More than twenty small earthquakes shook the 22,000 people in the town of Torre del Greco on the slopes of Mount Vesuvius near Naples.  A eruption of the volcano then took place, destroying houses, and lava began to flow down the slopes. Toxic smoke rose thousands of feet and hundreds of houses were covered in ash.  The lava flow ceased within days but ash continued to fall as far away as Naples for some time.  Several lives were lost and most of the town was forced to flee their homes over the following weeks.  (By John Osborne)

Just after nightfall in the Belgian port of Antwerp a fire broke out on the premises of the Belgian Sugar Refinery.  Within half an hour, the refinery was completely engulfed and neighboring buildings, as well as several ships along the docks, were afire.  Up to ten people lost their lives in the collapse of the Entrepôt St. Felix adjoining the refinery and the total damages were estimated at millions of dollars.  (By John Osborne)

Wreckage from the Prussian Naval corvette Amazon was discovered along the Dutch coast near the Helder Sands.  Immense storms had battered the North Sea earlier in the month and the ship had gone missing with all of her 118 man crew, which included a group of midshipman in training. No survivors or bodies were found.  (By John Osborne) 

The American ship Maritana sailed from Liverpool on September 13, 1861 with a small crew and twenty-four passengers aboard. After a six week voyage, she was approaching Boston Harbor and hit rocks. The vessel's boats were lost in the collision and although the people aboard were in sight of shore, the Maritana broke apart the next morning and the captain, most of the crew, and all of the passengers were drowned.  (By John Osborne)  

Just after one in the morning in the ancient buildings along the High Street in Edinburgh, Scotland, a ninety foot tenement collapsed in pile of rubble and buried around eighty people.  Rescuers were able to pull many of the families, mostly poor working-class, from the ruins but a total of thirty-two people were found crushed to death. (By John Osborne)

In a small coal mine in northern England, near Wigan in Lancashire, the twenty-man shift were startled by an explosion of gas in a gallery 360 feet underground.  They made for the shaft to the surface but tragically ran into an area where the gas was most concentrated.  The men died of suffocation and gas poisoning before rescuers could bring all up to the open air.  (By John Osborne)  

In a remote area of Queensland on the Comet River, 400 miles from Brisbane, local aboriginals fell into a dispute with the settlers at Will's Station and killed all but two of the white men and their families there, seventeen people in all. One of the survivors was able to ride for help while the other hid. Help arrived three days later and, reportedly, local settlers began to inflict reprisals on the native population killing up to thirty.  (By John Osborne) 

The speed trials of the Royal Navy's new H.M.S. Warrior, the world's first iron hulled ocean going warship, took place in Stoke's Bay off Gosport in Hampshire.  Her six runs averaged almost  14½ knots; with the tide around 16 knots and against the tide more than 12 knots.  This made the 9,210 ton, 480-foot vessel the fastest man-of-war in the world. The Warrior was in service only until 1883 and never fired a single shot in anger.  (By John Osborne) 

Nineteen year-old Private Patrick McCaffery of the Cornwall Light Infantry, stationed at the Fulwood Barracks in Lancashire, was charged with misconduct on sentry duty and given fourteen days confined to barracks.  Soon after, cleaning his rifle in his quarters, he saw the commandant of the depot and his adjutant walking outside and fired at them.  His single shot, from 65 yards, killed both Colonel Hugh Crofton and Captain John Hanham.  McCaffery was convicted and executed before 30,000 people in Liverpool the next January.  (By John Osborne)