Historical EventsToday: 15 October

Events

• 533 - Byzantine general Belisarius makes his formal entry into Carthage, having conquered it from the Vandals.


• 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 - Television sitcom I Love Lucy premieres.


• 1951 - Mexican chemist Luis E. Miramontes synthesized the first oral contraceptive


• 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 - Iraqi constitution ratification vote


• 2005 - Riot in Toledo, Ohio breaks out during a National Socialist/Neo-Nazi protest; over 100 are arrested.


• 2007 - 17 Activists in Aotearoa New Zealand arrested in the country's first post 9/11 anti-terrorism raids across the country.

Historical EventsToday: 14 October

Events

• 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 - The first recorded Ministry of Education, the Komisja Edukacji Narodowej (Polish for Commission of National Education), is formed in Poland.


• 1773 - American Revolutionary War: The United Kingdom's East India Company tea ships' cargo are burned at Annapolis, Maryland.


• 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 - 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.


• 1916 - The Perm State University was founded in Russia.


• 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.

Historical EventsToday: 13 October

Events

• 54 - Nero ascends to the Roman throne


• 409 - Vandals and Alans crossed the Pyrenees and appeared in Hispania.


• 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.


• 1885 - The Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech) is founded in Atlanta, Georgia.


• 1884 - Greenwich established as universal time meridian of longitude.


• 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).

Historical EventsToday: 12 October

Events

• 539 BC - The army of Cyrus the Great of Persia takes Babylon.


• 1216 - King John of England loses his crown jewels in The Wash, probably near Fosdyke, perhaps near Sutton Bridge


• 1279 - Nichiren, a Japanese Buddhist monk founder of Nichiren Buddhism, inscribes the Dai-Gohonzon


• 1398 - the Treaty of Salynas is signed between Grand Duke of Lithuania Vytautas the Great and the Teutonic Knights, who received Samogitia.


• 1492 - Christopher Columbus's expedition makes landfall in the Caribbean, specifically in The Bahamas. The explorer believes he has reached East Asia


• 1582 - Because of the implementation of the Gregorian calendar this day does not exist in this year in Italy, Poland, Portugal and Spain.


• 1654 - The Delft Explosion devastates the city in the Netherlands, killing more than 100.


• 1692 - The Salem Witch Trials were ended by a letter from Massachusetts Governor William Phips.


• 1773 - America's first insane asylum opens for 'Persons of Insane and Disordered Minds' in Virginia


• 1792 - First celebration of Columbus Day in the USA held in New York


• 1793 - The cornerstone of Old East, the oldest state university building in the United States, is laid on the campus of the University of North Carolina


• 1810 - First Oktoberfest: The Bavarian royalty invites the citizens of Munich to join the celebration of the marriage of Crown Prince Ludwig of Bavaria to Princess Therese von Sachsen-Hildburghausen.


• 1822 - Peter I of Brazil is proclaimed the emperor of the Brazilian Empire.


• 1823 - Charles Macintosh, of Scotland, sells the first raincoat.


• 1892 - The Pledge of Allegiance is first recited in unison by students in US public schools.


• 1898 - Establishment of the first town council in Mateur.


• 1899 - Boer republic of South Africa declares war with England.


• 1901 - President Theodore Roosevelt officially renames the "Executive Mansion" to the White House.


• 1915 - World War I: British nurse Edith Cavell is executed by a German firing squad for helping Allied soldiers escape from Belgium


• 1917 - The First Battle of Passchendaele, now Passendale


• 1918 - A massive forest fire kills 453 people in Minnesota.


• 1928 - An iron lung respirator is used for the first time at Children's Hospital, Boston


• 1933 - The United States Army Disciplinary Barracks on Alcatraz Island, is acquired by the United States Department of Justice


• 1941 - This and the next day, German Nazis kill 11,000 Jews in Dnipropetrovsk, Ukraine. Einsatzkommando 6 massacres most of the remaining Jews of the city, marching them to a ravine where they were killed.


• 1942 - World War II: Japanese ships retreat after their defeat in the Battle of Cape Esperance with the Japanese commander, Aritomo Gotō dying from wounds suffered in the battle and two Japanese destroyers sunk by Allied air attack.


