September 15: Facts & Historical Events On This Day

Parts of Central and Eastern Europe were catastrophically flooded as they were struck by Storm Boris.

The floods displaced thousands of people across Europe, with some regions receiving more than three months' worth of rain overnight.

The UK’s prime minister Boris Johnson compared himself to The Hulk in his efforts to steer the country out of the European Union.

A sea swimmer in his mid-twenties was bitten and killed by a shark near Newcomb Hollow Beach, Massachusetts, US.

The 2000 Summer Olympic Games opened in Sydney, Australia.

Larry Page and Sergey Brin registered the domain name google.com.

On September 4, 1998, Google was founded and operated from the garage of a friend's house in Menlo Park, California, US.

The psychological crime thriller movie “Se7en,” starring Morgan Freeman, premiered in New York.

The movie had a budget of $33 million and topped $327 million at the box office.

Red Zhengfei founded Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. in China.

The drama TV show “L.A. Law” premiered on NBC.

Michael Stewart, a victim of police brutality, was beaten and arrested in New York.

He died 13 days later while in a coma.

The “Dodgers” baseball team became the first major league to bring in 3 million fans for the season.

The Soviet Union launched Zond 5, the first spacecraft to successfully circle the moon and return to earth.

Zond 5, a Soyuz 7K-L1 spacecraft, was also the first to carry live animals on a mission to the moon: two tortoises and a collection of fruit fly eggs.

Tanks were used for the first time in battle, at the Battle of the Somme, during World War I.

Aboard the HMS Beagle, Charles Darwin discovered the Galapagos Islands.

The Beagle set off four years prior from Plymouth, England. On this day, the first European set foot on the Galapagos Islands, which marked the start of Darwin's research into the theory of evolution.

The Invasion of the Cape Colony came to an end. The Dutch Cape Colony surrendered to the British after three months of battling.

Spanish Catholic priest Joseph Calasanz started the first public and free school in Europe.

Calasanz founded the "Pious Schools," the first free school in Frascati, Italy, which Pope Paul V accepted to help encourage education for the poor.