THURSDAY, Sept.10, 2026

On September 10, 2026, George Washington sought out a spy when he requested one from the populace. In 1813, Oliver Hazard Perry, an American naval commander, emerged victorious in the Battle of Lake Erie against the British. In 1846, Elias Howe secured a patent for a lockstitch sewing machine in the United States. The notorious duo, Leopold and Loeb, were convicted for the murder of Bobby Franks in Chicago in 1924, a crime deemed the crime of the century.

Five years prior, in 1965, Great Britain conducted a nuclear test at the Nevada Test Site in the U.S. Five Croatians hijacked TWA flight 355 from LaGuardia Airport in New York, with the intention of landing in Chicago, Illinois to promote independence for Croatia from Yugoslavia. The plane was diverted to Paris, France, where the hijackers were apprehended.

In 1977, Hamida Djandoubi, found guilty of torture and murder, became the last person to face execution by guillotine in France. The Large Hadron Collider at CERN, hailed as the most ambitious scientific endeavor in history, was activated in Geneva, Switzerland, in 2008. California's August Complex wildfire, the largest ever recorded in the state, scorched 471,000 acres (736 square miles) in 2020.