September 1902

• The classic silent film, Le Voyage dans La Lune (A Trip to the Moon), is released at Théâtre Robert-Houdin in Paris, France, by actor/producer Georges Méliès, and proves an instant success.[1]

• Haitian admiral, Hammerton Killick, a supporter of presidential candidate Anténor Firmin, captures a German ammunition ship, the Markomannia, on its way to provide ammunition to Firmin's rival Pierre Nord Alexis.[2]
• The US state of Vermont holds its election for the House of Representatives.

• Operative William Craig of the United States Secret Service died in a collision between a street car and the President's carriage.

• Paul Haas replaces Bartomeu Terradas as president of FC Barcelona.[3]
• Died: Rudolf Virchow, 80, German scientist and politician

• Died:
  • Sir Frederick Abel, 75, British chemist
  • Hammerton Killick, 46, admiral in the Haitian Navy, drowned after blowing up his ship to avoid surrendering to the German warship SMS Panther[4]

• In the final of Sweden's Rosenska Pokalen football tournament, Gefle IF defeat Djurgårdens IF Fotboll 1-0.[5]

• In the Italian town of Candela, five people are killed and ten injured when 400 peasants involved in a wage dispute block local roads; violence erupts and troops fire at the strikers.[6]
• The US state of Maine holds its election for the House of Representatives.

• British humorist P. G. Wodehouse resigns from the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Company in London to begin a full-time writing career.[7]

• Born: Juscelino Kubitschek de Oliveira, 21st President of Brazil, in Diamantina, Minas Gerais (died 1976)

• Harry Jackson is the first British criminal to be convicted on the basis of fingerprint evidence, when he is found guilty of burglary.[8]
• "Baseball's Sad Lexicon": Chicago Cubs players Joe Tinker, Johnny Evers and Frank Chance turn their first double play, two days after playing together for the first time.[9]

• Dai-ichi Life founded in Kyobashi region, Tokyo, Japan.

• Born: Jakob Sporrenberg, German war criminal, in Düsseldorf (executed 1952)

• Opera singer Nellie Melba arrives in Brisbane, Queensland, at the start of her first Australian tour, having spent the previous 16 years in Europe.[10]

• Shiloh Baptist Church stampede: A stampede occurs at the Shiloh Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, USA, after a talk by Booker T. Washington, when the congregation wrongly believes the building is on fire; 115 African-American people are suffocated or crushed to death.[11]
• Died: Masaoka Shiki, 34, Japanese haiku poet (tuberculosis)[12]

• The schedule is published for the 1902–03 Primera Fuerza season, the first season of Mexican competitive football.

• Born: Luis Cernuda, Spanish poet, in Seville (died 1963)

• The Mariana Islands are struck by a magnitude 7.5 earthquake, which causes major damage on Guam and Saipan.[13][14]
• In Canada, the Canadian Pacific Railway, through its subsidiary, the Ottawa, Northern and Western Railway, acquires the Pontiac and Pacific Junction Railway.[15]
• Born: John Houseman, British-American actor and producer, in Bucharest, Romania, under the name Jacques Haussmann (died 1988)

• Born: Ion Gheorghe Maurer, Romanian politician, Prime Minister 1961–74, in Bucharest (died 2000)

• Bailundo Revolt: A column of colonial soldiers from Luanda, led by Pedro Massano de Amorim, enters Bailundo fort in readiness for anticipated attack.
• Born: Ruhollah Khomeini, Iranian Shia cleric, in Khomeyn (died 1989)

The town of Catania, Sicily suffers flooding after a cyclone hits the island's east coast.[16] In the city of Modica, 300 people are reported killed,[17] and the cathedral of Belpasso collapses, with another 600 deaths resulting.[18]

• Born: Albert Anastasia, US gangster, in Parghelia, Calabria, Italy
• Died: Levi Strauss, 73, US businessman and first manufacturer of jeans

Collingwood Football Club are winners of the Victorian Football League Grand Final, defeating Essendon Football Club at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, in front of a record crowd of 35,000.[19]

• Training begins for the first season of the United States National Football League, due to begin on October 4.[20]

• Died:
  • Émile Zola, 62, French novelist, playwright and journalist, from carbon monoxide poisoning apparently caused by an improperly ventilated chimney)[21]
  • William McGonagall, 77, Scottish 'poet and tragedian'.