Today in History: Sunday, Sept. 10

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506 – The bishops of Visigothic Gaul meet in the Council of Agde. 1419 – John the Fearless, Duke of Burgundy is assassinated by adherents of the Dauphin, the future Charles VII of France. 1509 – An earthquake known as "The Lesser Judgment Day" hits Constantinople. 1515 – Thomas Wolsey is invested as a Cardinal 1547 – The Battle of Pinkie Cleugh, the last full-scale military confrontation between England and Scotland, resulting in a decisive victory for the forces of Edward VI. 1561 – Fourth Battle of Kawanakajima: Takeda Shingen defeats Uesugi Kenshin in the climax of their ongoing conflicts. 1570 – Spanish Jesuit missionaries land in present-day Virginia to establish the short-lived Ajacán Mission. 1608 – John Smith is elected council president of Jamestown, Virginia. 1776 – American Revolutionary War: Nathan Hale volunteers to spy for the Continental Army. 1798 – At the Battle of St. George's Caye, British Honduras defeats Spain. 1813 – The United States defeats the British Fleet at the Battle of Lake Erie during the War of 1812. 1823 – Simón Bolívar is named President of Peru. 1846 – Elias Howe is granted a patent for the sewing machine. 1858 – George Mary Searle discovers the asteroid 55 Pandora. 1897 – Lattimer massacre: A sheriff's posse kills 19 unarmed striking immigrant miners in Lattimer, Pennsylvania, United States. 1898 – Empress Elisabeth of Austria is assassinated by Luigi Lucheni. 1918 – Russian Civil War: The Red Army captures Kazan. 1919 – Austria and the Allies sign the Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye recognizing the independence of Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia. 1932 – The New York City Subway's third competing subway system, the municipally-owned IND, is opened. 1936 – First World Individual Motorcycle Speedway Championship, Held at London's (England) Wembley Stadium 1937 – Nine nations attend the Nyon Conference to address international piracy in the Mediterranean Sea. 1939 – World War II: The submarine HMS Oxley is mistakenly sunk by the submarine HMS Triton near Norway and becomes the Royal Navy's first loss. 1939 – World War II: Canada declares war on Nazi Germany, joining the Allies: Poland, France, the United Kingdom, New Zealand and Australia. 1942 – World War II: The British Army carries out an amphibious landing on Madagascar to re-launch Allied offensive operations in the Madagascar Campaign. 1943 – World War II: German forces begin their occupation of Rome. 1960 – At the Summer Olympics in Rome, Abebe Bikila becomes the first sub-Saharan African to win a gold medal, winning the marathon in bare feet. 1961 – Italian Grand Prix, a crash causes the death of German Formula One driver Wolfgang von Trips and 13 spectators who are hit by his Ferrari. 1967 – The people of Gibraltar vote to remain a British dependency rather than becoming part of Spain. 1974 – Guinea-Bissau gains independence from Portugal. 1976 – A British Airways Hawker Siddeley Trident and an Inex-Adria DC-9 collide near Zagreb, Yugoslavia, killing 176. 1977 – Hamida Djandoubi, convicted of torture and murder, is the last person to be executed by guillotine in France. 2000 – Operation Barras successfully frees six British soldiers held captive for over two weeks and contributes to the end of the Sierra Leone Civil War. 2001 – Antônio da Costa Santos, mayor of Campinas, Brazil is assassinated. 2002 – Switzerland, traditionally a neutral country, joins the United Nations. 2007 – Former Prime Minister of Pakistan Nawaz Sharif returns to Pakistan after seven years in exile, following a military coup in October 1999. 2008 – The Large Hadron Collider at CERN, described as the biggest scientific experiment in history, is powered up in Geneva, Switzerland.