On Sept. 15, 1963, four black girls were killed when a bomb went off during Sunday services at the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama. (Three Ku Klux Klansmen were eventually convicted for their roles in the blast.)

Ten years ago

Ford Motor Co. took drastic steps to remold itself into a smaller, more competitive company, slashing thousands of jobs and closing down two additional plants. U.S. Rep. Bob Ney, R-Ohio, agreed to plead guilty to two criminal charges in the congressional corruption probe spawned by disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff. (Ney served nearly a year and a-half of a 21/2-year prison sentence.) Italian journalist Oriana Fallaci died in Florence at age 77.

Five years ago

President Barack Obama bestowed the Medal of Honor on Sgt. Dakota Meyer, a young and humble Marine who had defied orders and repeatedly barreled straight into a ferocious “killing zone” in Afghanistan to save 36 lives at extraordinary risk to himself. A single rogue trader at Swiss banking giant UBS was arrested after allegedly costing the storied institution an estimated $2 billion. (Kweku Adoboli was later convicted of fraud and served about half of a seven-year sentence.)

One year ago

Hungary sealed off its border with Serbia with massive coils of barbed wire and began detaining migrants trying to use the country as a gateway to Western Europe, harsh new measures that left thousands of frustrated asylum-seekers piled up on the Serbian side of the border. Malcolm Turnbull was sworn in as the new prime minister of Australia after his conservative Liberal Party colleagues voted for him to replace Tony Abbott as the nation’s leader.

— By The Associated Press