On this day... September 15:

On this day...

September 15:  International Day of Democracy; Independence Dayin Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Nicaragua (1821); Battle of Britain Day in the United Kingdom 1830 – The Liverpool and Manchester Railwayopened (train pictured) as the first locomotive-hauled railway to connect two major cities. 1862 – American Civil War: Confederate forcescaptured the Union garrison at Harpers Ferry, Virginia, taking more than 12,000 prisoners. 1916 – Tanks, the "secret weapons" of the British Army during theFirst World War, were first used in combat at the Battle of the Somme in Somme, Picardy, France, leading to strategic Alliedvictory. 1935 – Nazi Germany enacted the Nuremberg Laws, which deprivedGerman Jews of citizenship, and adopted a new national flagemblazoned with a swastika. 1963 – A bomb planted by members of the Ku Klux Klan explodedin the 16th Street Baptist Church, an African American Baptistchurch in Birmingham, Alabama, US, killing four children and injuring at least 22 others.