September 2

44 BC – Cleopatra declares her son co-ruler as Ptolemy XV Caesarion.

31 BC – In the last war of the Roman Republic, naval forces of Octavian defeat those of Mark Antony and Cleopatra at Actium.

1192 – The Treaty of Jaffa is signed between Richard I of England and Saladin, leading to the end of the 3rd Crusade.

1752 – Great Britain, along with its overseas possessions, adopts the Gregorian calendar.

1789 – The United States Department of the Treasury is founded.

1862 –President Lincoln restores General George B. McClellan to command U.S. Forces after General John Pope’s defeat at the Second Battle of Bull Run.

1864 – Union forces enter Atlanta, a day after the Confederate defenders flee the city, ending the Atlanta Campaign.

1885 – In Rock Springs, Wyoming, 150 white miners, who are struggling to unionize so they could strike for better wages and work conditions, attack Chinese workers, killing 28, wounding 15 and forcing several hundred more out of town.

1901 – Vice President Theodore Roosevelt utters the famous phrase, “Speak softly and carry a big stick” at the Minnesota State Fair.

1912 – Arthur Rose Eldred is awarded the first Eagle Scout award of the Boy Scouts of America.

1925 – The USS Shenandoah, the first American built rigid airship, crashes in a thunderstorm in Noble County, Ohio killing 14 of the 42 crew aboard

1935 – The Labor Day Hurricane, the most intense hurricane to strike the U.S., makes landfall at Long Key, Florida, killing at least 400 people.

1939 – Following the start of the invasion of Poland the previous day, the beginning of World War II, the Free City of Danzig, now Gdańsk, is annexed by Nazi Germany.

1945 – World War II officially ends when The Japanese Instrument of Surrender is signed by Japan and the major Allied Powers aboard the battleship USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay.

1958 – A US Air Force reconnaissance RC-130, tail number 60528, of the 7406th Support Squadron, is shot down by Soviet MiG-17 fighters over Armenia, when it strays into Soviet airspace while conducting a signals intelligence mission, killing all 17 crew members aboard

1963 – The CBS Evening News becomes U.S. network television’s first half-hour weeknight news broadcast, when the show is lengthened from 15 to 30 minutes.

1964 – Alvin C. York dies at the Veterans Hospital in Nashville, Tennessee, of a cerebral hemorrhage at age 76.

1987 – In Moscow, the trial begins for 19-year-old pilot Mathias Rust, who flew his Cessna airplane into Red Square in May.

2008 – Google launches its Chrome web browser.

2013 – The Eastern span replacement of the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge opens, after the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake damaged the old span.