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1915 Stonehenge is sold by auction for 6,600 pounds sterling ($11,500) to a Mr. Chubb, who buys it as a present for his wife. He presents it to the British nation three years later.
1929 Fighting between China and the Soviet Union breaks out along the Manchurian border.
1936 The German army holds its largest maneuvers since 1914.
1937 The women’s airspeed record is set at 292 mph by American pilot Jacqueline Cochran.
1937 J.R.R. Tolkien’s fantasy novel The Hobbit is published.
1941 The German Army cuts off the Crimean Peninsula from the rest of the Soviet Union.
1942 British forces attack the Japanese in Burma.
1944 U.S. troops of the 7th Army, invading Southern France, cross the Meuse River.
1978 Two Soviet cosmonauts set a space endurance record after 96 days in space.
1981 Belize is granted full independence from the United Kingdom.
1989 General Colin Powell is confirmed by the U.S. Senate as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
1991 Armenia is granted independence from the USSR.
1993 The Russian constitutional crisis of 1993 begins when Russian President Boris Yeltsin suspends parliament and invalidates the existing constitution.
1999 An earthquake in Taiwan kills more than 2,400, injures over 11,305, and causes $300 billion New Taiwan dollars in damage ($10 billion in US dollars).
2003 The Galileo space mission ends as the probe is sent into Jupiter’s atmosphere where it is crushed.
Born on September 21
1756 John Loudon McAdam, engineer who invented and gave his name to macadamized roads.
1866 Charles Jean Henri Nicolle, bacteriologist, discovered that typhus fever is transmitted by body louse.
1866 H.G. Wells, science fiction writer whose works include The Time Machine, The Invisible Man and The War of the Worlds.
1895 Juan de la Cierva, aeronautical engineer who invented the autogyro.
1902 Allen Lake, founded Penguin Books in 1935.
1912 Chuck Jones, animator and director of Warner Brothers cartoons.
1947 Stephen King, author best known for supernatural and horror tales (The Stand, Salem’s Lot, Joyland).
1947 Marsha Norman, playwright (Getting Out, ‘Night Mother).
1950 Bill Murray, actor; won an Emmy for his work on the Saturday Night Live TV series; his movies include Ghostbusters, Groundhog Day, Lost in Translation.
1951 Aslan Aliyevich Maskhadov, rebel leader widely credited for the Chechen victory in the First Chechen War (1994-96); President of Chechnya (1997-99).
1957 Mark Levin, attorney, author; host of the syndicated radio program The Mark Levin Show.
1968 Faith Hill, Grammy Award-winning country pop singer (“Breathe”).