1st Sept. 1159 

The only English pope, Nicholas Breakspear (known as Adrian IV), dies near Rome. 

3rd Sept. 2004

320 people, most of them children, are killed during a siege in a school in Beslan, North Osettia.

4th Sept. 1908

American author and civil rights activist Richard Wright, most famous for Native Son, is born in Natchez, Mississippi.

5th Sept. 1972

Black September, a Palestinian terrorist group, takes 11 Israeli Olympic delegates hostage at the summer games in Munich with fatal consequences.

7th Sept. 1986

Desmond Tutu is named Archbishop of Cape Town making him the first black leader of South Africa's Anglican Church.

8th Sept. 1841

Composer Antonin Dvorak, whose best known works include The Ninth Symphony (from the New World), is born in Nelahozeves near Prague.

9th Sept, 1976

The leader of the People's Republic of China, Mao Zedong, dies at the age of 82.

11th Sept. 2001

Terrorist hijackers crash airplanes into the twin towers at the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon killing 3000 people.

13th Sept. 1916

Roald Dahl, famous for James and the Giant Peach, The Witches and Matilda, is born in Llandaff, Wales.

15th Sept. 1958

A mould, later developed into the powerful antibiotic Penicillin, is discovered growing in his laboratory by Sir Alexander Fleming.

18th Sept. 1851

The first edition of what is now known as the New York Times (known then as the New York Daily Times) appears on newsstands.

19th Sept. 1893

New Zealand becomes the first country in the world to allow women to vote.

21st Sept. 1937

J. R. R. Tolkien's The Hobbit, detailing the lives of the creatures of Middle Earth, is published.

22nd Sept. 1989

Russian born American songwriter Irvine Berlin dies at the age of 101 after writing over 1500 songs.

23rd Sept. 63 BC

Emperor Augustus is born in Rome.

24th Sept. 1994

Theodore Seuss Geisel, better known as Dr Seuss, dies in La Jolla, California aged 87.

26th Sept. 1907

New Zealand changes its status from being a colony to a dominion within the British Commonwealth of Nations.

27th Sept. 1540

Pope Paul III officially confirms the Society of Jesus (also known as the Jesuits) founded by Ignatius Loyola.

28th Sept. 1864

Karl Marx attends the first gathering of The First International, a revolutionary workers group, in London.

29th Sept. 1943

Lech Walesa, president of Poland, Nobel Prize laureate and trade union activist is born in Popowa, Poland.

30th Sept. 1791

The premiere of 'The Magic Flute' is conducted by its composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart two months before his death.