Historical EventsToday: 29 September

Events

• 522 BC - Darius I of Persia kills the Magian usurper Gaumâta, securing his hold as king of the Persian Empire.


• 480 BC - Battle of Salamis: The Greek fleet under Themistokles defeats the Persian fleet under Xerxes I.


• 61 BC - Pompey the Great celebrates his third triumph for victories over the pirates and the end of the Mithridatic Wars on his 45th birthday.


• 1066 - William the Conqueror invades England.


• 1227 - Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor, is excommunicated by Pope Gregory IX for his failure to go on crusade.


• 1364 - Battle of Auray: English forces defeat French in Brittany; end of the Breton War of Succession.


• 1567 - The second War of Religion in France breaks out.


• 1567 - At a dinner, the Duke of Alba arrests the Count of Egmont and the Count of Hoorn for treason.


• 1650 - Henry Robinson opens his Office of Addresses and Encounters - the first historically documented dating service - in Threadneedle Street, London.


• 1789 - The U.S. War Department first establishes a regular army with a strength of several hundred men.


• 1789 - The first U.S. Congress adjourns.


• 1829 - The Metropolitan Police of London, also known as the Met, is founded.


• 1848 - Battle of Pákozd: Hungarian forces defeat Croats at Pákozd; the first battle of the War of Independence.


• 1850 - The Roman Catholic hierarchy is re-established in England and Wales by Pope Pius IX.


• 1864 - American Civil War: The Battle of Chaffin's Farm is fought.


• 1885 - The first practical public electric tramway in the world is opened in Blackpool, England.


• 1907 - The cornerstone is laid at Washington National Cathedral in the U.S. capital.


• 1911 - Italy declares war on the Ottoman Empire.


• 1916 - John D. Rockefeller becomes the first billionaire.


• 1918 - The Hindenburg Line is broken by Allied forces during World War I. Bulgaria signs an armistice.


• 1924 - Plutarco Elías Calles is proclaimed President of Mexico.


• 1941 - Holocaust in Kiev, Ukraine: German Einsatzgruppe C starts Babi Yar massacre. According to the Einsatzgruppen Operational Situation Report No. 101, at least 33,771 Jews from Kiev and its suburbs were killed at Babi Yar on September 29 - 30, 1941.


• 1943 - U.S. General Dwight D. Eisenhower and Italian Marshal Pietro Badoglio sign an armistice aboard the British ship HMS Nelson off Malta.


• 1954 - The convention establishing CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research) is signed.


• 1954 - Major League Baseball: Willie Mays of the then New York Giants makes "The Catch" at The Polo Grounds in game one of the World Series.


• 1957 - 20 MCi (740 petabecquerels) of radioactive material is released in an explosion at the Soviet Mayak nuclear plant at Chelyabinsk.


• 1960 - Nikita Khrushchev, leader of Soviet Union, disorders a meeting of the United Nations General Assembly with a number of angry outbursts.


• 1962 - Alouette 1, the first Canadian satellite, is launched.


• 1963 - The second period of the Second Vatican Council opens.


• 1964 - The Argentine comic strip Mafalda is published for the first time.


• 1971 - Oman joins the Arab League.


• 1972 - Sino-Japanese relations: Japan establishes diplomatic relations with the People's Republic of China after breaking official ties with the Republic of China.


• 1975 - WGPR in Detroit, Michigan, becomes the world's first black-owned-and-operated television station.


• 1975 - Sharon Dahlonega Raiford Bush becomes American television's first African-American weathercaster.


• 1979 - Pope John Paul II became the first pope to set foot on Irish soil with his pastoral visit to the Republic of Ireland.


• 1982 - Tylenol Crisis of 1982 began when the first of seven individuals died in metropolitan Chicago.


• 1988 - NASA resumes space shuttle flights, grounded after the Challenger disaster, with STS-26.