Today in History: Christian-Muslim violence flares in the Nigerian city of Jos with churches and mosques set on fire

The following are some of the major events to have occurred on September 7:

1888 - Edith Eleanor McLean is 1st baby to be placed in an incubator at State Emigrant Hospital on Ward’s Island, New York.

1901 – The Boxer Rebellion, which attempted to drive all foreigners out of China, officially ended with the signing of the Peking Protocol.

1909 - Eugene Lefebvre becomes first pilot to die in an airplane craft, while test piloting new French-built Wright biplane at Juvisy.

1940 – The German air force under Hermann Goering began its “blitz” bombing campaign on London. Over 300 people were killed on this day alone.

1978 – Keith Moon, drummer with British rock group The Who, died after an overdose of pills.

1986 – Left-wing opponents ambushed former Chilean dictator General Augusto Pinochet’s motorcade with bazookas and automatic gunfire in a failed assassination attempt.

1994 – The Stars and Stripes flag was lowered for the last time over U.S. army headquarters in Berlin, formally ending the American presence in the city after nearly half a century.

1997 – Zaire’s former dictator Mobutu Sese Seko died in exile in Morocco. One of Africa’s longest-serving strongmen, he was ousted by a rebellion led by Laurent Kabila.

2001 – Christian-Muslim violence flares in the Nigerian city of Jos with churches and mosques set on fire. According to the Red Cross, at least 500 people were killed and hundreds wounded in less than a week of rioting.

2002 – Forty-nine Nepali policemen were killed by Maoist rebels, fighting to topple nation’s constitutional monarchy, in an attack on a police post in eastern Nepal.

2004 – White South African cleric Beyers Naude, a rare public symbol of white dissent during the apartheid years, died aged 89.

2004 – The U.S. death toll in Iraq reached 1,000, nearly 18 months after American-led forces invaded to topple President Saddam Hussein.

2008 – United States government takes control of two largest mortgage financing companies, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

(Reuters)