📜 This Day in History

September 12

• 379Yax Nuun Ahiin I took the throne as the ruler (ajaw) of the Mayan city of Tikal.
• 1928The Okeechobee hurricane first struck the island of Guadeloupe; eventually it reached the United States and caused over 4,000 deaths overall.
• 1942World War II: The Imperial Japanese Army began the Battle of Edson's Ridge in an effort to retake Henderson Field on Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands from the Allies.
• 1977South African anti-apartheid activist Steve Biko died after being beaten in police custody in Port Elizabeth.
• 1995Hurricane Ismael formed off the southwest coast of Mexico; it went on to kill over a hundred people in the country.
• 2015An explosion involving illegally stored mining detonators in Petlawad, India, killed 104 people and injured more than 150 others.

Born on this day

• 1897Irène Joliot-Curie, French chemist and physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1956)
• 1921Stanisław Lem, Polish philosopher and author (died 2006)
• 1973Paul Walker, American actor (died 2013)
• 1986Emmy Rossum, American singer and actress