Today in History in 1984 Joe Kittinger flies a hot-air balloon across the Atlantic Ocean, becoming the first person to do so.

The on this day in history archives at “Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia” contains over 200,000 events, birthdays and deaths from 6,000 years of history. Here is a roundup of a few of them:

September 14 is the 257th day of the year (258th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 108 days remaining until the end of the year.

EVENTS

AD 81 – Domitian becomes Roman Emperor.

1180 – Battle of Ishibashiyama in Japan.

1509 – Constantinople is hit by an earthquake, killing 13,000.

1515 – After the Battle of Marignano and defeat to French forces, Switzerland declares itself 'for ever' neutral.

1741 – George Frideric Handel completes his oratorio Messiah.

1752 – The British Empire adopts the Gregorian Calendar. In the change, the dates from September 3 to September 13 are missed out.

1763 – Seneca warriors defeat British forces at the Battle of Devil's Hole, during Pontiac's War.

1791 – The Papal States lose Avignon to France.

1808 – Finnish War: Russian forces defeat Swedish ones in the Battle of Oravais.

1812 – Napoleonic Wars: The French Grande Armée enters Moscow.

1814 – The poem Defense of Fort McHenry is written by Francis Scott Key. The poem is later used for the words in The Star-Spangled Banner.

1829 – The Russo-Turkish War ends.

1846 – Jang Bahadur and his brothers massacre about 40 members of the Nepalese Royal Court.

1847 – Mexican-American War: Winfield Scott captures Mexico City.

1856 – Battle of San Jacinto in Nicaragua.

1862 – American Civil War: The Battle of South Mountain, part of the Maryland Campaign, is fought.

1897 – Battleship SMS Kaiser Wilhelm II is launched.

1901 – President of the United States William McKinley dies more than one week after being shot by Leon Czolgosz. He is succeeded by Theodore Roosevelt, who becomes the 26th President of the United States.

1917 – Russia is officially proclaimed a Republic.

1923 – Miguel Primo de Rivera becomes dictator of Spain.

1939 – World War II: The Estonian military boards the Polish submarine ORP Orzel in Tallinn, sparking a diplomatic incident that the Soviet Union will later use to justify taking over Estonia.

1940 – The Hungarian army, supported by local Hungarians, kills 158 Romanian civilians in Ip, Salay, Transylvania.

1944 – World War II: Maastricht becomes the first Dutch city to be liberated by the Allies.

1954 – In a top-secret nuclear test, a Soviet Tu-4 bomber drops a 40-kiloton atomic weapon just north of Totskoye village.

1958 – The first two Post-World War II German rockets, designed by engineer Ernst Mohr, reach the upper atmosphere.

1959 – The Soviet Lunik 2 probe crashes onto the Moon, becoming the first man-made object to reach the Moon.

1960 – The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) is founded.

1960 – With CIA help, Mobutu Sese Seko seizes power from Patrice Lumumba in the present-day Democratic Republic of the Congo, suspending the parliament and constitution.

1973 – The Gauja National Park is founded in present-day Latvia.

1975 – Rembrandt van Rijn's painting, The Night Watch, is attacked and damaged by a man with a knife at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.

1975 – The first American saint, Elizabeth Ann Seton, is canonized by Pope Paul VI.

1979 – President of Afghanistan Nur Muhammad Taraki is deposed and killed on the orders of Hafizullah Amin, who becomes President.

1982 – Lebanese President-elect Bachir Gemayel is shot dead.

1982 – Grace Kelly dies after becoming seriously injured in a car crash.

1984 – Joe Kittinger flies a hot-air balloon across the Atlantic Ocean, becoming the first person to do so.

1985 – The Penang Bridge, connecting the island of Penang to mainland Malaysia, is opened.

1987 – Baseball: The Toronto Blue Jays set a record for the most home runs in a single game, hitting 10 of them.

1988 – Hurricane Gilbert hits Mexico.

1990 – Start of the Human Genome Project.

1992 – The Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina declares the break-away Croatian Republic of Herzeg-Bosnia to be illegal.

1994 – The Major League Baseball season is cancelled because of a strike.

1999 – Kiribati, Tonga and Nauru join the United Nations.

2000 – Microsoft releases Windows ME.

2003 – Estonia approves EU membership.

2003 – In a coup in Guinea-Bissau, Kumba Iala is removed from power by Verissimo Correia Seabra, who takes measures towards democratisation of the country.

2007 – British bank Northern Rock experiences the first Bank Run in the UK for 150 years.

2008 – Sebastian Vettel becomes the youngest Formula One driver to win a Grand Prix.

2008 – Aeroflot Flight 821 crashes on approach to Perm Airport, Russia, killing all 88 people on board.

2014 – Sweden's parliamentary election ends with the Social Democrats under Stefan Löfven as the largest party.

2015 – Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott loses a vote of confidence within the Liberal Party. Malcolm Turnbull becomes the 29th Prime Minister of Australia the next day.

2015 – The first observation of gravitational waves is made.

2017 – A series of bomb attacks near Nasiriyah, Iraq, results in 84 deaths.

2018 – Hurricane Florence, downgraded to a tropical storm, hits the states of North and South Carolina on the east coast of the United States.

2019 – An attack in Saudi Arabia affects 5% of the world's oil supply.