On September 15, 1963, four black girls were killed when a bomb exploded in a Baptist church in Birmingham, Alabama.

It was the deadliest act of racism during the era of civil rights activism and struggle against racism.

On this date in 1959, the Soviet space probe Luna 2 became the first man-made object to reach Earth’s moon as it crashed onto it.

On September 11, 2001, Saudi Arabians, whom the F.B.I. knew were training to fly airplanes without learning to takeoff or land, crashed two airliners into the 110-story twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City. Other Al Qaeda hijackers rammed an airliner into the Pentagon, and a fourth airliner crashed in a field in Pennsylvania.