On This Day: Japan signs unconditional surrender in WWII

Sept. 2 (UPI) -- On this date in history:

In 1666, the Great Fire of London began. It destroyed 13,000 houses in four days.

In 1935, a hurricane hit the Florida Keys, killing more than 350 people.

In 1940, President Franklin Roosevelt dedicated the Great Smoky Mountains National Park along the Tennessee-North Carolina border. The park officially opened in six years earlier, in 1934.

In 1945, Japan signed an unconditional surrender aboard the U.S. battleship Missouri in Tokyo Bay, formally ending World War II.

In 1973, J.R.R. Tolkien, author of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings trilogy, died at age 81.

Actor Richard Armitage attends the premiere of "The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug," based on a novel by J.R.R. Tolkien, at TCL Chinese Theatre in the Hollywood section of Los Angeles on December 2, 2013. File Photo by Jim Ruymen/UPI

In 1992, earthquake-spawned tidal waves killed more than 100 people in Pacific coast villages in Nicaragua.

In 1998, a Swissair jetliner en route from New York to Geneva, Switzerland, crashed off the coast of Nova Scotia, Canada. All 229 people aboard were killed.

In 2004, U.S. President George W. Bush accepted the GOP nomination for re-election, promising to build a "safer world and a more hopeful America."

In 2010, BP warned the U.S. Congress the company might be unable to pay compensation for its massive Gulf of Mexico oil spill if barred from new offshore drilling permits.

File Photo by A.J. Sisco/UPI

In 2011, the U.S. State Department warned American travelers the security threat in Yemen was "extremely high" and urged those already there to leave.

In 2012, several hundred people upset with corporate America marched in Charlotte, N.C., two days before the Democratic National Convention, chanting: "Banks got bailed out. We got sold out."

In 2013, American Diana Nyad, 64, completed a 53-hour swim from Havana, Cuba, to Key West, Fla., becoming the first swimmer to make the crossing without a shark cage.