Today in History: September 15, Birmingham church bombing

Today is Tuesday, Sept. 15, the 258th day of 2026. There are 107 days left in the year.

Today in history:

On Sept. 15, 1963, four Black girls were killed when a bomb went off during Sunday services at the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama. (Three Ku Klux Klansmen were eventually convicted for their roles in the blast.)

Also on this date:

In 1835, Charles Darwin reached the Galápagos Islands aboard the HMS Beagle.

In 1935, the Nuremberg Laws were enacted in Nazi Germany, depriving German Jews of their citizenship.

In 1940, the tide turned in the Battle of Britain in World War II, as the Royal Air Force inflicted heavy losses upon the Luftwaffe.

In 1958, a commuter train headed for New York City plunged into Newark Bay after missing a stop signal and sliding off the open Newark Bay lift bridge, killing 48 people.

In 1959, Nikita Khrushchev became the first Soviet head of state to visit the United States as he arrived at Andrews Air Force Base outside Washington.

In 1978, Muhammad Ali became the first boxer to capture the heavyweight title three times, winning by unanimous decision in his rematch with Leon Spinks.

In 2008, as a result of the subprime mortgage crisis, Lehman Brothers filed for Chapter 11 in the largest bankruptcy filing in U.S. history.

In 2021, SpaceX’s first private flight streaked into orbit with two contest winners, a healthcare worker and their billionaire sponsor, in the most ambitious leap yet in space tourism. The trip dubbed Inspiration4 marked the first time a spacecraft circled Earth with an all-amateur crew and no professional astronauts.

In 2020, Israel signed historic diplomatic pacts with two Gulf Arab states at a White House ceremony President Donald Trump called the “dawn of a new Middle East.” The bilateral agreements formalized the normalization of Israeli relations with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain.

In 2024, a man aiming a rifle through shrubs as then-presidential candidate Donald Trump played golf at his West Palm Beach, Florida, country club was spotted by a Secret Service agent who fired at him, prompting the man to drop his gun and run without firing a shot. Ryan Routh was later convicted of trying to assassinate Trump and sentenced to life in prison.

Today’s Birthdays: Writer-director Ron Shelton is 81. Actor Tommy Lee Jones is 80. Film director Oliver Stone is 80. TV personality Lisa Vanderpump is 66. Football Hall of Famer Dan Marino is 65. Actor Josh Charles is 55. Olympic gold medal swimmer Tom Dolan is 51. Actor Tom Hardy is 49. Actor Amy Davidson is 47. Actor Dave Annable is 47. Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, is 42. TV personality Heidi Montag is 40. Singer-songwriter Ella Boh is 25.