September 7 in History

Cardinal Rolando Bandinelli's election as Pope Alexander III triggered an immediate split when rivals crowned Cardinal Octaviano Monticelli as Antipope Victor IV on the same day. This dual coronation ignited a twenty-year schism that fractured Christendom and forced European monarchs to choose sides, ultimately establishing papal authority through prolonged political warfare rather than divine consensus.

Frederick II arrived in the Holy Land already excommunicated by the Pope — the Church had banned him for repeatedly delaying this very trip. So he launched a Crusade with no papal blessing and no army large enough to fight one. His solution: he sat down with Sultan Al-Kamil and negotiated. Walked away with Jerusalem, Bethlehem, and Nazareth through diplomacy alone. Christian knights were furious. The Patriarch of Jerusalem refused to crown him. Frederick II crowned himself.

Thomas Howard was the highest-ranking nobleman in England — and he was plotting to marry the woman who wanted Elizabeth I dead. The Ridolfi plot had Roberto Ridolfi, a Florentine banker, coordinating with Spain and Rome to put Mary, Queen of Scots on the English throne. Howard's role was to marry her once Elizabeth was gone. He denied everything. Elizabeth had him arrested, tried, and eventually executed in 1572. The dukedom of Norfolk wasn't recreated for another 100 years.

England and the Dutch Republic signed the Treaty of Southampton to unite their naval forces against Spanish dominance. This pact directly enabled coordinated raids that crippled Spanish supply lines, compelling Madrid to divert resources from its European campaigns to defend its overseas trade routes.

Gustavus Adolphus lined his infantry up differently than anyone had seen — shallower formations, mobile artillery, musketeers trained to fire in rolling volleys rather than standing static lines. At Breitenfeld, that system obliterated an Imperial-Catholic force roughly equal in size. Around 7,000 Catholic soldiers died; Swedish losses were under 4,000. It was the first major Protestant victory in the Thirty Years' War, and it proved that Sweden's new military doctrine worked. Europe's armies spent the next century copying it.

France had been secretly supplying American rebels for over a year, but hadn't yet declared open war on Britain. Then French troops landed on Dominica and took the island in a day. Britain, still unaware France had formally entered the conflict, was caught completely flat-footed. The island changed hands that fast — no significant battle, no warning. Britain wouldn't recapture Dominica until 1783. France managed to open a Caribbean front before London even confirmed it was at war.

Seventy-three thousand men died or were wounded in a single day at Borodino — roughly one casualty every second for twelve straight hours. Napoleon took the field but held his Old Guard back, refusing to commit his final reserve even when his marshals begged him. He called it caution. Others called it paralysis. He technically won, entered Moscow a week later, and found it burning. The Russian army hadn't surrendered. Winter was coming. And his 600,000-strong Grande Armée went home as fewer than 100,000.

Union troops under Quincy A. Gillmore seize Fort Wagner on Morris Island, ending a grueling seven-week siege that shattered Confederate defenses around Charleston. This costly victory galvanized Northern morale and proved to the world that Black regiments could storm heavily fortified positions, directly influencing President Lincoln's decision to expand enlistment of African American soldiers into the Union Army.