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Today in History, September 23rd

On September 23, 1779, John Paul Jones and the Bonhomme Richard captured HMS Serapis off England. Plus Neptune's discovery and Lewis and Clark's return.

By Today in History Updated November 10, 2026 3 min read Sources checked

Published September 23, 2026 · Last updated November 10, 2026

September 23 is best known for 1779, when John Paul Jones and the Bonhomme Richard captured the British warship Serapis off England’s coast. The date also marks the discovery of Neptune in 1846 and the return of Lewis and Clark to St. Louis in 1806.

The big story: John Paul Jones wins off the English coast (1779)

John Paul Jones made his name by taking the Revolutionary War to Britain’s own waters. On September 23, 1779, his ship, the Bonhomme Richard, found a British merchant convoy off England’s east coast, guarded by the warship Serapis and the smaller Countess of Scarborough. At one point in the battle the Serapis‘s captain, Richard Pearson, asked whether the Americans had struck their colors, the signal of surrender. According to the famous account, Jones answered, “I have not yet begun to fight.” He kept firing for roughly three more hours, until both British ships gave up. Winning cost him his own ship. The Bonhomme Richard was so badly damaged that Jones moved his crew onto the captured Serapis, and the Bonhomme Richard sank the next day. It is rare for the winner of a sea battle to end it by abandoning ship, but that is how Jones won his.

More events on September 23

Year	What happened
1806	Lewis and Clark returned to St. Louis, ending their expedition to the Pacific after more than two years.
1846	German astronomer Johann Galle found Neptune at the Berlin Observatory, close to where French mathematician Urbain Le Verrier had predicted it would be.
1933	Standard Oil of California geologists landed at Jubail, on the Persian Gulf, to begin surveying under a new Saudi oil concession. Oil in commercial quantities turned up in 1938.
1939	Sigmund Freud, founder of psychoanalysis, died in London.
1944	Franklin D. Roosevelt answered Republican attacks on his dog, Fala, in a joking campaign speech to the Teamsters union.
1949	President Harry Truman announced that the Soviet Union had set off an atomic explosion, ending the U.S. monopoly on nuclear weapons years sooner than most officials expected.
1969	Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, starring Paul Newman and Robert Redford, premiered in New York. It won four Oscars.
1992	Goalie Manon Rhéaume played for the Tampa Bay Lightning in an NHL preseason game, the first woman to play in one of North America’s four major men’s pro leagues.

Born on September 23

1926: John Coltrane, jazz saxophonist and composer, born in Hamlet, North Carolina.
1930: Ray Charles, pioneer of soul music known as “the Genius,” born in Albany, Georgia.
1949: Bruce Springsteen, rock singer-songwriter of Born to Run, born in Long Branch, New Jersey.