Twenty people die on the first of two days of rioting in Papua and West Papua over an alleged racist incident.
Teresa Lewis becomes the first woman to be executed by the U.S. state of Virginia since 1912, and the first woman in the state to be executed by lethal injection.
Seven people die, 46 people are injured, and more than 150 boats capsize when a squall hits Lake Michigan during Michigan's first coho salmon sport fishing season.
U.S. President John F. Kennedy nominates African American civil rights lawyer Thurgood Marshall to the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, although pro-segregation Southern senators manage to delay his confirmation until September 11, 1962.
Little Rock schools integration crisis: President Dwight D. Eisenhower sends the 101st Airborne Division to Little Rock, Arkansas, and federalizes the Arkansas National Guard, ordering both to support the integration of Little Rock Central High Schoo...
After being accused of financial improprieties, Senator Richard Nixon delivers his "Checkers speech" nationwide on television and radio, defending his actions and successfully salvaging his nomination as the Republican candidate for Vice President.
Korean War: The Battle of Hill 282 is the first US friendly-fire incident on British military personnel since World War II.
World War II: The Matanikau action on Guadalcanal begins: U.S. Marines attack Japanese units along the Matanikau River.
World War I: The Battle of Haifa takes place in present-day Israel, part of the Ottoman Empire at that time.
Norway and Sweden sign the Karlstad Treaty, peacefully dissolving the Union between the two countries.
On the night of 23–24 September, the steamship Arctique runs aground near Cape Virgenes leading to the discovery of nearby placer gold, beginning the Tierra del Fuego gold rush.
Astronomers Urbain Le Verrier, John Couch Adams and Johann Gottfried Galle collaborate on the discovery of Neptune.
Tripolitsa, Greece, is captured by Greek rebels during the Greek War of Independence.
Second Anglo-Maratha War: The Battle of Assaye is fought between the British East India Company and the Maratha Empire in India.
American Revolutionary War: John Paul Jones, naval commander of the United States, on board the USS Bonhomme Richard, wins the Battle of Flamborough Head.
First English Civil War: The Battle of Powick Bridge, the first engagement between the primary field armies of the Royalists and the Parliamentarians, ends in a Royalist victory.
The Battle of Blore Heath, the first major battle of the English Wars of the Roses, is won by the Yorkists.
The Battle of Kherlen is the second significant victory over Ming dynasty China by the Mongols since 1368.
The Battle of Arnemuiden, in which a French force defeats the English, is the first naval battle of the Hundred Years' War and the first naval battle in which gunpowder artillery is used.