On September 3, 1838, abolitionist and human rights advocate Frederick Douglass escaped from slavery in Baltimore by posing as a free sailor and boarding a train bound for Philadelphia. Read Douglass' 1881 tract My Escape from Slavery.

On September 3, 1939, World War II began for the Allies when the United Kingdom, France, New Zealand, and Australia declared war on Germany after it invaded Poland. Learn more about the Second World War from the History Channel.