12 September 1942 – RMS Laconia, carrying civilians, Allied soldiers and Italian POWs is torpedoed off the coast of West Africa and sinks with a heavy loss of life.

1942 – First day of the Battle of Edson's Ridge during the Guadalcanal Campaign. U.S. Marines protecting Henderson Field on Guadalcanal are attacked by Imperial Japanese Army forces.

1943 – Benito Mussolini, dictator of Italy, is rescued from house arrest on the Gran Sasso in Abruzzi, by German commando forces led by Otto Skorzeny.

1944 – The liberation of Serbia from Nazi Germany continues. Bajina Bašta in western Serbia is among those liberated cities. Near Trier, American troops enter Germany for the first time.

13 September 1942 – Second day of the Battle of Edson's Ridge in the Guadalcanal Campaign. U.S. Marines successfully defeated attacks by the Imperial Japanese Army with heavy losses for the Japanese forces.

1943 – The Municipal Theatre of Corfu is destroyed during an aerial bombardment by Luftwaffe.

1948 – Deputy Primer Minister of India Vallabhbhai Patel ordered the Army to move into the Hyderabad to integrate it with Indian Union.

1948 – Margaret Chase Smith is elected senator, and becomes the first woman to serve in both the U.S. House of Representatives and the United States Senate.

14 September 1939 –The Estonian military boards the Polish submarine ORP Orzeł in Tallinn, sparking a diplomatic incident that the Soviet Union will later use to justify the annexation of Estonia.

1940 – Ip massacre: The Hungarian Army, supported by local Hungarians, kill 158 Romanian civilians in Ip, Sălaj, a village in Northern Transylvania, as part of attempts to ethnic cleansing.

1944 – Maastricht becomes the first Dutch city to be liberated by allied forces.

source:wikipedia