Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Historical Events on 1 Nov

Historical Events on 1 Nov

1512 - The ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, painted by Michelangelo, is exhibited to the public for the first time.
1520 - The Strait of Magellan, the passage immediately south of mainland South America, connecting the Pacific and the Atlantic Oceans, is first navigated by Ferdinand Magellan during his global circumnavigation voyage.
1604 - William Shakespeare's tragedy Othello is presented for the first time, at Whitehall Palace in London.
1611 - William Shakespeare's romantic comedy The Tempest is presented for the first time, at Whitehall Palace in London.
1612 - (22 October O.S.) Time of Troubles in Russia: Moscow, Kitai-gorod, is captured by Russian troops under command of Dmitry Pozharsky
1683 - The British crown colony of New York is subdivided into 12 counties.
1755 - Lisbon earthquake: In Portugal, Lisbon is destroyed by a massive earthquake and tsunami, killing between sixty thousand and ninety thousand people.
1765 - The British Parliament enacts the Stamp Act on the 13 colonies in order to help pay for British military operations in North America.
1790 - Edmund Burke publishes Reflections on the Revolution in France, in which he predicts that the French Revolution will end in a disaster.
1800 - US President John Adams becomes the first President of the United States to live in the Executive Mansion (later renamed the White House).
1802 - Delegates meet at Chillicothe, Ohio to form a state constitutional convention.
1805 - Napoleon Bonaparte invades Austria during the War of the Third Coalition.
1814 - Congress of Vienna opens to re-draw the European political map after the defeat of France, in the Napoleonic Wars.
1848 - In Boston, Massachusetts, the first medical school for women, The Boston Female Medical School (which later merged with the Boston University School of Medicine), opens.
1859 - The current Cape Lookout, North Carolina, lighthouse was lit for the first time. Its first-order Fresnel lens can be seen for about 19 miles (30 kilometers), in good conditions.
1861 - American Civil War: US President Abraham Lincoln appoints George B. McClellan as the commander of the Union Army, replacing the aged General Winfield Scott.
1870 - In the United States, the Weather Bureau (later renamed the National Weather Service) makes its first official meteorological forecast.
1876 - New Zealand's provincial government system is dissolved.
1884 - The Gaelic Athletic Association is set up in Hayes's Hotel in Thurles, County Tipperary.
1886 - Ananda College, a leading Buddhist school in Sri Lanka was established with 37 students.
1894 - Nicholas II becomes the new Tsar of Russia after his father, Alexander III, dies.
1896 - A picture showing the unclad (bare) breasts of a woman appears in National Geographic magazine for the first time.
1901 - Sigma Phi Epsilon, the largest national male collegiate fraternity is established at Richmond College, in Richmond, VA.
1911 - The first dropping of a bomb from an airplane in combat, during the Italo-Turkish War.
1914 - World War I: the first British Royal Navy defeat of the war with Germany, the Battle of Coronel, is fought off of the western coast of Chile, in the Pacific.
1915 - Parris Island is officially designated a Marine Corps Recruit Depot.
1916 - Paul Miliukov delivers in the State Duma the famous "stupidity or treason" speech, precipitating the downfall of the Boris Stürmer government.
1918 - Malbone Street Wreck: the worst rapid transit accident in US history occurs under the intersection of Malbone Street and Flatbush Avenue, Brooklyn, New York City, with at least 93 deaths.
1918 - Western Ukraine gains its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
1920 - American Fishing Schooner Esperanto defeats the Canadian Fishing Schooner Delawana in the First International Fishing Schooner Championship Races in Halifax.
1922 - The last sultan of the Ottoman Empire, Mehmed VI, abdicates.
1928 - The Law on the Adoption and Implementation of the Turkish Alphabet, replacing the version of the Arabic alphabet previously used, comes into force in Turkey.
1937 - Stalinists executed by shooting Pastor Paul Hamberg and seven members of Azerbaijan's Lutheran community (including three women).
1938 - Seabiscuit defeats War Admiral in an upset victory during a match race deemed "the match of the century" in horse racing.
1939 - The first rabbit born after artificial insemination is exhibited to the world.
1941 - American photographer Ansel Adams takes a picture of a moonrise over the town of Hernandez, New Mexico that would become one of the most famous images in the history of photography.
1942 - Matanikau Offensive begins during the Guadalcanal Campaign and ends on November 4.
1943 - World War II: In support of the landings on Bougainville, U.S. aircraft carrier forces attack the huge Japanese base at Rabaul.
1943 - World War II: Battle of Empress Augusta Bay, United States Marines, the 3rd Marine Division, land on Bougainville in the Solomon Islands.
1944 - World War II: Units of the British Army land at Walcheren in the Netherlands.
1945 - The official North Korean newspaper, Rodong Sinmun, is first published under the name Chongro. Australia joins the United Nations.
1946 - The New York Knicks played against the Toronto Huskies at the Maple Leaf Gardens, in the first Basketball Association of America game. The Knicks would win 68-66.
1948 - Off southern Manchuria, 6,000 people are killed as a Chinese merchant ship explodes and sinks.
1950 - Pope Pius XII claims Papal Infallibility when he formally defines the dogma of the Assumption of Mary.
1950 - Puerto Rican nationalists Griselio Torresola and Oscar Collazo attempt to assassinate US President Harry S. Truman at Blair House.
1950 - Pope Pius XII witnesses "The Miracle of the Sun" while at the Vatican.
1951 - American soldiers are exposed to an atomic explosion for training purposes in Desert Rock, Nevada. Participation was not voluntary.
1952 - Operation Ivy - The United States successfully detonates the first large hydrogen bomb, codenamed "Mike" ["M" for megaton], in the Eniwetok atoll, located in the Marshall Islands in the central Pacific Ocean. The explosion had a yield of 10 megatons.
1954 - The Front de Libération Nationale fires the first shots of the Algerian War of Independence.
1955 - The bombing of United Airlines Flight 629 occurs near Longmont, Colorado, killing all 39 passengers and five crew members aboard the Douglas DC-6B airliner.
1956 - Formation of Indian state of Andhra Pradesh with its capital as Hyderabad, formerly known as Nizam state.
1956 - Formation of the Indian state of Karnataka (1973), formerly known as Mysore State.
1956 - Formation of Kerala state in India.
1957 - The Mackinac Bridge, the world's longest suspension bridge between anchorages at the time, opens to traffic connecting Michigan's upper and lower peninsulas.
1960 - While campaigning for President of the United States, John F. Kennedy announces his idea of the Peace Corps.
1963 - The Arecibo Observatory in Arecibo, Puerto Rico, with the largest radio telescope ever constructed, officially opens.
1970 - A fire at a dance hall in Saint-Laurent-du-Pont, France kills 144 young people.
1973 - Watergate Scandal: Leon Jaworski is appointed as the new Watergate Special Prosecutor.
1973 - The Indian state of Mysore was renamed as Karnataka to represent all the regions within Karunadu .
1981 - Antigua and Barbuda gain independence from the United Kingdom.
1982 - Honda becomes the first Asian automobile company to produce cars in the United States with the opening of their factory in Marysville, Ohio. The Honda Accord is the first car produced there.
1991 - Three faculty, and one staff member of the department of physics and astronomy, were killed, along with one administrator, when physics graduate student Gang Lu went on a shooting rampage at the University of Iowa.
1993 - The Maastricht Treaty takes effect, formally establishing the European Union.
1998 - The European Court of Human Rights is instituted.
2005 - First part of the Gomery Report, which discusses allegations of political money manipulation, is released in Canada.
996 - Emperor Otto III issues a deed to Gottschalk, Bishop of Freising, which is the oldest known document using the name Ostarrîchi (Austria in Old High German).

Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Historical Events on 31 Oct

Historical Events on 31 Oct

1517 - Protestant Reformation: Martin Luther posts his 95 theses on the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg.
1587 - Leiden University Library opens its doors after its founding in 1575.
1822 - Emperor Agustín de Iturbide attempted to dissolve the Mexican Empire.
1861 - American Civil War: Citing failing health, Union General Winfield Scott resigns as Commander of the United States Army.
1863 - The Maori Wars resumed as British forces in New Zealand led by General Duncan Cameron began their Invasion of the Waikato.
1864 - Nevada is admitted as the 36th U.S. state.
1876 - A monster cyclone ravages India, resulting in over 200,000 human deaths.
1892 - Arthur Conan Doyle publishes The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.
1912 - Dominican Republic becomes a signatory to the Buenos Aires copyright treaty.
1912 - The Musketeers of Pig Alley, directed by D.W. Griffith, debuts as the first gangster film.
1917 - World War I: Battle of Beersheba - "last successful cavalry charge in history"
1918 - Banat Republic founded
1923 - 160 consecutive days of 100 degrees at Marble Bar, Australia begins.
1924 - World Savings Day was announced in Milano/Italy by the Members of the Association at the 1st International Savings Bank Congress (World Society of Savings Banks).
1926 - Magician Harry Houdini dies of gangrene and peritonitis that developed after his appendix ruptured.
1936 - The Boy Scouts of the Philippines was formed.
1938 - Great Depression: In an effort to try restore investor confidence, the New York Stock Exchange unveils a fifteen-point program aimed to upgrade protection for the investing public.
1940 - World War II: Battle of Britain ends - The United Kingdom prevents Germany from invading Great Britain.
1941 - Clothing factory fire in Huddersfield, England kills 49
1941 - After 14 years of work, drilling is completed on Mount Rushmore.
1941 - World War II: The destroyer USS Reuben James is torpedoed by a German U-boat near Iceland, killing more than 100 United States Navy sailors. It is the first U.S. Navy vessel sunk by enemy action in WWII.
1943 - World War II: F4U Corsair accomplishes the first successful radar-guided interception.
1954 - Algerian War of Independence: The Algerian National Liberation Front begins a revolt against French rule.
1956 - Suez Crisis: The United Kingdom and France begin bombing Egypt to force the reopening of the Suez Canal.
1959 - Lee Harvey Oswald attempted to renounce his American citizenship at the US Embassy in Moscow, USSR.
1961 - In the Soviet Union, Joseph Stalin's body is removed from Lenin's Tomb.
1963 - Indiana State Fair Coliseum (now Pepsi Coliseum) explosion in Indianapolis kills 74 people during an ice skating show. The mammoth explosion injured 400. A faulty propane tank connection in a concession stand was blamed.
1968 - Vietnam War October surprise: Citing progress with the Paris peace talks, US President Lyndon B. Johnson announces to the nation that he has ordered a complete cessation of "all air, naval, and artillery bombardment of North Vietnam" effective November 1.
1973 - Mountjoy Prison helicopter escape. Three Provisional Irish Republican Army members escape from Mountjoy Prison, Dublin, Republic of Ireland after a hijacked helicopter landed in the exercise yard.
1984 - Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi is assassinated by two Sikh security guards (riots soon broke out in New Delhi and nearly 2,000 innocent Sikhs were killed).
1986 - The 5th congress of the Communist Party of Sweden is inaugurated. During the course of the congress the party name is changed to the Solidarity Party and the party ceases to be a communist party.
1994 - An American Eagle ATR-72 crashes in Roselawn, Indiana, after circling in icy weather, killing 68 passengers and crew.
1996 - The Fokker F100 on TAM Transportes Aéreos Regionais Flight 402 crashes into several houses in São Paulo, Brazil killing 98 including 2 on the ground.
1997 - 19-year-old British au pair Louise Woodward, convicted by a Cambridge, Massachusetts, jury of second-degree murder the day before, is sentenced to life in prison.
1998 - Iraq disarmament crisis begins: Iraq announces it would no longer cooperate with United Nations weapons inspectors.
1999 - Roman Catholic Church and Lutheran Church leaders sign the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification, ending a centuries-old doctrinal dispute over the nature of faith and salvation.
1999 - EgyptAir Flight 990 traveling from New York City to Cairo crashes off the coast of Nantucket, Massachusetts, killing all 217 on-board.
1999 - Yachtsman Jesse Martin returns to Melbourne after 11 months of circumnavigating the world, solo, non-stop and unassisted.
2000 - A chartered Antonov An-26 explodes after takeoff in Northern Angola killing 50
2000 - A Singapore Airlines Boeing 747-400 operating as Flight 006 collides with construction equipment upon takeoff in Taipei, Taiwan killing 79 passengers and four crew members
2000 - The last Multics machine was shut down.
2002 - A federal grand jury in Houston, Texas formally indicted former Enron Corp. chief financial officer Andrew Fastow on 78 counts of wire fraud, money laundering, conspiracy and obstruction of justice related to the collapse of his ex-employer.
2003 - A bankruptcy court approves MCI's reorganization plans, essentially clearing the telecommunications company to exit bankruptcy.
2003 - Mahathir bin Mohamad resigns as Prime Minister of Malaysia and is replaced by Deputy Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, marking an end to Mahathir's 22 years in power.
445 BC - Ezra reads the Book of the Law to the Israelites in Jerusalem (see Nehemiah 9:1, NLTse).
475 - Romulus Augustulus was proclaimed Roman Emperor.

