On this day: 25 September

Ottoman wars in Europe: Ottoman forces under Bayezid I defeated a Christian alliance led by Sigismund of Hungary near present-day Nikopol, Bulgaria.

Spanish explorer Vasco Núñez de Balboa reaches what would become known as the Pacific Ocean.

The Peace of Augsburg is signed by Emperor Charles V and the princes of the Schmalkaldic League.

Publick Occurrences Both Forreign and Domestick, the first newspaper to appear in the Americas, is published for the first and only time.

Unification of Nepal

The United States Congress passes twelve constitutional amendments: the ten known as the Bill of Rights, the (unratified) Congressional Apportionment Amendment, and the Congressional Compensation Amendment.

Peking opera was born with the introduction of Hui opera to Beijing by the "Four Great Anhui Troupes" in honour of the Qianlong Emperor's 80th birthday.

French Revolutionary Wars: After U.S. ships became involved, French forces abandoned their invasion of the Batavian island of Curaçao.

The Teton Sioux (a subdivision of the Lakota) demand one of the boats from the Lewis and Clark Expedition as a toll for allowing the expedition to move further upriver.

Sequoia National Park (pictured) was established to conserve giant sequoia trees in an area affected by logging in the southern Sierra Nevada in California.

Leonardo Torres Quevedo demonstrates the Telekino in the Bilbao Abra (Spain), guiding an electric boat from the shore with people on board, which was controlled at a distance over 2 km (1.2 mi), in what is considered to be the origin of modern wireless remote-control operation principles.

Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism is founded in New York City.

World War I: The Second Battle of Champagne begins.

The international Convention to Suppress the Slave Trade and Slavery is first signed.

Second Sino-Japanese War: The Chinese Eighth Route Army gains a minor, but morale-boosting victory in the Battle of Pingxingguan.

The Royal Jordanian Air Force is founded.

TAT-1, the first submarine transatlantic telephone cable system, is inaugurated.

United States Army troops escorted nine students as Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas was integrated.

The North Yemen Civil War began when Abdullah al-Sallal dethroned the newly crowned Imam al-Badr and declared Yemen to be a republic under his presidency.

The People's Democratic Republic of Algeria is formally proclaimed. Ferhat Abbas is elected President of the provisional government.

The Mozambican War of Independence against Portugal begins.

The charter establishing the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation is signed.

Dr. Frank Jobe performs first ulnar collateral ligament replacement surgery (better known as Tommy John surgery) on baseball player Tommy John.

About 4,200 people took part in the first modern Chicago Marathon.

Sandra Day O'Connor (pictured) became the first female justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.

Belize joins the United Nations.

Fijian Governor-General Penaia Ganilau is overthrown in a coup d'état led by Lieutenant colonel Sitiveni Rabuka.

The Ram Rath Yatra, a political–religious rally organised to erect a temple to the Hindu deity Rama on the site of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya, began in the Indian state of Gujarat.

NASA launches the Mars Observer. Eleven months later, the probe would fail while preparing for orbital insertion.

NASA launches Space Shuttle Atlantis on STS-86 to the Mir space station.

The 8.3 Mw Hokkaidō earthquake strikes just offshore Hokkaidō, Japan.