Today in History, September 15th
On September 15, 1963, a Klan bomb killed four girls at Birmingham's 16th Street Baptist Church. Plus the Inchon landing and Lehman's collapse.
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September 15 is best known for 1963, when a Ku Klux Klan bomb killed four girls at the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama. The date also brought the Inchon landing in Korea in 1950 and the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008.
The big story: The 16th Street Baptist Church bombing (1963)
The 16th Street Baptist Church was a hub of the Birmingham civil rights campaign, a place where marches were planned and mass meetings were held. That made it a target. On Sunday morning, September 15, 1963, a bomb of about 15 sticks of dynamite went off in the basement at 10:19 a.m., under the girls’ restroom. Addie Mae Collins, Cynthia Wesley and Carole Robertson, all 14, and Carol Denise McNair, 11, were killed, and many other worshippers were hurt. It was Birmingham’s third bombing in 11 days, coming soon after a federal order to integrate Alabama’s schools. The attack caused outrage across the country, and Martin Luther King Jr. spoke at a funeral for three of the girls. Justice took decades. Klansman Robert Chambliss was convicted of murder in 1977, and two other Klansmen, Thomas Blanton Jr. and Bobby Frank Cherry, were convicted in 2001 and 2002 after the case was reopened.
More events on September 15
| Year | What happened |
|---|---|
| 1858 | The Overland Mail Company sent out its first stagecoaches on a roughly 2,800-mile route from St. Louis to San Francisco, starting transcontinental mail service. |
| 1862 | Stonewall Jackson captured Harpers Ferry and about 12,000 Union soldiers, the largest single Union surrender of the Civil War. |
| 1916 | British forces sent tanks into combat for the first time, at Flers-Courcelette during the Battle of the Somme. |
| 1935 | Nazi Germany imposed the Nuremberg Laws, which stripped German Jews of citizenship and banned marriage between Jews and non-Jews. |
| 1940 | The Royal Air Force shot down dozens of German planes in two huge air battles, a turning point in the Battle of Britain. |
| 1950 | U.S. Marines landed at Inchon, Korea, under Douglas MacArthur’s plan, cutting North Korean forces in two and opening the way to retake Seoul. |
| 1959 | Nikita Khrushchev arrived in Washington, D.C., the first Soviet head of state to visit the U.S. |
| 1978 | Muhammad Ali beat Leon Spinks in New Orleans to win the heavyweight title for a third time, the first boxer to do so. |
| 2008 | Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy, listing $639 billion in assets, the largest bankruptcy filing in U.S. history and a key moment in the financial crisis. |
Born on September 15
- 1789: James Fenimore Cooper, author of the Leatherstocking Tales, born in Burlington, New Jersey.
- 1857: William Howard Taft, 27th president and later chief justice, born in Cincinnati, Ohio.
- 1890: Agatha Christie, creator of Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple, born in Torquay, England.
- 1907: Fay Wray, star of King Kong, born near Cardston, Alberta, Canada.
Keep reading
Sources
- Four Black schoolgirls killed in Birmingham church bombing, History.com
- 16th Street Baptist Church bombing, Encyclopaedia Britannica
- The first transcontinental mail service to San Francisco begins, History.com
- Confederates capture Harpers Ferry, History.com
- Tanks introduced into warfare at the Somme, History.com
- Nuremberg race laws imposed, History.com
- Tide turns in the Battle of Britain, History.com
- U.S. forces land at Inchon, History.com
- Lehman Brothers collapses, History.com
- William Howard Taft, Encyclopaedia Britannica