Monday, October 29, 2012

Historical Events on 30 Oct

Historical Events on 30 Oct

1137 - Battle of Rignano between Ranulf of Apulia and Roger II of Sicily.
1270 - The Eighth Crusade and siege of Tunis end by an agreement between Charles I of Sicily (brother to King Louis IX of France, who had died months earlier) and the sultan of Tunis.
1340 - Battle of Rio Salado.
1470 - Henry VI of England returns to the English throne after Earl of Warwick defeats Yorkists in battle.
1485 - Henry VII of England crowned.
1502 - Vasco da Gama returns to Calicut for the second time.
1831 - In Southampton County, Virginia, escaped slave Nat Turner is captured and arrested for leading the bloodiest slave rebellion in United States history.
1863 - Danish Prince Wilhelm arrives in Athens to assume his throne as George I, King of the Hellenes.
1864 - Second war of Schleswig ends. Denmark renounces all claim to Schleswig, Holstein and Lauenburg, which come under Prussian and Austrian administration.
1864 - Helena, Montana is founded after four prospectors discover gold at "Last Chance Gulch."
1894 - Domenico Melegatti obtains a patent for a procedure to be applied in producing pandoro industrially.
1905 - Tsar Nicholas II of Russia grants Russia's first constitution, creating a legislative assembly.
1918 - The Ottoman Empire signs an armistice with the Allies, ending the First World War in the Middle East.
1920 - The Communist Party of Australia is founded in Sydney.
1922 - Benito Mussolini is made Prime Minister of Italy.
1925 - John Logie Baird creates Britain's first television transmitter.
1929 - The Stuttgart Cable Car is constructed in Stuttgart, Germany.
1938 - Orson Welles broadcasts his radio play of H. G. Wells's The War of the Worlds, causing a nationwide panic in the United States.
1941 - 1,500 Jews from Pidhaytsi (in western Ukraine) are sent by Nazis to Belzec extermination camp.
1941 - World War II: Franklin Delano Roosevelt approves U.S. $1 billion in Lend-Lease aid to the Allied nations.
1944 - Anne Frank and sister Margot Frank are deported from Auschwitz to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.
1945 - Jackie Robinson of the Kansas City Monarchs signs a contract for the Brooklyn Dodgers to break the baseball color barrier.
1947 - The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), which is the foundation of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), is founded.
1950 - Pope Pius XII witnesses "The Miracle of the Sun" while at the Vatican.
1953 - Cold War: U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower formally approves the top secret document National Security Council Paper No. 162/2, which states that the United States' arsenal of nuclear weapons must be maintained and expanded to counter the communist thr
1960 - Michael Woodruff performs the first successful kidney transplant in the United Kingdom at the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary.
1961 - Nuclear testing: The Soviet Union detonates the hydrogen bomb Tsar Bomba over Novaya Zemlya; at 58 megatons of yield, it is still the largest explosive device ever detonated, nuclear or not. Nikita Kruschev announces that the scientists had planned to mak
1961 - Because of "violations of Lenin's precepts", it is decreed that Joseph Stalin's body be removed from its place of honour inside Lenin's tomb and buried near the Kremlin wall with a plain granite marker instead.
1965 - Vietnam War: Just miles from Da Nang, United States Marines repel an intense attack by wave after wave of Viet Cong forces, killing 56 guerrillas. Among the dead, a sketch of Marine positions was found on the body of a 13-year-old Vietnamese boy who sold
1970 - In Vietnam, the worst monsoon to hit the area in six years causes large floods, kills 293, leaves 200,000 homeless and virtually halts the Vietnam War.
1972 - A collision between two commuter trains in Chicago, Illinois kills 45 and injures 332.
1973 - The Bosporus Bridge in Istanbul, Turkey is completed, connecting the continents of Europe and Asia over the Bosporus for the first time.
1974 - The Rumble in the Jungle boxing match between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman takes place in Kinshasa, Zaire.
1975 - Prince Juan Carlos becomes Spain's acting head of state, taking over for the country's ailing dictator, Gen. Francisco Franco.
1980 - El Salvador and Honduras sign a peace treaty to put the border dispute fought over in 1969's Football War before the International Court of Justice.
1983 - The first democratic elections in Argentina after seven years of military rule are held.
1985 - Space Shuttle Challenger lifts off for mission STS-61-A, its final successful mission.
1987 - In Japan, NEC releases the first 16-bit home entertainment system, the TurboGrafx-16, known as PC Engine.
1988 - Philip Morris buys Kraft Foods for U.S. $13.1 billion.
1991 - The Madrid Conference for Middle East peace talks opens.
1995 - Quebec sovereignists narrowly lose a referendum for a mandate to negotiate independence from Canada (vote was 50.6% to 49.4%).
2002 - British Digital terrestrial television (DTT) Service Freeview begins transmitting in parts of the United Kingdom.
2005 - The rebuilt Dresden Frauenkirche (destroyed in the firebombing of Dresden during World War II) is reconsecrated after a thirteen-year rebuilding project.
637 - Antioch surrenders to the Muslim forces under Rashidun Caliphate after the Battle of Iron bridge.

Sunday, October 28, 2012

Historical Events on 29 Oct

Historical Events on 29 Oct

1268 - Conradin, the last legitimate male heir of the Hohenstaufen dynasty of Kings of Germany and Holy Roman Emperors, is executed along with his companion Frederick I, Margrave of Baden by Charles I of Sicily, a political rival and ally to the hostile Roman Ca
1390 - First trial for witchcraft in Paris.
1422 - Charles VII of France becomes king in succession to his father Charles VI of France
1467 - Battle of Brusthem: Charles the Bold defeats Liege
1618 - English adventurer, writer, and courtier Sir Walter Raleigh is beheaded for allegedly conspiring against James I of England.
1658 - Action of 29 October 1658 (Naval battle)
1665 - Battle of Ambuila, where Portuguese forces defeated the forces of the Kingdom of Kongo and decapitated king Antonio I of Kongo, also called Nvita a Nkanga..
1675 - Leibniz makes the first use of the long s, ∫, for integral.
1787 - Mozart's opera Don Giovanni receives its first performance in Prague.
1792 - Mount Hood (Oregon) is named after the British naval officer Alexander Arthur Hood by Lt. William E. Broughton who spotted the mountain near the mouth of the Willamette River.
1859 - Spain declares war on Morocco.
1863 - Sixteen countries meeting in Geneva agree to form the International Red Cross.
1863 - American Civil War: Battle of Wauhatchie - Forces under Union General Ulysses S. Grant ward off a Confederate attack led by General James Longstreet. Union forces thus open a supply line into Chattanooga, Tennessee.
1881 - Judge (U.S. magazine) first published.
1886 - The ticker-tape parade is invented in New York City when office workers spontaneously throw ticker tape into the streets as the Statue of Liberty is dedicated.
1901 - In Amherst, Massachusetts nurse Jane Toppan is arrested for murdering the Davis family of Boston with an overdose of morphine.
1901 - Capital punishment: Leon Czolgosz, the assassin of US President William McKinley, is executed by electrocution.
1913 - Floods in El Salvador kill thousands.
1921 - The Link River Dam, a part of the Klamath Reclamation Project, is completed.
1921 - Second trial of Sacco and Vanzetti in USA.
1921 - The Harvard University football team loses to Centre College, ending a 25 game winning streak. This is considered one of the biggest upsets in college football.
1922 - The King of Italy, Victor Emmanuel III, appoints Benito Mussolini as Prime Minister.
1923 - Turkey becomes a republic following the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire.
1929 - The New York Stock Exchange crashes in what will be called the Crash of '29 or "Black Tuesday," ending the Great Bull Market of the 1920s and beginning the Great Depression.
1942 - Holocaust: In the United Kingdom, leading clergymen and political figures hold a public meeting to register outrage over Nazi Germany's persecution of Jews.
1944 - Breda in the Netherlands is liberated by 1st Polish Armoured Division
1945 - Getulio Vargas, president of Brazil, resigns.
1948 - Safsaf massacre
1955 - The Soviet battleship Novorossiisk strikes a World War II mine in the harbor at Sevastopol.
1956 - Tangier Protocol signed: The international city Tangier is reintegrated into Morocco.
1956 - Suez Crisis begins: Israel forces invade the Sinai Peninsula and push Egyptian forces back toward the Suez Canal.
1957 - Israel's prime minister David Ben Gurion and five of his ministers are injured as a hand grenade is tossed into Israel's parliament, the Knesset.
1960 - In Louisville, Kentucky, Cassius Clay (who later takes the name Muhammad Ali) wins his first professional fight.
1961 - Syria exits from the United Arab Republic.
1964 - A collection of irreplaceable gems, including the 565 carat (113 g) Star of India, is stolen by a group of thieves including Jack Murphy from the American Museum of Natural History in New York City.
1964 - Tanganika and Zanzibar join to form the Republic of Tanzania.
1967 - London criminal Jack McVitie is murdered by the Kray twins, leading to their eventual imprisonment and downfall.
1967 - Montreal's World Fair, Expo 67, closes with over 50 million visitors.
1969 - The first-ever computer-to-computer link is established on ARPANET, the precursor to the Internet.
1971 - Vietnam War: Vietnamization - The total number of American troops still in Vietnam drops to a record low of 196,700 (the lowest level since January 1966).
1980 - Demonstration flight of a secretly modified C-130 for an Iran hostage crisis rescue attempt ends in crash landing at Eglin Air Force Base's Duke Field, Florida leading to cancellation of Operation Credible Sport.
1983 - Over 500,000 people demonstrate against cruise missiles in The Hague, The Netherlands.
1985 - Major General Samuel K. Doe is announced the winner of the first multiparty election in Liberia.
1986 - British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher opens the last stretch of the M25 motorway.
1988 - Pakistan's General Rahimuddin Khan resigns from his post as Governor of Sindh, following the efforts by President of Pakistan Ghulam Ishaq Khan to limit the powers Rahimuddin had accumulated.
1991 - The American Galileo spacecraft makes its closest approach to 951 Gaspra, becoming the first probe to visit an asteroid.
1994 - Francisco Martin Duran fires over two dozen shots at the White House (Duran was later convicted of trying to kill US President Bill Clinton).
1998 - Hurricane Mitch, the second deadliest Atlantic hurricane in history, made landfall in Honduras.
1998 - While en route from Adana to Ankara, a Turkish Airlines flight with a crew of 6 and 33 passengers is hijacked by a Kurdish militant who orders the pilot to fly to Switzerland. The plane instead lands in Ankara after the pilot tricked the hijacker into thi
1998 - Apartheid: In South Africa, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission presents its report, which condemns both sides for committing atrocities.
1998 - Space Shuttle Discovery blasts off on STS-95 with 77-year old John Glenn on board, making him the oldest person to go into space.
1998 - ATSC HDTV broadcasting in the United States is inaugurated with the launch of STS-95 space shuttle mission.
1999 - Deadliest Indian Ocean tropical cyclone hits Orissa, India. This event was known as 1999 Orissa cyclone ever since.
2002 - Ho Chi Minh City ITC Inferno, a fire destroys a luxurious department store with 1500 people shopping. Over 60 people died and over 100 are missing. It is the deadliest disaster in Vietnam during peacetime.
2004 - The Arabic news network Al Jazeera broadcasts an excerpt from a video of Osama bin Laden in which the terrorist leader first admits direct responsibility for the September 11, 2001 attacks and references the 2004 U.S. presidential election.
2004 - In Rome, European heads of state sign the Treaty and Final Act establishing the first European Constitution.
2005 - 29 October 2005 Delhi bombings kill more than 60.
2007 - Argentina elects its first female president, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner.
437 - Valentinian III, Western Roman Emperor, marries Licinia Eudoxia, daughter of his cousin Theodosius II, Eastern Roman Emperor in Constantinople. This unifies the two branches of the House of Theodosius
529 BC - The international day of Cyrus the Great, king of Persia, who declared the first charter of human rights in the world also known as Cyrus Cylinder.
969 - Byzantine troops occupy Antioch Syria