• 1953 - "The Caine Mutiny Court Martial" opens at Plymouth Theatre, New York


• 1959 - At the national congress of APRA in Peru a group of leftist radicals are expelled from the party. They will later form APRA Rebelde.


• 1960 - Cold War: Nikita Khrushchev pounds his shoe on a desk at United Nations General Assembly meeting to protest a Philippine assertion of Soviet Union colonialist policy being conducted in Eastern Europe


• 1960 - Inejiro Asanuma is assassinated in Japan by Otoya Yamaguchi, a 17-year-old. The camera was rolling at that time.


• 1962 - Infamous Columbus Day Storm strikes the U.S. Pacific Northwest with record wind velocities; 46 dead and at least U.S. $230 million in damages


• 1964 - The Soviet Union launches the Voskhod 1 into Earth orbit as the first spacecraft with a multi-person crew and the first flight without space suits


• 1967 - Vietnam War: US Secretary of State Dean Rusk states during a news conference that proposals by the U.S. Congress for peace initiatives were futile because of North Vietnam's opposition


• 1968 - Equatorial Guinea becomes independent from Spain


• 1970 - Vietnam War: US President Richard Nixon announces that the United States will withdraw 40,000 more troops before Christmas


• 1972 - En route to the Gulf of Tonkin, a racial brawl involving more than 100 sailors breaks out aboard the United States Navy aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk


• 1976 - The People's Republic of China announces that Hua Guofeng is the successor to the late Mao Zedong as chairman of Communist Party of China.


• 1979 - The lowest recorded non-tornadic atmospheric pressure, 87.0 kPa (870 mbar or 25.69 inHg), occurred in the Western Pacific during Typhoon Tip.


• 1983 - Japan's former Prime Minister Tanaka Kakuei is found guilty of taking a $2 million bribe from Lockheed and is sentenced to 4 years in jail.


• 1984 - Brighton hotel bombing: Margaret Thatcher survives an IRA bomb, which shredded her bathroom barely two minutes after she had left it.


• 1986 - Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh visit the People's Republic of China


• 1988 - Two officers of the Victoria Police are gunned down executional style in the Walsh Street police shootings, Australia.


• 1991 - Askar Akayev, previously chosen President of Kyrgyzstan by republic's Supreme Soviet, is confirmed president in an uncontested poll.


• 1994 - NASA loses radio contact with the Magellan spacecraft as the probe descends into the thick atmosphere of Venus (the spacecraft presumably burned up in the atmosphere either October 13 or October 14).


• 1997 - Sidi Daoud massacre in Algeria; 43 killed at a fake roadblock.


• 1999 - Pervez Musharraf takes power in Pakistan from Nawaz Sharif through a bloodless coup.


• 1999 - The Day of Six Billion: The proclaimed 6 billionth living human in the world is born.


• 2000 - The USS Cole is badly damaged in Aden, Yemen, by two suicide bombers, killing 17 crew members and wounding at least 39


• 2002 - Terrorists detonate bombs in Paddy's Pub and the Sari Club in Kuta, Bali, killing 202 and wounding over 300.


• 2005 - The second Chinese human spaceflight Shenzhou 6 launched carrying Fèi Jùnlóng and Niè Hǎishèng for five days in orbit.


• 2007 - In Santa Clarita, California, the colision of two semi-trucks in a truck bypass tunnel in the Newhall Pass section of Interstate 5 sets off a chain reaction crash involving over 30 vehicles. The crash causes a major fire within the tunnel. Three people die and ten are injured.

Historical EventsToday: 11 October

Events

• 1138 - A massive earthquake struck Aleppo, Syria.


• 1531 - Huldrych Zwingli is killed in battle with the Roman Catholic cantons of Switzerland.


• 1582 - Because of the implementation of the Gregorian calendar, this day does not exist in this year in Italy, Poland, Portugal and Spain, often causing widespread panic to the natives.


• 1614 - Adriaen Block and 12 Amsterdam merchants petition the States General for exclusive trading rights in the New Netherland colony.


• 1634 - the Burchardi flood — "the second Grote Mandrenke" killed around 15,000 men in North Friesland, Denmark and Germany.


• 1776 - American Revolution: Battle of Valcour Island - On Lake Champlain 15 American gunboats are defeated but give Patriot forces enough time to prepare defenses of New York City.


