September 2

459 Simeon Stylites was a 5th century saint who spent 36 years living on top of a pillar in modern day Syria. He stood upright from dawn to dusk shouting sermons to the crowds below.  In his later years The Emperor Theodocus and Leo 1, the Bishop of Rome, would often consult him and request his prayers and Marcian, another Emperor visited him frequently although in disguise. After 30 years on his final pillar, Simeon Stylites died on September 2, 459. He passed away with his body stooped over in prayer.

16th-century icon of Simeon Stylites

1666 The Great Fire of London broke out on September 2, 1666, beginning at the house of Thomas Farynor, the king's baker in Pudding Lane. It burned for three days and is estimated to have destroyed the homes of 70,000 of London's 80,000 inhabitants as well as 87 out of 109 churches. The official death toll from the fire is only six people but many more unrecorded poor people must have been killed by the flames or smoke.

Great Fire of London

1819 Scottish engineer James Watt, best known for his steam engine passed peacefully away at  his home "Heathfield Hall" near Birmingham at the age of 83. Watt was buried on September 2, 1819 in the graveyard of St Mary's Church, Handsworth. He left over £60,000 (£81,000,000 in today's money) in his will to his family.

1838 Liliʻuokalani, the last monarch of the Kingdom of Hawaii, was born on September 2, 1838.  Queen Liliʻuokalani ascended the Hawaiian throne in 1891 upon the death of her brother, King Kalakaua. Her refusal to recognize the constitutional changes inaugurated in 1887 precipitated a revolt, fostered largely by sugar planters—mostly American residents of Hawaii. This led to her dethronement early in 1893 and the establishment of a provisional government.

1898 In 1881 Muhammad Ahmad bin Abd Allah, a religious leader of the Sufi Samaniyya order in Sudan proclaimed himself as the messianic redeemer of the Islamic faith. He led a revolt against the Turco-Egyptian government of the Sudan and captured Khartoum in 1885. The revolt was subdued by an Anglo Egyptian army under Herbert Kitchener. which culminated in a decisive victory in the Battle of Omdurman on September 2, 1898. The battle featured the last classic cavalry charge in British warfare. 

The charge of the 21st Lancers at Omdurman

1908 Kathleen Bruce was a young sculptor when she met Captain Robert Falcon Scott on his return from his first Antarctic expedition. Kathleen had studied sculpture with Rodin, and socialized with the likes of Isadora Duncan and Pablo Picasso. Despite having little in common, Scott was smitten. He wooed Kathleen, and they married at the Chapel of Hampton Court Palace on September 2, 1908. Their son, Peter became a famous conservationist and 1936 Olympic Bronze winner for yachting.

1908 Winston Churchill married Clementine Hozier on September 2, 1908, at the socially-desirable St. Margaret's, Westminster. A dazzling but largely penniless beauty they'd first met at a dinner party that March. They remained married for sixty years and had five children together but several times they came close to divorce. She supported him tirelessly in his long and often difficult career.

Winston and Clementine just before their marriage

1916 During World War I, a number of German Zeppelin airships were employed in bombing England. Great Yarmouth was the first British town to be bombed by a Zeppelin in January 1915. London suffered its first raid on May of that year. The most intense of all the Zeppelin attacks during World War I was on September 2, 1916, when fourteen Zeppelins dropped 35,000 lb. of bombs on London and elsewhere.

1929 Unilever was founded on September 2, 1929, by the merger of he merger of the Dutch margarine producer Margarine Unie and the British soapmaker Lever Brothers. During the second half of the 20th century Unilever increasingly diversified from being a maker of products made of oils and fats, and expanded its operations worldwide. Today, Unilever owns over 400 brands, with a turnover in 2017 of 53.7 billion euros.

1944 President George H. W. Bush served as a naval aviator during World War II. He was one of nine airmen who escaped from their planes after being shot down during bombing raids on Chichi Jima, a small island 700 miles (1,100 km) south of Tokyo, on September 2, 1944. Bush was the lone survivor, as a result of being rescued by the lifeguard submarine USS Finback. This experience shaped Bush profoundly, leading him to ask, "Why had I been spared and what did God have for me?"

Bush in his Grumman TBM Avenger 1944

1945 Air raids on Japan by the Allies in World War II caused extensive destruction and casualties; the most commonly cited estimates are 333,000 killed and 473,000 wounded. Japan signed the act of unconditional surrender on September 2, 1945. The Japanese Instrument of Surrender was signed by Japanese Foreign Minister Mamoru Shigemitsu on behalf of the Japanese Government, ending World War II in the Pacific.

1945 Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, was on active service in the Royal Navy throughout the Second World War. At the end of the war he was on the destroyer HMS Whelp in the Pacific, and was in Tokyo Bay for the Japanese surrender on September 2, 1945.

1945 Vietnam's kingdom independence was eroded by France in a series of military conquests in the mid 19th century. By 1884, the entire country had come under French rule, Between 1940 and 1945, the Japanese Empire was allowed to station its troops in French Indochina while permitting the pro-Vichy French colonial administration to continue. Vietnam declared its independence on September 2, 1945, forming the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. 

1973 The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings author J. R. R. Tolkien died on September 2, 1973. Tolkien died of a broken heart, according to grandson Simon. Mired in melancholy, his life ended 21 months after the death of Edith, his wife of 55 years. His remains can be found at Wolvercote Cemetery, Oxford. Tolkien's grave is signposted from the entrance.

1993 Oscar Nierstrasz at the University of Geneva wrote a series of Perl scripts that periodically mirrored these pages and rewrote them into a standard format. This formed the basis for W3Catalog, the Internet's first search engine, which was released on September 2, 1993. The search site lasted for about three years before more modernized search engines began appearing.

2013 The new eastern span of the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge opened to traffic on September 2, 2013. The new east span is a single deck with the eastbound and westbound five lane carriageways on each side making it one of the world's widest bridges.

2016 Islam Karimov won Uzbekistan's first presidential election in 1991 and was widely held to be responsible for severe breaches of basic human rights including tortures and executions. His first presidential term was extended to 2000 by way of a referendum, and he was re-elected in 2000, 2007 and 2015, each time receiving over 90% of the vote. Karimov died in office at the age of 78 on September 2, 2016.

2018 Indian violinist M.S. Viswanath is in the Guinness Book of World Records for the longest violin marathon by an individual. His record attempt lasted for 36:00:20 hours, and was achieved from September 1-2 2018, in Kochi, India. Viswanath played a very diverse set list, ranging from Indian folk tunes to remixes of Luis Fonsi's "Despacito."