Saturday, October 27, 2012

Historical Events on 28 Oct

Historical Events on 28 Oct

1061 - Empress Agnes, acting as Regent for her son, brings about the election of Bishop Cadalus, the antipope Honorius II
1516 - Battle of Yaunis Khan: Turkish forces under the Grand Vizier Sinan Pasha defeat the Mameluks near Gaza.
1531 - Battle of Amba Sel: Imam Ahmad ibn Ibrihim al-Ghazi again defeats the army of Lebna Dengel, Emperor of Ethiopia. The southern part of Ethiopia falls under Imam Ahmad's control.
1538 - The first university in the New World, the Universidad Santo Tomás de Aquino, is established.
1628 - The Siege of La Rochelle, which had been ongoing for 14 months, ends with Huguenot surrender
1636 - A vote of the Great and General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony establishes the first college in what would become the United States, today known as Harvard University.
1664 - The Duke of York and Albany's Maritime Regiment of Foot, later to be known as the Royal Marines, is established.
1775 - American Revolutionary War A British proclamation forbids residents from leaving Boston.
1776 - American Revolutionary War: Battle of White Plains - British Army forces arrive at White Plains, attack and capture Chatterton Hill from the Americans.
1834 - The Battle of Pinjarra occurs in the Swan River Colony in present-day Pinjarra, Western Australia. Between 14 and 40 Aborigines are killed by British colonists.
1848 - The first railroad in Spain - between Barcelona and Mataró - is opened.
1864 - American Civil War: Second Battle of Fair Oaks ends - Union Army forces under General Ulysses S. Grant withdraw from Fair Oaks, Virginia, after failing to breach the Confederate defenses around Richmond, Virginia.
1886 - In New York Harbor, President Grover Cleveland dedicates the Statue of Liberty.
1891 - The Mino-Owari Earthquake, the largest earthquake in Japan's history, strikes Gifu Prefecture.
1893 - Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 6 in B Minor, Pathétique, premiered in St. Petersburg, only nine days before the composer's death.
1918 - World War I: Czechoslovakia is granted its independence from Austria-Hungary. Beginning of independent Czechoslovak state, after 300 years.
1918 - The German fleet is immobilized when sailors mutiny en masse and disobey an order to leave port five times; 1,000 would ultimately be arrested.
1918 - New Polish government in Western Galicia (Central Europe) is established.
1919 - The U.S. Congress passes the Volstead Act over President Woodrow Wilson's veto, paving the way for Prohibition to begin the following January.
1922 - March on Rome: Italian fascists led by Benito Mussolini march on Rome and take over the Italian government.
1936 - US President Franklin D. Roosevelt rededicates the Statue of Liberty on its 50th anniversary.
1940 - World War II: Italy invades Greece through Albania. This was the selected anniversary of Greece's entry into World War II. It is celebrated in Greece as Okhi Day (Όχι=No) Day.
1941 - Holocaust in Kaunas, Lithuania: German SS forces arrange the massacre of more than 9,000 Jews of the Kaunas ghetto. After the victims assembled on the Demokratu square at 6 am to be shot they are buried in gigantic ditches.
1942 - The Alaska Highway (Alcan Highway) is completed through Canada to Fairbanks, Alaska.
1942 - Holocaust: 2,000 Jewish children and 6,000 Jewish adults from Kraków are deported by Germans to Belzec death camp.
1942 - Holocaust: SS directive orders all Jewish children's mittens and stockings to be sent from the death camps to the SS families.
1948 - Swiss chemist Paul Müller is awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his discovery of the insecticidal properties of DDT.
1954 - The modern Kingdom of the Netherlands is re-founded as a federal monarchy.
1962 - Cuban Missile Crisis: Soviet Union leader Nikita Khrushchev announces that he had ordered the removal of Soviet missile bases in Cuba.
1964 - Vietnam War: U.S. officials deny any involvement in bombing North Vietnam.
1965 - Nostra Aetate, the "Declaration on the Relation of the Church with Non-Christian Religions" of the Second Vatican Council, is promulgated by Pope Paul VI; it absolves the Jews of the alleged killing of Jesus, reversing Innocent III's declaration from 760
1970 - The land speed record set by Gary Gabelich in a rocket-powered automobile called the Blue Flame, fueled with natural gas.
1971 - Britain launches its first (and as of 2007, only) satellite, Prospero, into low Earth orbit atop a Black Arrow carrier rocket.
1982 - Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) wins elections, leading to first Socialist government in Spain after death of Franco. Felipe Gonzalez becomes Prime Minister-elect.
1985 - Mikhail Gorbachev becomes General Secretary of the Communist Party in the Soviet Union.
1985 - Sandinista Daniel Ortega becomes president of Nicaragua and makes peace overtures to the United States; American policy continues to support the Contras in their revolt against the Nicaraguan government.
1986 - The centennial of the Statue of Liberty's dedication is re-celebrated in New York Harbor.
1998 - An Air China (Mainland China) jetliner is hijacked by disgruntled pilot Yuan Bin and flown to Taiwan.
2005 - Plame affair: Lewis Libby, Vice-president Dick Cheney's chief of staff, is indicted in the Valerie Plame case. Libby resigns later that day.
2006 - Funeral service for the peace of the executed at Bykivnia forest, outside of Kiev, Ukraine, with reburial of 817 Ukrainian civilians (out of some 100,000) executed by Bolsheviks at Bykivnia in 1930s - early 1940s.
306 - Maxentius is proclaimed Roman Emperor.
312 - Battle of Milvian Bridge: Constantine I defeats Maxentius, becoming the sole Roman Emperor.

Friday, October 26, 2012

Historical Events on 27 Oct

Historical Events on 27 Oct

1275 - Traditional founding of the city of Amsterdam.
1524 - Italian Wars: The French troops lay siege to Pavia.
1553 - Condemned as a heretic, Michael Servetus is burned at the stake just outside Geneva.
1644 - Second Battle of Newbury in the English Civil War.
1682 - Philadelphia, Pennsylvania is founded.
1795 - The United States and Spain sign the Treaty of Madrid, which establishes the boundaries between Spanish colonies and the U.S.
1806 - The French Army enters in Berlin.
1810 - United States annexes the former Spanish colony of West Florida.
1838 - Missouri governor Lilburn Boggs issues the Extermination Order, which orders all Mormons to leave the state or be exterminated.
1870 - Marshal François Achille Bazaine surrenders to Prussian forces at Metz along with 140,000 French soldiers in one of the biggest French defeats of the Franco-Prussian War.
1904 - The first underground New York City Subway line opens; the system becomes the biggest in United States, and one of the biggest in world.
1916 - Battle of Segale: Negus Mikael, marching on the Ethiopian capital in support of his son Emperor Iyasus V, is defeated by Fitawrari abte Giyorgis, securing the throne for Empress Zauditu.
1922 - A referendum in Rhodesia rejects the country's annexation to the South African Union.
1924 - The Uzbek SSR is founded in the Soviet Union.
1936 - Mrs Wallis Simpson filed for divorce which would eventually allow her to marry King Edward VIII of the United Kingdom, thus forcing his abdication from the throne.
1948 - Léopold Sédar Senghor founds the Senegalese Democratic Bloc (BDS).
1953 - British nuclear test Totem 2 is detonated at Emu Field, South Australia.
1954 - Benjamin O. Davis Jr. becomes the first African-American general in the United States Air Force.
1958 - Iskander Mirza, the first President of Pakistan, is deposed in a bloodless coup d'état by General Ayub Khan, who was appointed the enforcer of martial law by Mirza 20 days earlier.
1961 - NASA launched the first Saturn I rocket in Mission Saturn-Apollo 1.
1962 - Major Rudolph Anderson of the United States Air Force became the only direct human casualty of the Cuban Missile Crisis when his U-2 reconnaissance airplane was shot down in Cuba by a Soviet-supplied SA-2 Guideline surface-to-air missile.
1962 - The plane of Enrico Mattei, Italian industry's most relevant figure, crashes in mysterious circumstances.
1964 - Ronald Reagan delivers a speech on behalf of Republican candidate for president, Barry Goldwater. The speech launched his political career and came to be known as "A Time for Choosing".
1971 - Democratic Republic of the Congo is renamed Zaire.
1973 - The Canon City meteorite, a 1.4 kg chondrite type meteorite strikes in Fremont County, Colorado.
1981 - The Soviet submarine U 137 runs aground on the east coast of Sweden.
1986 - The United Kingdom government suddenly deregulates financial markets, leading to a total restructuring of the way in which they operate in the country, in an event now referred to as the Big Bang.
1990 - Supreme Soviet of Kirghiz SSR chooses Askar Akayev as republic's first president.
1991 - Turkmenistan achieved independence from the Soviet Union.
1992 - United States Navy radioman Allen R. Schindler, Jr. is brutally murdered by shipmates for being gay, precipitating first military, then national debate about gays in the military that resulted in the United States "Don't ask, don't tell" military policy.
1995 - Latvia applies for membership in the European Union.
1995 - Former Italian Prime Minister Bettino Craxi is condemned in absentia for corruption.
1997 - October 27, 1997 mini-crash: Stock markets around the world crash because of fears of a global economic meltdown. The Dow Jones Industrial Average plummets 554.26 points to 7,161.15. For the first time, the New York Stock Exchange activated their "circuit
1999 - Gunmen open fire in the Armenian Parliament, killing Prime Minister Vazgen Sargsyan, Parliament Chairman Karen Demirchyan, and 6 other members.
2002 - The ITV Network aired a constant regional service for the last time in England and Wales, but LWT lost its identity completely. All companies (except UTV, Channel, Scottish TV & Grampian TV) formed the national ITV1 with regional references only befor
2004 - The Boston Red Sox win the World Series for the first time in 86 years.
2005 - Riots begin in Paris after the deaths of two Muslim teenagers.
312 - Constantine the Great is said to have received his famous Vision of the Cross.
710 - Saracen invasion of Sardinia.
939 - Edmund I succeeds Athelstan as King of England.

