September 02

  • 1666 The Great Fire of London, which destroyed 400 acres of the city but cost just nine lives, began in a bakehouse in Pudding Lane.
  • 1022 Malachy the Great (Máel-Sechnaill), High King of Ireland since c. 980, died on Lough Ennell, Co. Westmeath.
  • 1945 Japanese representatives sign the official ‘Instrument of surrender’ on board the battleship USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay, thus confirming the formal end of the Second World War.