1. On September 2, 1864, Union forces under General William T. Sherman captured Atlanta, Georgia, after a four-month siege. This victory was a turning point in the Civil War and helped to secure the re-election of President Abraham Lincoln later that year.

2. On September 2, 1925, a devastating hurricane made landfall near Miami, Florida, and then moved inland across the southeastern United States. Tennessee was one of the states affected by the storm, which caused widespread flooding and wind damage. More than 200 people were killed in Tennessee alone, making it one of the state's deadliest natural disasters.

3. On September 2, 1957, a federal judge in Nashville, Tennessee, ordered the desegregation of Nashville public schools. This decision came one year after the Supreme Court's landmark Brown v. Board of Education ruling, which declared segregated schools unconstitutional. The Nashville desegregation plan was one of the first in the country to be implemented without violence.

4. On September 2, 1974, the First United Methodist Church in Memphis, Tennessee, became the site of a dramatic hostage crisis. A group of armed individuals, led by a man claiming to be Jesus Christ, took more than a hundred people hostage during a Sunday morning church service. After a tense standoff lasting several hours, police eventually stormed the building and freed the hostages. Several of the attackers were killed or wounded in the process.

5. On September 2, 2018, the University of Tennessee football team played its first game under new head coach Jeremy Pruitt. The game, against the West Virginia Mountaineers, took place at Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte, North Carolina, and was one of the most anticipated matchups of the early college football season. Despite a strong effort, Tennessee ultimately lost to West Virginia by a score of 40-14.