Thursday, October 25, 2012

Historical Events on 26 Oct

Historical Events on 26 Oct

1640 - The Treaty of Ripon is signed, restoring peace between Scotland and Charles I of England.
1774 - The first Continental Congress adjourns in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
1776 - Benjamin Franklin departed from America for France on a mission to seek French support for the American Revolution.
1795 - The French Directory, a five-man revolutionary government, is created.
1825 - The Erie Canal opens - passage from Albany, New York to Lake Erie.
1859 - The Royal Charter is wrecked on the coast of Anglesey, north Wales with 459 dead.
1860 - Meeting of Teano. Giuseppe Garibaldi, conqueror of the Kingdom of Two Sicilies, gives it to King Victor Emmanuel II of Italy.
1861 - The Pony Express officially ceased operations.
1863 - The Football Association is formed.
1881 - The Gunfight at the O.K. Corral takes place at Tombstone, Arizona.
1905 - Norway becomes independent from Sweden.
1912 - First Balkan War: The city of Thessaloniki is unified with Greece on the feast day of its patron Saint Demetrius. On the same day the Serbian troops captured Skopje.
1917 - World War I:Brazil declared in state of war with Central Powers.
1917 - World War I: Battle of Caporetto; Italy suffers a catastrophic defeat at the forces of Austria-Hungary and Germany.
1918 - Erich Ludendorff, quartermaster-general of the Imperial German Army, is dismissed by Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany for refusing to cooperate in peace negotiations.
1936 - The first electric generator at Hoover Dam went into full operation.
1940 - The P-51 Mustang makes its maiden flight.
1942 - World War II: In the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands during the Guadalcanal Campaign, one U.S. aircraft carrier, Hornet, was sunk and another aircraft carrier, Enterprise, is heavily damaged.
1943 - World War II: First flight of the Dornier Do 335 "Pfeil".
1944 - World War II: The Battle of Leyte Gulf ends.
1947 - The British Military Occupation ends in Iraq.
1947 - The Maharaja of Kashmir agrees to allow his kingdom to join India.
1948 - Killer smog settles into Donora, Pennsylvania.
1951 - Boxer Joe Louis comes out of retirement to fight Rocky Marciano. However, Marciano would win the fight in eight rounds.
1954 - Trieste return to Italy.
1955 - Ngô Đình Diệm declares himself Premier of South Vietnam.
1955 - After the last Allied troops have left the country and following the provisions of the Austrian Independence Treaty, Austria declares permanent neutrality.
1958 - Pan American Airways makes the first commercial flight of the Boeing 707 from New York City to Paris, France.
1964 - Eric Edgar Cooke becomes last person in Western Australia to be executed.
1965 - The Beatles are appointed Members of the Order of the British Empire (MBEs).
1977 - The last natural case of smallpox was discovered in Merca district, Somalia. The WHO and the CDC consider this date the anniversary of the eradication of smallpox, the most spectacular success of vaccination.
1978 - Independent Counsel Act is signed into law.
1979 - Park Chung-hee, President of South Korea is assassinated by KCIA head Kim Jae-kyu. Choi Kyu-ha becomes the acting President; Kim is executed the following May.
1984 - "Baby Fae" receives a heart transplant from a baboon.
1992 - The command and control system of the London Ambulance Service fails catastrophically.
1992 - The Charlottetown Accord fails to win majority support in a Canada wide referendum.
1994 - Jordan and Israel sign a peace treaty.
1995 - Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: Mossad agents assassinate Islamic Jihad leader Fathi Shikaki in his hotel in Malta.
1999 - Britain's House of Lords votes to end the right of hereditary peers to vote in Britain's upper chamber of Parliament.
2000 - Laurent Gbagbo takes over as president of Côte d'Ivoire following a popular uprising against President Robert Guéï. Bret Hart retires.
2001 - The United States passes the USA PATRIOT Act into law.
2002 - Moscow Theatre Siege: Approximately 50 Chechen rebels and 150 hostages die when Russian Spetsnaz storm a theater building in Moscow, which had been occupied by the rebels during a musical performance three days before.
2003 - The Cedar Fire, the second-largest fire in California history, kills 15 people, consumes 250,000 acres (1,000 km²), and destroys 2,200 homes around San Diego.
740 - An earthquake strikes Constantinople, causing much damage and death.

Wednesday, October 24, 2012

Historical Events on 25 Oct

Historical Events on 25 Oct

1147 - The Portuguese, under Afonso I, and Crusaders from England and Flanders conquer Lisbon after a four-month siege.
1147 - Seljuk Turks defeat German crusaders under Conrad III at the Battle of Dorylaeum.
1315 - Adam Banastre, Henry de Lea and William Bradshaw, led an attack on Liverpool Castle.
1415 - The army of Henry V of England defeats the French at the Battle of Agincourt.
1616 - Dutch sea-captain Dirk Hartog makes second recorded landfall by a European on Australian soil, at the later-named Dirk Hartog Island off the Western Australian coast.
1747 - British fleet under Admiral Sir Edward Hawke defeats the French at the second battle of Cape Finisterre.
1760 - George III becomes King of Great Britain.
1813 - War of 1812: Canadians and Mohawks defeat the Americans in the Battle of Chateauguay.
1828 - The St Katharine Docks opened in London.
1854 - The Battle of Balaklava during the Crimean War (Charge of the Light Brigade).
1861 - The Toronto Stock Exchange was created.
1875 - The first performance of the Piano Concerto No. 1 by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky is given in Boston, Massachusetts with Hans von Bülow as soloist.
1900 - The United Kingdom annexes the Transvaal.
1912 - Richard Strauss' opera Ariadne auf Naxos receives its debut performance at the Vienna State Opera.
1917 - Traditionally understood date of the October Revolution, involving the capture of the Winter Palace, Petrograd, Russia.
1924 - The forged Zinoviev Letter is published in the Daily Mail, wrecking the British Labour Party's hopes of re-election.
1935 - Hurricane floods Haiti, killing over 2,000 people.
1936 - Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini create the Rome-Berlin Axis.
1938 - The Archbishop of Dubuque, Francis J. L. Beckman, denounces Swing music as "a degenerated musical system... turned loose to gnaw away at the moral fiber of young people", warning that it leads down a "primrose path to hell".
1944 - Battle of Leyte Gulf, the largest naval battle in history, takes place in and around the Philippines between the Imperial Japanese Navy and the U.S. Third and U.S. Seventh Fleets.
1944 - The Romanian Army liberates Carei, the last Romanian city under Axis Powers' occupation.
1944 - The USS Tang (SS-306) under Richard O'Kane (the top submarine captain of World War II) is sunk by the ship's own torpedo.
1944 - Heinrich Himmler orders a crackdown on the Edelweiss Pirates, a loosely organized youth culture in Nazi Germany that had assisted army deserters and others to hide from the Third Reich.
1945 - The Republic of China takes over administration of Taiwan following Japan's surrender to the Allies.
1962 - Cuban missile crisis: Adlai Stevenson shows photos at the UN proving Soviet missiles are installed in Cuba
1970 - The wreck of Confederate submarine Hunley was found off Charleston, South Carolina, by pioneer underwater archaeologist, Dr. E. Lee Spence, then just 22 years old. Hunley was the first submarine to sink a ship in warfare.
1971 - The United Nations seated the People's Republic of China and expelled the Republic of China (see political status of Taiwan and China and the United Nations)
1972 - The Washington Post reports that White House Chief of Staff H.R. Haldeman was the fifth person to control a secret cash fund designed to finance illegal political sabotage and espionage during the 1972 presidential election campaign (see also Watergate sc
1977 - Digital Equipment Corporation releases OpenVMS V1.0.
1980 - Proceedings on the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction conclude at The Hague.
1983 - Operation Urgent Fury: The United States and its Caribbean allies invade Grenada, six days after Prime Minister Maurice Bishop and several of his supporters were executed in a coup d'état.
1991 - History of Slovenia: Three months after the end of the Ten-Day War, the last soldier of the Yugoslav People's Army leaves the territory of the Republic of Slovenia.
1992 - Lithuania holds a referendum on its first post-Soviet constitution.
1993 - Jean Chrétien becomes Prime Minister of Canada with a massive majority for his Liberal Party in a general election in which the governing Progressive Conservatives, led by Kim Campbell, lost 149 of 151 seats in the parliament.
1995 - A commuter train slams into a school bus in Fox River Grove, Illinois, killing seven students.
1996 - The "Days of Action", the largest one day strike in Ontario, Canada's history, as over 250,000 protesters converged on the Ontario Legislature and attempted to shut-down Toronto, in protest to the Mike Harris government's budget cuts.
1997 - After a brief civil war which has driven President Pascal Lissouba out of Brazzaville, Denis Sassou-Nguesso proclaims himself the President of the Republic of the Congo.
2004 - Fidel Castro, Cuba's President, announces that transactions using the American Dollar will be banned by November 8.
2007 - The first Airbus A380 passenger flight, operating for Singapore Airlines, with flight number SQ 380, flying scheduled service between Singapore and Sydney, Australia.

Tuesday, October 23, 2012

Historical Events on 24 Oct

Historical Events on 24 Oct

1260 - The spectacular Cathedral of Chartres is dedicated in the presence of King Louis IX of France; the cathedral is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
1260 - Saif ad-Din Qutuz, Mamluk sultan of Egypt, is assassinated by Baibars, who seizes power for himself.
1360 - The Treaty of Brétigny is ratified at Calais, marking the end of the first phase of the Hundred Years' War.
1593 - Alleged teleportation of Gil Perez.
1648 - The Peace of Westphalia is signed, marking the end of the Thirty Years' War.
1795 - Partitions of Poland: The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth is completely divided between Austria, Prussia and Russia
1812 - Napoleonic Wars: The Battle of Maloyaroslavets takes place near Moscow.
1857 - Sheffield F.C., the world's first football club, is founded in Sheffield, England.
1861 - The First Transcontinental Telegraph line across the United States is completed, spelling the end for the 18-month-old Pony Express.
1901 - Annie Edson Taylor becomes the first person to go over Niagara Falls in a barrel.
1911 - Orville Wright remained in the air 9 minutes and 45 seconds in a glider at Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina setting a new world record that stood for 10 years.
1912 - First Balkan War: The Battle of Kumanovo concludes with the Serbian victory.
1917 - Battle of Caporetto starts on the Austro-Italian front of World War I
1917 - The day of the October revolution, The Red Revolution.
1926 - Harry Houdini's last performance, which was at the Garrick Theatre in Detroit, Michigan.
1929 - "Black Thursday" stock market crash on the New York Stock Exchange.
1930 - A bloodless coup d'état in Brazil ousts Washington Luís Pereira de Sousa, the last President of the First Republic. Getúlio Dornelles Vargas is then installed as "provisional president."
1931 - The George Washington Bridge opens to public traffic.
1935 - Italy invades Ethiopia
1944 - World War II: The Japanese aircraft carrier Zuikaku, and the battleship Musashi are sunk in the Battle of Leyte Gulf.
1945 - Founding of the United Nations
1946 - A camera on board the V-2 No. 13 rocket takes the first photograph of earth from outer space.
1947 - Walt Disney testifies to the House Un-American Activities Committee, naming Disney employees he believes to be communists.
1954 - Dwight D. Eisenhower pledges United States support to South Vietnam
1957 - The USAF starts the X-20 Dyna-Soar program.
1960 - Nedelin catastrophe: An R-16 ballistic missile explodes on the launch pad at the Soviet Union's Baikonur Cosmodrome space facility, killing over 100. Among the dead is Field Marshall Mitrofan Nedelin, whose death is reported to have occurred in a plane cr
1964 - Northern Rhodesia gains independence from the United Kingdom and becomes the Republic of Zambia (Southern Rhodesia remained a colony)
1973 - Yom Kippur War ends
1977 - Veterans Day is observed on the fourth Monday in October for the seventh and last time. (The holiday is once again observed on November 11 beginning the following year.)
1980 - Government of Poland legalizes Solidarity trade union
1986 - Nezar Hindawi is sentenced to 45 years in prison, the longest sentence handed down by a British court, for the attempted bombing on an El Al flight at Heathrow. After the verdict, the United Kingdom breaks diplomatic relations with Syria, claiming that Hi
1990 - Italian prime minister Giulio Andreotti reveals to the Italian parliament the existence of Gladio, the Italian "stay-behind" clandestine paramilitary NATO army.
1995 - A total solar eclipse is visible from Iran, India, Thailand, and SE Asia.
1998 - Launch of Deep Space 1 comet/asteroid mission
2002 - Police arrest spree killers John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo, ending the Beltway sniper attacks in the area around Washington, DC.
2003 - Concorde makes its last commercial flight.
2004 - 10 people, including 4 family members of Rick Hendrick, are killed in a plane crash near Martinsville Speedway. The plane was owned by NASCAR team Hendrick Motorsports. There were no survivors.
2006 - Justice Rutherford of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice struck down the "motive clause", an important part of the Canadian Anti-Terrorism Act.
69 - Second Battle of Bedriacum, forces under Antonius Primus, the commander of the Danube armies, loyal to Vespasian, defeat the forces of Emperor Vitellius.

