September 3

301 – San Marino, one of the smallest nations in the world and the world’s oldest republic still in existence, is founded by Saint Marinus.

863 – The Byzantine army under the personal command of Emperor Michael III utterly defeats an invading Arab army under the command of Umar al-Aqta, the emirate of Tarsus, at Porson, near the river Lalakaon in what is now eastern Turkey

1260 – The Mamluks defeat the Mongols at Ain Jalut in Palestine, marking  the point of maximum expansion of the Mongol Empire

1658 – Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector of England, dies at age 59 at Whitehall of complications of malaria.

1777 – The Flag of the United States flies in battle for the first time at the Battle of Cooch’s Bridge in Delaware.

1783 – The Revolutionary War ends with the signing of the Treaty of Paris by the United States and the Kingdom of Great Britain.

1812 – A party of Shawnee Indians, led by Missilimetaw , makes a surprise attack on the village of Pidgeon Roost in Indiana, the first Indian attack in Indiana during the War of 1812, killing 24 people, including 15 children.

1838 – Frederick Douglass escapes from slavery.

1861 – Confederate General Leonidas Polk invades Kentucky, prompting the state legislature to ask for Union assistance.

1879 – British envoy Sir Louis Cavagnari and 72 men of the British Army’s Corps of Guides are massacred, defending the British Residency in Kabul while under siege by warring Afghans.

1895 – John Brallier becomes the first openly professional American football player, when he was paid $10 by David Berry, to play Quarterback for the Latrobe Athletic Association in a 12–0 win over the Jeanette Athletic Association at Jeanette Pennsylvania.

1935 – Sir Malcolm Campbell, driving the Rolls-Royce Railton Blue Bird reaches a speed of 304.331 miles per hour on the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah, becoming the first person to drive an automobile over 300 mph.

1939 – Following the Germans ignoring an ultimatum to cease the invasion of Poland; France, the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Australia and India declare war on Germany, forming the Allied nations at the start of World War II.

1941 – Karl Fritzsch, deputy commandant of the Auschwitz concentration camp, experiments with the use of Zyklon B, a cyanide based pesticide, in the gassing of Soviet POWs.

1943 – British and Canadian troops land on the Italian mainland at Reggio, almost directly across the Strait of Sicily from Messina.
Walter Bedell Smith and Giuseppe Castellano sign the Armistice of Cassibile for the nations of Italy, the U.K and the U.S.

1944 – Anne Frank and her family are placed on the last transport train from the Westerbork transit camp to the Auschwitz concentration camp

1976 – The Viking 2 spacecraft lands at Utopia Planitia on Mars

1989 – Varig Flight 25, a Boeing 737, crashes in the Amazon rainforest near São José do Xingu in Brazil, killing 12 of the 48 passengers and crew aboard.

2005 – Chief Justice of the U.S., William Rehnquist dies at age 80, of cancer at his home in Arlington, Virginia .

2010 – UPS Airlines Flight 6, a Boeing 747 crashes near Nad Al Shebao Dubai shortly after take off, due to an on board fire, killing both crew members on board.

2017 – North Korea conducts its sixth and most powerful to that date, nuclear test.