• 1809 - Along the Natchez Trace in Tennessee, explorer Meriwether Lewis dies under mysterious circumstances at an inn called Grinder's Stand.


• 1811 - Inventor John Stevens' boat, the Juliana, begins operation as the first steam-powered ferry (service between New York, New York, and Hoboken, New Jersey).


• 1852 - The University of Sydney, Australia's oldest university, is inaugurated in Sydney.


• 1862 - American Civil War: In the aftermath of the Battle of Antietam, Confederate General J.E.B. Stuart and his men loot Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, during a raid into the north.


• 1864 - Campina Grande, Brazil was established as a city.


• 1865 - Paul Bogle led hundreds of black men and women in a march in Jamaica, starting the Morant Bay rebellion.


• 1890 - In Washington, DC, the Daughters of the American Revolution is founded.


• 1899 - Second Boer War begins: In South Africa, a war between the United Kingdom and the Boers of the Transvaal and Orange Free State erupts. The Western League was renamed the American League.


• 1906 - San Francisco public school board sparks United States diplomatic crisis with Japan by ordering Japanese students to be taught in racially segregated schools.


• 1910 - Ex-president Theodore Roosevelt becomes the first U.S. president to fly in an airplane. He flew for four minutes with Arch Hoxsey in a plane built by the Wright Brothers at Kinloch Field (Lambert-St. Louis International Airport), St. Louis, Missouri.


• 1918 - Major Tsumani shakes Caribbean


• 1929 - JC Penney opens store #1252 in Milford, Delaware, making it a nationwide company with stores in all 48 U.S. states.


• 1930 - Collingwood Football Club in Melbourne, Australia, won the VFL premiership for the fourth consecutive year.


• 1941 - Beginning of the National Liberation War of Macedonia.


• 1942 - World War II: Battle of Cape Esperance - On the northwest coast of Guadalcanal, United States Navy ships intercept and defeat a Japanese fleet on their way to reinforce troops on the island.


• 1944 - Tuvinian People's Republic or formerly Tannu Tuva was annexed by the U.S.S.R


• 1950 - The U.S. Federal Communications Commission issues the first license to broadcast television in color, to CBS


• 1954 - First Indochina War: The Viet Minh take control of North Vietnam.


• 1957 The Orbit of the last stage of the R-7 Semyorka rocket carrying Sputnik I was first successfully calculated on an IBM 704 computer by teams at The M.I.T. Computation Center and Operation Moonwatch, Cambridge, Massachusetts.


• 1958 - Pioneer program: NASA launches the lunar probe Pioneer 1 (the probe falls back to Earth and burns up).


• 1962 - Second Vatican Council: Pope John XXIII convenes the first ecumenical council of the Roman Catholic Church in 92 years.


• 1967 - Afghan Prime Minister Mohammad Hashim Maiwandwal resigns for health reasons


• 1968 - Apollo program: NASA launches Apollo 7, the first successful manned Apollo mission, with astronauts Wally Schirra, Donn F. Eisele and Walter Cunningham aboard.


• 1975 - The NBC sketch comedy/variety show Saturday Night Live debuts with George Carlin as the host and Janis Ian and Billy Preston as musical guests.


• 1976 - George Washington's appointment, posthumously, to the grade of General of the Armies of the United States by congressional joint resolution Public Law 94-479 was approved by President Gerald R. Ford.


• 1982 - The Mary Rose, a Tudor gunship which sunk on July 18 1545, is raised from the sea bed in the Solent Channel, near Portsmouth.


• 1984 - Aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger, astronaut Kathryn D. Sullivan becomes the first American woman to perform a space walk.


• 1986 - Cold War: U.S. President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev meet in Reykjavík, Iceland, in an effort to continue discussions about scaling back their intermediate missile arsenals in Europe. G


• 1998 - A Congo Airlines Boeing 727 is shot down by rebels in Kindu, Democratic Republic of the Congo, killing 40 people.


• 2000 - The 100th Space Shuttle mission (STS-92) is flown.


• 2001 - The Polaroid Corporation files for federal bankruptcy protection.


• 2002 - A bomb attack in a shopping mall in Vantaa, Finland kills seven.