Monday, October 22, 2012

Historical Events on 23 Oct

Historical Events on 23 Oct

1086 - At the Battle of az-Zallaqah, the army of Yusuf ibn Tashfin defeats the forces of Castilian King Alfonso VI.
1157 - The Battle of Grathe Heath ends the civil war in Denmark. King Sweyn III is killed and Valdemar I restores the country.
1641 - Outbreak of the Irish Rebellion of 1641 - anniversary commemorated by Irish Protestants for over 200 years.
1642 - Battle of Edgehill: First major battle of the First English Civil War.
1694 - American colonial forces, led by Sir William Phipps, fail to seize Quebec.
1707 - The first Parliament of Great Britain, i.e., the United Kingdom, meets.
1739 - War of Jenkins' Ear starts: British Prime Minister, Robert Walpole, reluctantly declares war on Spain.
1812 - Claude François de Malet, a French general, begins a conspiracy to overthrow Napoleon Bonaparte, claiming that the Emperor died in Russia and that he was now the commandant of Paris. De Malet is executed on October 29.
1813 - The Pacific Fur Company trading post in Astoria, Oregon is turned over to the rival British North West Company (the fur trade in the Pacific Northwest was dominated for the next three decades by the United Kingdom).
1855 - Kansas Free State forces set up a competing government under their Topeka, Kansas, constitution, which outlaws slavery in the United States territory.
1861 - U.S. President Abraham Lincoln suspends the writ of habeas corpus in Washington, D.C., for all military-related cases.
1864 - American Civil War: Battle of Westport - Union forces under General Samuel R. Curtis defeat Confederate troops led by General Sterling Price at Westport, near Kansas City.
1867 - 72 Senators are summoned by Royal Proclamation to serve as the first members of the Canadian Senate.
1870 - Franco-Prussian War: the Siege of Metz concludes with a decisive Prussian victory.
1906 - Alberto Santos-Dumont flies an airplane in the first heavier-than-air flight in Europe at Champs de Bagatelle, Paris, France.
1911 - First use of aircraft in war: An Italian pilot takes off from Libya to observe Turkish army lines during the Turco-Italian War.
1912 - First Balkan War: The Battle of Kumanovo between the Serbian and Ottoman armies begins.
1915 - Woman's suffrage: In New York City, 25,000-33,000 women march on Fifth Avenue to advocate their right to vote.
1917 - Lenin calls for the October Revolution.
1929 - Great Depression: After a steady decline in stock market prices since a peak in September, the New York Stock Exchange begins to show signs of panic.
1929 - The first North American transcontinental air service begins between New York City and Los Angeles, California.
1930 - The first miniature golf tournament was completed in Chattanooga, Tennessee.
1935 - Dutch Schultz, Abe Landau, Otto Berman, and Bernard "Lulu" Rosencrantz are fatally shot at a saloon in Newark, New Jersey in what will become known as The Chophouse Massacre.
1941 - Burning of the Odessa, Ukraine, Jews: 19,000 Jews are burned alive at Dalnik in Odessa, by Romanian and German troops. The next day, another 10,000 Jews are killed. Romanian Lieutenant-Colonel Nicolae Deleanu administered the executions.
1941 - World War II: Field Marshal Georgy Zhukov takes command of Red Army operations designed to prevent the further advance into Russia of German forces and to prevent the German armies from capturing Moscow.
1942 - World War II: The Second Battle of El Alamein starts - At El Alamein in northern Egypt, the British Eighth Army under Field Marshal Montgomery begin a critical offensive to expel the Axis armies from Egypt, never to return.
1942 - All 12 passengers and crewmen aboard an American Airlines DC-3 airliner are killed when it is struck by a U.S. Army Air Forces bomber near Palm Springs, California. Amongst the victims is award-winning composer and songwriter Ralph Rainger ("Thanks for th
1942 - The Battle for Henderson Field begins during the Guadalcanal Campaign and ends on October 26.
1944 - World War II: The Battle of Leyte Gulf begins - The largest naval battle in history begins in the Philippines; and also, the Soviet Red Army enters Hungary.
1946 - The United Nations General Assembly convened for the first time, at an auditorium in Flushing, Queens, New York City.
1956 - Thousands of Hungarians protest against the government and Soviet occupation. (The Hungarian Revolution is crushed on November 4).
1958 - The Springhill Mine Bump - An underground earthquake traps 174 miners in the No. 2 colliery at Springhill, Nova Scotia, the deepest coal mine in North America at the time. By November 1, rescuers from around the world had dug out 100 of the victims, marki
1965 - Vietnam War: The 1st Cavalry Division (United States) (Airmobile), in conjunction with South Vietnamese forces, launch a new operation, seeking to destroy North Vietnamese forces in Pleiku in the II Corps Tactical Zone (the Central Highlands).
1973 - The Watergate Scandal: US President Richard M. Nixon agrees to turn over subpoenaed audio tapes of his Oval Office conversations about the scandal.
1973 - A United Nations sanctioned cease-fire officially ends the Yom Kippur War between Israel and Syria.
1983 - Lebanon Civil War: The U.S. Marines barracks in Beirut is hit by a truck bomb, killing 241 U.S. Marines. A French army barracks in Lebanon is also hit that same morning, killing 58 troops.
1989 - Phillips Disaster in Pasadena, Texas killed 23 and injured 314.
1989 - The Hungarian Republic is officially declared by president Mátyás Szűrös, replacing the communist Hungarian People's Republic.
1992 - Emperor Akihito becomes the first Emperor of Japan to stand on Chinese soil.
1998 - Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Chairman Yasser Arafat reach a "land for peace" agreement.
2001 - Apple releases the iPod.
2001 - The Provisional Irish Republican Army of Northern Ireland commences disarmament after peace talks.
2002 - Moscow Theatre Siege begins: Chechen rebels seize the House of Culture theater in Moscow and take approximately 700 theater-goers hostage.
2004 - A powerful earthquake and its aftershocks hit Niigata prefecture, northern Japan, killing 35 people, injuring 2,200, and leaving 85,000 homeless or evacuated.
4004 BC - Creation of the world begins according to the calculations of Archbishop James Ussher
42 BC - Roman Republican civil wars: Second Battle of Philippi - Brutus's army is decisively defeated by Mark Antony and Octavian. Brutus commits suicide.
425 - Valentinian III is elevated as Roman Emperor, at the age of 6.
502 - The Synodus Palmaris, called by Gothic king Theodoric the Great, discharges Pope Symmachus of all charges, thus ending the schism of Antipope Laurentius.

Sunday, October 21, 2012

Historical Events on 22 Oct

Historical Events on 22 Oct

1383 - The 1383-1385 Crisis in Portugal: A period of civil war and disorder began when King Fernando died without a male heir to the Portuguese throne.
1575 - Foundation of Aguascalientes.
1633 - Ming dynasty fight with Dutch East India Company that Battle of southern Fujian sea (1633), Ming dynasty won great victory.
1746 - The College of New Jersey (later renamed Princeton University) receives its charter.
1784 - Russia founds a colony on Kodiak Island, Alaska.
1797 - One thousand meters (3,200 feet) above Paris, André-Jacques Garnerin makes the first recorded parachute jump.
1836 - Sam Houston is inaugurated as the first President of the Republic of Texas.
1844 - The Great Anticipation: Millerites, followers of William Miller, anticipated the end of the world in conjunction with the Second Advent of Christ. The following day became known as the Great Disappointment.
1866 - Paraguay: Battle of Curupaytí against Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay.
1867 - Foundation of the National University of Colombia.
1875 - First telegraphic connection in Argentina.
1877 - The Blantyre mining disaster in Scotland kills 207 miners. Those widows and orphans who were unable to support themselves were evicted by the mine owners and likely sent to the Poor House.
1878 - The first rugby match under floodlights takes place in Salford, between Broughton and Swinton.
1883 - The Metropolitan Opera House in New York City opens with a performance of Gounod's Faust (opera).
1895 - In Paris an express train overruns a buffer stop and crosses more than 30 metres of concourse before plummeting through a window at Gare Montparnasse.
1907 - Panic of 1907: A run on Knickerbocker Trust Company stock sets events in motion that will lead to a depression.
1910 - Dr. Crippen is convicted at the Old Bailey of poisoning his wife and was subsequently hanged at Pentonville Prison in London.
1924 - Toastmasters International is founded.
1926 - J. Gordon Whitehead sucker punches magician Harry Houdini in the stomach in Montreal.
1928 - Phi Sigma Alpha fraternity is founded at the University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras Campus.
1934 - In East Liverpool, Ohio, notorious bank robber Pretty Boy Floyd is shot and killed by Federal Bureau of Investigation agents.
202 BC - Hannibal Barca, leader of the Carthaginians, is defeated by the Roman legions under Scipio Africanus in the Battle of Zama.
362 - The temple of Apollo at Daphne, outside of Antioch, is destroyed in a mysterious fire.
794 - Emperor Kanmu relocates Japanese capital to Heiankyo (now Kyoto).

