Laws, which deprivedGerman Jews of citizenship, and adopted a new national flagemblazoned with a swastika.
• 1963 – A bomb planted by members of the Ku Klux Klan exploded in the16th Street Baptist Church, an African American Baptist church inBirmingham, Alabama, US, killing four children and injuring at least 22 others.