TUESDAY, Sept. 9, 2025

1000-Battle of Svolder, Baltic Sea: King Olaf on board the Long Serpent is defeated in one of the greatest naval battles of the Viking Age and leaps to his death overboard

1543-Mary Stuart, at nine months old, is crowned Queen of Scots in the central Scottish town of Stirling

1776-Congress officially renames the country as the United States of America (from the United Colonies)

1817-Alexander Twilight, likely the first African American to graduate from a US college, receives a BA degree from Middlebury College

1914-First fully mechanized unit in the British Army is created: the Canadian Automobile Machine Gun Brigade (WWI)

1993-Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization exchange letters of mutual recognition

2015-Queen Elizabeth II becomes Great Britain's longest-reigning monarch at 63 years and seven months, beating the previous record set by her great-great-grandmother, Queen Victoria