Saturday, October 20, 2012

Historical Events on 21 Oct

Historical Events on 21 Oct

1512 - Martin Luther joins the theological faculty of the University of Wittenberg.
1520 - Ferdinand Magellan discovers a strait now known as Strait of Magellan.
1600 - Tokugawa Ieyasu defeats the leaders of rival Japanese clans in the Battle of Sekigahara, which marks the beginning of the Tokugawa shogunate, who in effect rule Japan until the mid-nineteenth century.
1774 - First display of the word "Liberty" on a flag, raised by colonists in Taunton, Massachusetts and which was in defiance of British rule in Colonial America.
1797 - In Boston Harbor, the 44-gun United States Navy frigate USS Constitution is launched.
1805 - Napoleonic Wars: Austrian General Mack surrenders his army to the Grand Army of Napoleon at Ulm, reaping Napoleon over 30,000 prisoners and inflicting 10,000 casualties on the losers. Ulm was considered to be one of Napoleon's finest hours.
1805 - Napoleonic Wars: Battle of Trafalgar: A British fleet led by Admiral Lord Nelson defeats a combined French and Spanish fleet off the coast of Spain under Admiral Villeneuve. It signalled the virtual end of French maritime power and left Britain navally un
1816 - The Penang Free School is founded in George Town, Penang, Malaysia, by the Rev Hutchings. It is the oldest English-language school in Southeast Asia.
1824 - Joseph Aspdin patents Portland cement.
1854 - Florence Nightingale and a staff of 38 nurses were sent to the Crimean War.
1861 - American Civil War: Battle of Ball's Bluff - Union forces under Colonel Edward Baker are defeated by Confederate troops in the second major battle of the war. Baker, a close friend of Abraham Lincoln, is killed in the fighting.
1867 - Manifest Destiny: Medicine Lodge Treaty - Near Medicine Lodge, Kansas a landmark treaty is signed by southern Great Plains Indian leaders. The treaty requires Native American Plains tribes to relocate a reservation in western Oklahoma.
1879 - Using a filament of carbonized thread, Thomas Edison tests the first practical electric incandescent light bulb (it lasted 13½ hours before burning out).
1892 - Opening ceremonies for the World's Columbian Exposition were held in Chicago, though because construction was behind schedule, the exposition did not open until May 1, 1893.
1895 - The Republic of Formosa collapses as Japanese forces invade.
1902 - In the United States, a five month strike by United Mine Workers ends.
1921 - President Warren G. Harding delivers the first speech by a sitting President against lynching in the deep south.
1941 - 7000 Serbs were shot in Kragujevac, Serbia by Nazi Germans.
1944 - The first kamikaze attack: HMAS Australia was hit by a Japanese plane carrying a 200 kg (441 pound) bomb off Leyte Island, as the Battle of Leyte Gulf began.
1945 - Argentine military officer and politician Juan Perón married actress Evita.
1945 - Women's suffrage: Women are allowed to vote in France for the first time.
1959 - In New York City, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum opens to the public. It was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.
1959 - US President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs an executive order transferring Wernher von Braun and other German scientists from the United States Army to NASA.
1965 - Comet Ikeya-Seki approaches perihelion, passing 450,000 kilometers from the sun.
1966 - Aberfan disaster: A coal tip falls on the village of Aberfan in Wales, killing 144 people, mostly schoolchildren.
1967 - Vietnam War: More than 100,000 war protesters gather in Washington, DC. A peaceful rally at the Lincoln Memorial is followed by a march to The Pentagon and clashes with soldiers and United States Marshals protecting the facility (event lasts until October
1969 - A coup d'état in Somalia brings Siad Barre to power.
1973 - John Paul Getty III's ear is cut off by his kidnappers and sent to a newspaper in Rome; it doesn't arrive until November 8.
1973 - Fred Dryer of the then Los Angeles Rams becomes the first player in NFL history to score two safeties in the same game.
1977 - The European Patent Institute is founded.
1978 - Australian civilian pilot Frederick Valentich vanishes in a Cessna 182 over the Bass Strait south of Melbourne, after reporting contact with an unidentified aircraft.
1983 - The metre is defined at the seventeenth General Conference on Weights and Measures in terms of the speed of light as the distance light travels in a vacuum in 1/299,792,458 of a second.
1986 - In Lebanon, pro-Iranian kidnappers claim to have abducted American writer Edward Tracy (he was released in August 1991).
1990 - The first Apple Day, is held in Covent Garden, London.
1994 - North Korea nuclear weapons program: North Korea and the United States sign an agreement that requires North Korea to stop its nuclear weapons program and agree to inspections.
1994 - In Seoul, 32 people are killed when the Seongsu Bridge collapses.
1995 - Dayton Agreement The General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
2001 - "United We Stand" benefit concert for September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks victims, held at RFK Stadium in Washington, DC. Event organized and headlined by Michael Jackson, also featuring pop stars Aerosmith, Mariah Carey, The Backstreet Boys, and others.
2003 - Images of the dwarf planet Eris are taken and subsequently used in its discovery by the team of Michael E. Brown, Chad Trujillo, and David L. Rabinowitz.

Friday, October 19, 2012

Historical Events on 20 Oct

Historical Events on 20 Oct

1740 - Maria Theresa takes the throne of Austria. France, Prussia, Bavaria and Saxony refuse to honour the Pragmatic Sanction and the War of the Austrian Succession begins.
1781 - Patent of Toleration, providing limited freedom of worship, was approved in Habsburg Monarchy.
1803 - The United States Senate ratifies the Louisiana Purchase.
1818 - The Convention of 1818 signed between the United States and the United Kingdom which, among other things, settled the US-Canada border on the 49th parallel for most of its length.
1827 - Battle of Navarino - a combined Turkish and Egyptian armada is destroyed by an allied British, French, and Russian naval force in the port of Navarino in Pylos, Greece. The most important result of this battle is the end of the Greek Liberation War and th
1883 - Peru and Chile signed the Treaty of Ancón, by which the Tarapacá province was ceded to the latter, bringing an end to Peru's involvement in the War of the Pacific.
1910 - The hull of the RMS Olympic, sister-ship to the ill-fated RMS Titanic, is launched from the Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast, Ireland.
1935 - The Long March ends
1941 - World War II: Thousands of civilians in Kragujevac in German-occupied Serbia are killed in the Kragujevac massacre.
1944 - The Soviet army and Yugoslav Partisans liberate Belgrade, the capital of Yugoslavia
1944 - Liquid natural gas leaks from storage tanks in Cleveland, then explodes; the explosion and resulting fire level 30 blocks and kill 130.
1944 - General Douglas MacArthur fulfills his promise to return to the Philippines when he commands an Allied assault on the islands, reclaiming them from the Japanese during the Second World War.
1947 - The House Un-American Activities Committee begins its investigation into Communist infiltration of Hollywood, resulting in a blacklist that prevents some from working in the industry for years.
1951 - The "Johnny Bright Incident" occurred in Stillwater, Oklahoma
1952 - Governor Evelyn Baring declared a state of emergency in Kenya and began arresting hundreds of suspected leaders of the Mau Mau Uprising, including Jomo Kenyatta, the future first President of Kenya.
1955 - Publication of The Return of the King, being the last part of The Lord of the Rings.
1967 - A purported bigfoot is filmed by Patterson and Gimlin.
1968 - Former First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy marries Greek shipping tycoon Aristotle Onassis.
1970 - Siad Barre declares Somalia a socialist state.
1971 - The Nepal stock exchange collapses.
1973 - The Sydney Opera House opens.
1973 - The Saturday Night Massacre: President Nixon fires Attorney General Elliot Richardson and Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus after they refuse to fire Watergate prosecutor Archibald Cox, who is finally fired by Robert Bork.
1976 - The ferry George Prince is struck by a ship while crossing the Mississippi River between Destrehan and Luling, LA. Seventy-eight passengers and crew died; only 18 people aboard the ferry survived.
1977 - A plane carrying Lynyrd Skynyrd crashes in Mississippi, killing lead singer Ronnie Van Zant and guitarist Steve Gaines along with backup singer Cassie Gaines, the road manager, pilot, and co-pilot.
1979 - The John F Kennedy library is opened in Boston, Massachusetts.
1982 - During the UEFA Cup match between FC Spartak Moscow and HFC Haarlem, 66 people are crushed to death in the Luzhniki disaster.
1984 - The Monterey Bay Aquarium opens in Monterey Bay, California.
1991 - The Oakland Hills firestorm kills 25 and destroys 3,469 homes and apartments, causing more than $2 billion in damage.

Thursday, October 18, 2012

Historical Events on 19 Oct

Historical Events on 19 Oct

1216 - King John of England dies at Newark-on-Trent and is succeeded by his nine-year-old son Henry.
1453 - The French recapture of Bordeaux brings the Hundred Years' War to a close, with the English retaining only Calais on French soil.
1466 - The Thirteen Years' War ends with the Second Treaty of Thorn.
1469 - Ferdinand II of Aragon marries Isabella I of Castile, a marriage that paves the way to the unification of Aragon and Castile into a single country, Spain.
1512 - Martin Luther becomes a doctor of theology (Doctor in Biblia).
1649 - New Ross town, Co. Wexford, Ireland, surrenders to Oliver Cromwell.
1781 - At Yorktown, Virginia, British commander Lord Cornwallis surrendered to a Franco-American force led by George Washington and the comte de Rochambeau, paving the way for the end of the American Revolutionary War.
1789 - Chief Justice John Jay is sworn in as the first Chief Justice of the United States.
1812 - Napoleon I of France retreats from Moscow.
1813 - The Battle of Leipzig concludes, giving Napoleon Bonaparte one of his worst defeats.
1822 - In Parnaíba; Simplício Dias da Silva, João Cândido de Deus e Silva and Domingos Dias declare the independent state of Piauí.
1864 - Battle of Cedar Creek - Union Army under Philip Sheridan destroys Confederate Army under Jubal Early.
1864 - Confederate raiders launch an attack on Saint Albans, Vermont from Canada.
1873 - Yale, Princeton, Columbia, and Rutgers universities draft the first code of American football rules.
1904 - Polytechnic University of the Philippines founded as Manila Business School through the superintendence of the American C.A. O'Reilley.
1912 - Italy takes possession of Tripoli, Libya from the Ottoman Empire.
1914 - The First Battle of Ypres begins.
1917 - Love Field in Dallas, Texas is opened.
1921 - Portuguese Prime Minister António Granjo and other politicians are murdered in a Lisbon coup.
1933 - Germany withdraws from the League of Nations.
1935 - The League of Nations places economic sanctions on fascist Italy for its invasion of Ethiopia.
1943 - Streptomycin, the first antibiotic remedy for tuberculosis, is isolated by researchers at Rutgers University.
1944 - United States forces land in the Philippines.
1950 - The military of the People's Republic of China takes control of the town of Chamdo in eastern Tibet.
1954 - First ascent of Cho Oyu
1960 - The United States government places an embargo on Communist Cuba.
1969 - The first Prime Minister of Tunisia in twelve years, Bahi Ladgham, is appointed by President Habib Bourguiba.
1973 - President Richard Nixon rejects an Appeals Court demand to turn over the Watergate tapes.
1974 - Niue becomes self-govering colony of New Zealand
1976 - Battle of Aishiya in Lebanon. The same day, the Chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes) is placed on the List of Endangered Species.
1983 - Maurice Bishop, Prime Minister of Grenada, is overthrown and executed in a military coup d'état led by Bernard Coard.
1986 - Samora Machel, President of Mozambique and a prominent leader of FRELIMO, and 33 others died when their Tupolev 134 plane crashed into the Lebombo Mountains.
1987 - (Black Monday) Dow Jones Industrial Average falls by 22%, 508 points. This is considered a Stock Market Crash.
1987 - In retaliation for Iranian attacks on ships in the Persian Gulf, the U.S. Navy disables three of Iran's offshore oil platforms.
1989 - Guildford Four convictions are quashed by the Court of Appeal - they had spent 15 years in prison through a miscarriage of justice.
1994 - The Goodnight Kiwi airs in New Zealand for the last time as TV2 moves to 24-hour television 7 days a week.
1998 - The Earth Liberation Front sets fire to the Vail Mountain ski resort in Vail, Colorado, causing $12 million in damage.
2001 - SIEV-X, an Indonesian fishing boat en-route to Christmas Island, carrying over 400 asylum seekers, sank in international waters with the loss of 353 people.
2003 - Mother Teresa is beatified by Pope John Paul II.
2004 - Myanmar prime minister Khin Nyunt is ousted and placed under house arrest by the SPDC on charges of corruption.
2004 - Care International aid worker Margaret Hassan is kidnapped in Iraq.
2005 - Hurricane Wilma becomes the most intense Atlantic hurricane on record with a minimum pressure of 882 mb.
2005 - Saddam Hussein goes on trial in Baghdad for crimes against humanity.
2007 - Philippines. Amidst corruption controversies hounding the Arroyo administration, a bomb explosion rocked Glorietta 2, a shopping mall in Makati, which killed 11 and injured more than 100 people.
202 BCE - The Battle of Zama results in the defeat of Carthage and Hannibal.
439 - The Vandals, led by King Gaiseric, take Carthage in North Africa.

Wednesday, October 17, 2012

Historical Events on 18 Oct

Historical Events on 18 Oct

1009 - The Church of the Holy Sepulchre, a Christian church in Jerusalem, is completely destroyed by the Fatimid caliph Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah, who hacks the Church's foundations down to bedrock.
1016 - The Danes defeat the Saxons in the Battle of Ashingdon.
1081 - The Normans defeat the Byzantine Empire in the Battle of Dyrrhachium.
1210 - Pope Innocent III excommunicates German leader Otto IV .
1356 - Basel earthquake, the most significant historic seismological event north of the Alps, destroyed the town of Basel, Switzerland.
1386 - Opening of the University of Heidelberg
1561 - Fourth Battle of Kawanakajima -- Takeda Shingen defeats Uesugi Kenshin in the climax of their ongoing conflicts.
1648 - Boston Shoemakers form first U.S. labor organization.
1685 - Louis XIV of France revokes the Edict of Nantes, which has protected French Protestants.
1748 - Signing of the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle ends the War of the Austrian Succession.
1767 - Mason-Dixon line, survey separating Maryland from Pennsylvania is completed.
1775 - African-American poet Phillis Wheatley freed from slavery.
1851 - Herman Melville's Moby-Dick is first published as The Whale by Richard Bentley of London.
1860 - The Second Opium War finally ends at the Convention of Peking with the ratification of the Treaty of Tientsin, an unequal treaty.
1867 - United States takes possession of Alaska after purchasing it from Russia for $7.2 million. Celebrated annually in the state as Alaska Day.
1898 - United States takes possession of Puerto Rico.
1908 - Belgium annexes the Congo Free State.
1912 - The First Balkan War begins.
1914 - The Schoenstatt Movement is founded in Germany.
1922 - The British Broadcasting Company (later Corporation) is founded by a consortium, to establish a nationwide network of radio transmitters to provide a national broadcasting service.
1925 - The Grand Ole Opry opens in Nashville, Tennessee.
1929 - Women are considered "Persons" under Canadian law.
1944 - Adolf Hitler orders the establishment of a German national militia.
1944 - Soviet Union invades Czechoslovakia.
1945 - The USSR's nuclear program receives plans for the USA's plutonium bomb from Klaus Fuchs at the Los Alamos National Laboratory.
1945 - A group of the Venezuelan Armed Forces, led by Mario Vargas, Marcos Pérez Jiménez and Carlos Delgado Chalbaud, staged a coup d'etát against then president Isaías Medina Angarita, who was overthrown by the end of the day.
1954 - Texas Instruments announces the first Transistor radio.
1964 - The 1964-1965 New York World's Fair closes for its first season after a six-month run.
1967 - The Soviet probe Venera 4 reaches Venus and becomes the first spacecraft to measure the atmosphere of another planet.
1968 - The U.S. Olympic Committee suspends two black athletes for giving a "black power" salute during a victory ceremony at the Mexico City games.
1968 - Bob Beamon sets a world record of 8.90m in the long jump at the Mexico City games. This becomes the longest unbroken track and field record in history, standing for 23 years, and is later named by Sports Illustrated magazine as one of the five greatest sp
1977 - German Autumn: a set of events revolving around the kidnapping of Hanns-Martin Schleyer and the hijacking of a Lufthansa flight by the Red Army Faction (RAF) comes to an end when Schleyer is executed and various RAF members allegedly commit suicide. The W
1985 - The Nintendo Entertainment System is released
1989 - East German leader Erich Honecker resigns.
1991 - Azerbaijan declares independence from USSR.
2003 - Bolivian Gas War: President Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada, is forced to resign and leave Bolivia.
2007 - After 8 years in exile, Benazir Bhutto returns to her homeland Pakistan. The same night, suicide attackers blow themselves up near Bhutto's convoy, killing over 100 in the cheering crowd, including 20 police officers. Bhutto escaped uninjured.

Tuesday, October 16, 2012

Historical Events on 17 Oct

Historical Events on 17 Oct

1091 - T8/F4 tornado strikes the heart of London.
1244 - Battle of La Forbie: Crusaders are defeated by Khwarezmians and Egyptians.
1346 - Battle of Neville's Cross: King David II of Scotland is captured by Edward III of England at Calais, and imprisoned in the Tower of London for eleven years.
1448 - Second Battle of Kosovo, where the mainly Hungarian army led by John Hunyadi were defeated by an Ottoman army led by Sultan Murad II.
1456 - The University of Greifswald is established, making it the second oldest university in northern Europe (also for a period the oldest in Sweden, and Prussia)
1604 - Kepler's Star: German astronomer Johannes Kepler observes that an exceptionally bright star had suddenly appeared in the constellation. Ophiuchus, which turned out to be the last supernova to have been observed in our own galaxy, the Milky Way.
1610 - French king Louis XIII is crowned in Rheims.
1660 - Nine Regicides, the men who signed the death warrant of Charles I, are hanged, drawn and quartered, another is hanged.
1662 - Charles II of England sells Dunkirk to France for 40,000 pounds.
1777 - American troops defeat the British in the Battle of Saratoga.
1781 - General Charles Cornwallis offers his surrender to the American revolutionists at Yorktown, Virginia.
1797 - Treaty of Campo Formio is signed between France and Austria.
1800 - England takes control of the Dutch colony of Curaçao.
1806 - Former leader of the Haitian Revolution, Emperor Jacques I of Haiti was assassinated after an oppressive rule.
1860 - First The Open Championship (referred to in North America as the British Open).
1888 - Thomas Edison files a patent for the Optical Phonograph (the first movie).
1907 - Guglielmo Marconi's company begins the first commercial transatlantic wireless service between Glace Bay, Nova Scotia, Canada and Clifden, Ireland.
1912 - Bulgaria, Greece and Serbia declare war on the Ottoman Empire, joining Montenegro in the First Balkan War.
1917 - First British bombing of Germany in World War I.
1931 - Al Capone convicted of income tax evasion.
1933 - Albert Einstein, fleeing Nazi Germany, moves to the US.
1941 - For the first time in World War II, a German submarine attacks an American ship.
1945 - A massive number of people, headed by CGT and Evita, gather in the Plaza de Mayo in Argentina to demand Juan Peron's release. This is known to the Peronists as the Día de la lealtad (day of loyalty). It's considered the birthday of Peronism.
1961 - Scores of Algerian protesters (some claim up to 400) are massacred by the Paris police at the instigation of Nazi collaborator Maurice Papon, then chief of the Prefecture of Police.
1965 - The 1964-1965 New York World's Fair closes after a two year run. More than 51 million people had attended the two-year event.
1966 - A fire at a building in New York, New York kills 12 firefighters, the New York City Fire Department's deadliest day until the September 11, 2001 attacks.
1970 - Montreal, Quebec: Quebec Vice-Premier and Minister of Labour Pierre Laporte murdered by members of the FLQ terrorist group.
1973 - OPEC starts an oil embargo against a number of western countries, considered to have helped Israel in its war against Syria.
1977 - German Autumn: Four days after it was hijacked, Lufthansa Flight 181 lands in Mogadishu, Somalia, where a team of German GSG 9 commandos later rescues all remaining hostages on board.
1979 - Mother Teresa awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
1979 - The Department of Education Organization Act is signed into law creating the US Department of Education and US Department of Health and Human Services. Both replace the Department of Health, Education and Welfare.
1989 - Loma Prieta earthquake (7.1 on the Richter scale) hits the San Francisco Bay Area and causes 57 deaths directly (and 6 indirectly).
1998 - At Jesse, in the Niger Delta, Nigeria, a petroleum pipeline explodes killing about 1200 villagers, some of whom are scavenging gasoline.
2000 - Train crash at Hatfield, north of London, leading to collapse of Railtrack.
2003 - Eunuchs in the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh float the political party Jiti Jitayi Politics.
2003 - The pinnacle was fitted on the roof of Taipei 101, a 101-floor skyscraper in Taipei, allowing it to surpass the Petronas Twin Towers in Kuala Lumpur by 50 meters (165 feet) and become the World's tallest highrise.
2005 - The Colbert Report first airs.
2006 - The United States population reaches 300 million.
2007 - The Dalai Lama receives the United States Congressional Gold Medal.
539 BC - King Cyrus The Great of Persia marches into the city of Babylon, releasing the Jews from almost 70 years of exile and making the first Human Rights Declaration.

Sunday, October 14, 2012

Historical Events on 15 Oct

Historical Events on 15 Oct

1552 - Khanate of Kazan is conquered by troops of Ivan Grozny.
1582 - Pope Gregory XIII implements the Gregorian calendar. In Italy, Poland, Portugal, and Spain, October 4 of this year is followed directly by October 15.
1764 - Edward Gibbon observes a group of friars singing in the ruined Temple of Jupiter in Rome, which inspires him to begin work on The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
1815 - Napoleon I of France begins his exile on Saint Helena in the Atlantic Ocean.
1863 - American Civil War: The CSS H. L. Hunley, the first submarine to sink a ship, sinks during a test, killing its inventor, Horace L. Hunley.
1864 - American Civil War: The Battle of Glasgow is fought, resulting in the surrender of Glasgow, Missouri, and its Union garrison, to the Confederacy.
1878 - The Edison Electric Light Company begins operation.
1880 - Mexican soldiers kill Victorio, one of the greatest Apache military strategists.
1888 - The "From Hell" letter sent by Jack the Ripper is received by the investigators.
1894 - Alfred Dreyfus is arrested for spying - Dreyfus affair begins.
1904 - The Russian Baltic Fleet leaves Reval, Estonia for Port Arthur during the Russo-Japanese War.
1917 - World War I: At Vincennes outside of Paris, Dutch dancer Mata Hari is executed by firing squad for spying for Germany.
1928 - The airship, the Graf Zeppelin completed its first trans-Atlantic flight, landing at Lakehurst, New Jersey, USA.
1932 - Tata Airlines (later to become Air India) makes its first flight.
1934 - The Soviet Republic of China collapses when Chiang Kai-shek's National Revolutionary Army successfully encircle Ruijin, forcing the fleeing Communists to begin the Long March.
1939 - The New York Municipal Airport (later renamed La Guardia Airport) is dedicated.
1940 - "The Great Dictator", a satiric social commentary film by and starring Charlie Chaplin, is released.
1944 - The Arrow Cross Party (very similar to Hitler's NSDAP (Nazi party)) takes over the power in Hungary.
1945 - World War II: The former premier of Vichy France Pierre Laval is shot by a firing squad for treason.
1946 - Nuremberg Trials: Hermann Göring poisons himself the night before his execution.
1951 - Mexican chemist Luis E. Miramontes synthesized the first oral contraceptive
1951 - Television sitcom I Love Lucy premieres.
1953 - British nuclear test Totem 1 detonated at Emu Field, South Australia.
1965 - Vietnam War: The National Coordinating Committee to End the War in Vietnam stages the first public burning of a draft card in the United States to result in arrest under a new law.
1966 - Black Panther Party was created by Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale.
1969 - Vietnam War: Hundreds of thousands of people take part in National Moratorium antiwar demonstrations across the United States.
1970 - Thirty-five construction workers are killed when a section of the new West Gate Bridge in Melbourne collapses.
1970 - Anwar Sadat becomes president of Egypt
1971 - The start of the 2500-year celebration of Iran, celebrating the birth of Persia.
1973 - The diplomatic relations between the Soviet Union and Gabon were established.
1981 - Professional cheerleader Krazy George Henderson leads what is thought to be the first audience wave in Oakland, California.
1987 - The Great Storm of 1987 hits France and England.
1989 - Wayne Gretzky becomes the all-time leading points scorer in the NHL.
1990 - Soviet Union leader Mikhail Gorbachev is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to lessen Cold War tensions and open up his nation.
1997 - The first supersonic land speed record is set by Andy Green in ThrustSSC (United Kingdom).
1997 - The Cassini probe launches from Cape Canaveral on its way to Saturn.
2001 - NASA's Galileo spacecraft passes within 112 miles of Jupiter's moon Io.
2003 - China launches Shenzhou 5, its first manned space mission.
2003 - The Staten Island Ferry boat Andrew J. Barberi collides with a pier at the St. George Ferry Terminal in Staten Island, killing 11 people and injuring 43.
2005 - Riot in Toledo, Ohio breaks out during a National Socialist/Neo-Nazi protest; over 100 are arrested.
2005 - Iraqi constitution ratification vote
2007 - 17 Activists in Aotearoa New Zealand arrested in the country's first post 9/11 anti-terrorism raids across the country.
533 - Byzantine general Belisarius makes his formal entry into Carthage, having conquered it from the Vandals.

Saturday, October 13, 2012

Historical Events on 14 Oct

Historical Events on 14 Oct

1066 - Norman Conquest: Battle of Hastings - In England on Senlac Hill, seven miles from Hastings, the forces of William the Conqueror defeat the Saxon army and kill King Harold II of England.
1322 - Robert the Bruce of Scotland defeats King Edward II of England at Byland, forcing Edward to accept Scotland's independence.
1582 - Because of the implementation of the Gregorian calendar this day does not exist in this year in Italy, Poland, Portugal and Spain.
1586 - Mary I of Scotland goes on trial for conspiracy against Elizabeth I of England.
1656 - Massachusetts enacts the first punitive legislation against the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers). The marriage of church-and-state in Puritanism makes them regard the ritual-free Quakers as spiritually apostate and politically subversive.
1758 - Austria defeats Prussia at the Battle of Hochkirk
1773 - American Revolutionary War: The United Kingdom's East India Company tea ships' cargo are burned at Annapolis, Maryland.
1773 - The first recorded Ministry of Education, the Komisja Edukacji Narodowej (Polish for Commission of National Education), is formed in Poland.
1789 - George Washington proclaims the first Thanksgiving Day.
1805 - Battle of Elchingen, France defeats Austria
1806 - Battle of Jena-Auerstädt France defeats Prussia
1812 - Work on London's Regent's Canal starts.
1834 - In Philadelphia, Whigs and Democrats stage a gun, stone and brick battle for control of a Moyamensing Township election, resulting in one death, several injuries, and the burning down of a block of buildings.
1840 - Maronite leader Bashir II surrenders to the British forces and goes into exile in Malta.
1843 - The British arrest Irish nationalist Daniel O'Connell for conspiracy.
1863 - American Civil War: Battle of Bristoe Station - Confederate General Robert E. Lee forces fail to drive the Union Army out of Virginia.
1867 - The 15th and last Shogun of the Tokugawa shogunate resigns in Japan.
1882 - University of the Punjab is founded in present day Pakistan.
1884 - George Eastman patents paper-strip photographic film.
1888 - Louis Le Prince films first motion picture: Roundhay Garden Scene.
1910 - English aviator Claude Grahame-White lands his Farman biplane on Executive Avenue (now Pennsylvania Avenue) near the White House.
1912 - While campaigning in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, former president Theodore Roosevelt is shot by saloonkeeper John Schrank. With a fresh flesh wound and the bullet still in him, Roosevelt still delivers his scheduled speech.
1913 - Senghenydd Colliery Disaster, the United Kingdom's worst coal mining accident, which claimed 439 lives.
1916 - The Perm State University was founded in Russia.
1916 - Sophomore tackle and guard Paul Robeson is excluded from the Rutgers football team when Washington and Lee University refused to play against a black person.
1920 - Part of Petsamo province is ceded by Soviet Union to Finland.
1925 - Anti-French uprising in Damascus (French inhabitants flee)
1926 - The children's book Winnie-the-Pooh, by A.A. Milne, is first published.
1933 - Nazi Germany withdraws from The League of Nations.
1939 - German U-Boat U-47 sinks British battleship HMS Royal Oak.
1940 - Balham tube disaster during the Blitz.
1942 - A German U-boat sinks the ferry SS Caribou, killing 137.
1943 - Prisoners at the Sobibor death camp in Poland revolt, resulting in the death of 11 SS. About half of the camp's 600 prisoners escape; about 50 survive the war.
1943 - U.S. 8th Air Force loses 60 B-17 Flying Fortresses during an assault on Schweinfurt.
1944 - Allied troops land in Corfu.
1947 - Chuck Yeager flies a Bell X-1 faster than the speed of sound, the first man to do so in level flight.
1949 - Eleven leaders of the U.S. Communist Party are convicted, after a nine-month trial, of conspiring to advocate the violent overthrow of the U.S. government.
1949 - Chinese Red Army occupies Canton (Guangzhou).
1957 - Queen Elizabeth II becomes the first Canadian monarch to open the Parliament of Canada with the Speech from the Throne.
1958 - The U.S. conducts an underground nuclear weapon test at the Nevada Test Site.
1958 - The District of Columbia Bar Association votes to accept black Americans as members.
1962 - Cuban Missile Crisis begins: A U-2 flight over Cuba takes photos of Soviet nuclear weapons being installed.
1964 - Leonid Brezhnev becomes general secretary of the CPSU and leader of the Soviet Union, ousting Nikita Khrushchev.
1964 - American civil rights movement leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr becomes the youngest recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize.
1966 - The city of Montreal inaugurates the Montreal Metro.
1967 - Vietnam War: Folk singer Joan Baez is arrested in a blockade of the military induction center in Oakland, California.
1968 - Vietnam War: 27 soldiers are arrested at the Presidio in San Francisco for their peaceful protest of stockade conditions and the Vietnam War.
1968 - Vietnam War: The United States Department of Defense announces that the United States Army and United States Marines will be sending about 24,000 troops back to Vietnam for involuntary second tours.
1968 - First live telecast from a manned U.S. spacecraft Apollo 7.
1968 - A 6.8 earthquake wrecked the Australian town of Meckering, and also ruptured all major roads and railways nearby.
1968 - Jim Hines of the USA becomes the first man ever to break the ten second barrier in the 100 metres Olympic final at Mexico City with a time of 9.95 sec. He would be the only man to do so until 1983.
1968 - The rebuilt Euston station in London is opened.
1969 - The United Kingdom introduces the 50p (fifty-pence) coin, replacing the ten-shilling note, in anticipation of the decimalisation of the currency in 1971.
1973 - Thailand's University Students protest for a democratic government; 77 are killed and 857 injured.
1979 - The first Gay Rights March on Washington, D.C. demands "an end to all social, economic, judicial, and legal oppression of lesbian and gay people," draws 200,000 people.
1981 - Citing official misconduct in the investigation and trial, Amnesty International charges the U.S. government with holding Richard Marshall of the American Indian Movement as a political prisoner.
1981 - Vice President Hosni Mubarak is elected President of Egypt one week after Anwar Sadat was assassinated.
1982 - U.S. President Ronald Reagan proclaims a War on Drugs.
1994 - Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, and Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres receive the Nobel Peace Prize.
1998 - Eric Robert Rudolph is charged with 6 bombings including the 1996 Centennial Olympic Park bombing in Atlanta, Georgia.

Friday, October 12, 2012

Historical Events on 13 Oct

Historical Events on 13 Oct

1282 - Nichiren Daishonin, founder of the Nichiren School of Buddhism, dies. His ashes are interred at Taisekiji Temple.
1307 - Hundreds of Knights Templar in France are simultaneously arrested by agents of Phillip the Fair, to be later tortured into "admitting" heresy.
1492 - Christopher Columbus and his crew land in the Bahamas
1582 - Because of the implementation of the Gregorian calendar this day does not exist in this year in Italy, Poland, Portugal and Spain.
1773 - The Whirlpool Galaxy was discovered by Charles Messier
1775 - The United States Continental Congress orders the establishment of the Continental Navy (later renamed the United States Navy).
1792 - In Washington, D.C., the cornerstone of the United States Executive Mansion (known as the White House since 1818) is laid.
1812 - War of 1812: Battle of Queenston Heights - As part of the Niagara campaign in Ontario, Canada, United States forces under General Stephen Van Rensselaer are repulsed from invading Canada by British and native troops led by Sir Isaac Brock.
1843 - In New York City, Henry Jones and 11 others found B'nai B'rith (the oldest Jewish service organization in the world).
1845 - A majority of voters in the Republic of Texas approve a proposed constitution, that if accepted by the U.S. Congress, will make Texas a U.S. state.
1870 - The Kappa Kappa Gamma fraternity is founded at Monmouth College in Monmouth, Illinois, by six pioneering women.
1871 - The Delphic Fraternity is founded as the Delphic Society at the State Normal School in Geneseo, New York.
1881 - Revival of the Hebrew language as Eliezer Ben-Yehuda and friends agree to use Hebrew exclusively in their conversations.
1884 - Greenwich established as universal time meridian of longitude.
1885 - The Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech) is founded in Atlanta, Georgia.
1890 - The Delta Chi fraternity is founded by 11 law students at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York.
1892 - Edward Emerson Barnard discovers D/1892 T1 (Barnard 3), the first comet discovered by photographic means, on the night of October 13-14.
1917 - The "Miracle of the Sun" is witnessed by an estimated 70,000 people in the Cova da Iria in Fátima, Portugal.
1918 - Mehmed Talat Pasha and the Young Turk (C.U.P.) ministry resign and sign an armistice, ending Ottoman participation in World War I.
1923 - Ankara replaces Istanbul as the capital of Turkey.
1943 - World War II: The new government of Italy sides with the Allies and declares war on Germany.
1944 - World War II: Riga, the capital of Latvia is seized by the Red Army.
1946 - France adopts the constitution of the Fourth Republic.
1958 - Burial of Eugenio Pacelli, Pope Pius XII on the 41st anniversary of the "Miracle of the Sun".
1960 - 1960 World Series: Pittsburgh Pirates second baseman Bill Mazeroski becomes the first person to end a World Series with a home run, as the Pirates beat the New York Yankees, four games to three.
1967 - The first game in the history of the American Basketball Association is played as the Anaheim Amigos lose to the Oakland Oaks 134-129 in Oakland, California.
1971 - 1971 World Series: The first night game in World Series history is played at Pittsburgh's Three Rivers Stadium between the Baltimore Orioles and Pittsburgh Pirates.
1972 - An Aeroflot Ilyushin Il-62 crashed outside Moscow killing 176.
1972 - Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 crashes in the Andes mountains, in between the borders of Argentina and Chile. By December 23, 1972 only 16 out of 45 people lived long enough to be rescued.
1976 - A Bolivian Boeing 707 cargo jet crashes in Santa Cruz, Bolivia killing 100 (97, mostly children, killed on the ground).
1976 - The first electron micrograph of an Ebola viral particle was obtained by Dr. F.A. Murphy, now at U.C. Davis, who was then working at the C.D.C..
1977 - Four Palestinians hijack Lufthansa Flight 181 to Somalia and demand release of 11 members of the Red Army Faction.
1983 - Ameritech Mobile Communications (now Cingular) launched the first US cellular network in Chicago, Illinois.
1990 - End of the Lebanese war. Syrian forces launch an attack on the free areas of Lebanon removing General Michel Aoun from the presidential palace.
1992 - An Antonov An-124 operated by Antonov Airlines registered CCCP-82002, crashed near Kiev, Ukraine.
1993 - Captured American Pilot Mike Durant is filmed in an interview in captivity by a CNN camera crew.
1999 - The United States Senate rejects ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT).
409 - Vandals and Alans crossed the Pyrenees and appeared in Hispania.
54 - Nero ascends to the Roman throne