- 1260 Qutuz, Mamluk Sultans of Egypt (1259-60), is assassinated by Baibars, a fellow Mamluk leader, who seizes power for himself
- 1260 The spectacular Cathedral of Chartres is dedicated in the presence of King Louis IX of France; now a UNESCO World Heritage Site
- 1360 The Treaty of Brétigny is ratified at Calais, marking the end of the first phase of the Hundred Years' War.
- 1492 24 Jews are burned at the stake in Mecklenburg, Germany
- 1531 Bavaria joins Schmalkaldic League
- 1593 Alleged teleportation of Spanish soldier Gil Perez from the Philippines to Mexico
- 1596 -26] Battle at Kerestes: Ottoman beat Austria-Hungary & Germany
Event of Interest
1601 Johannes Kepler succeeds Tycho Brahe as imperial mathematician to Emperor Rudolph II
Johannes Kepler
Tycho Brahe
- 1648 Treaty of Westphalia ends The Thirty Year's War in the Holy Roman Empire; Switzerland's independence recognized
- 1656 Treaty of Vilnius: Russia & Poland sign anti-Swedish covenant
- 1681 Earl of Shaftesbury accused of high treason in London
- 1795 3rd Partition of Poland, between Austria, Prussia & Russia
Battle of Interest
1812 Napoleonic Wars: The Battle of Maloyaroslavets takes place near Moscow.
Napoléon Bonaparte
Music Concert
1818 Felix Mendelssohn aged 9 performs his first public concert in Berlin
Felix Mendelssohn
- 1836 Earliest American patent for a phosphorus friction match by Alonzo Dwight Phillips of Springfield, Massachusetts
- 1851 William Lassell discovers Ariel & Umbriel, satellites of Uranus
- 1856 Constitution of South Australia adopted
- 1857 World's first soccer club, Sheffield F C, founded in Yorkshire, England
- 1861 First US transcontinental telegram is sent (from San Francisco to Washington, D.C.)
- 1861 West Virginia secedes from Virginia
- 1871 Mob in Los Angeles, California hangs 18 Chinese
- 1881 Levi P Morton, US ambasador to France drives first rivet in Statue of Liberty
- 1885 Johann Strauss' operetta "Zigeunerbaron (Gypsy Baron)" premieres in Vienna
- 1889 Softball rules adopted by Mid Winter Indoor Baseball League
- 1899 Battle at Rietfontein, South Africa: Boers vs British army
- 1900 General Redvers Buller returns to England
- 1901 First woman to go over Niagara Falls in a barrel (Anna Taylor)
- 1902 Santa Maria volcano in Guatemala erupts, killing 6,000 people and becoming one of the three largest eruptions of the 20th century
- 1903 First trotter to run a mile under 2 minutes (Lou Dillon 1:58.1)
- 1903 George Sutton becomes billards champion
- 1908 Billy Murray hits the charts with "Take Me Outto the Ball Game"
- 1909 Italy and Russia sign the Racconigi Pact in which both nations promise to support the status quo in the Balkans
Historic Expedition
1911 Captain Robert Falcon Scott's expedition leaves Cape Evans for South Pole
Robert Scott
Event of Interest
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.
Orville Wright
- 1913 Joe Tinker fired as Cincinnati Reds manager
- 1916 Moroccan troops capture Ft Douaumont
- 1917 Battle at Caporetto: German & Austria smash Italian army
- 1922 German parliament mandates Ebert president until July 1925
- 1922 Irish Parliament adopts a constitution for an Irish Free State
- 1923 General Otto von Lossow calls Reichswehr to Berlin to form a dictatorship
- 1924 Christian General Feng Joe Siang occupies Beijing
- 1924 Nobel prize for physiology or medicine awarded to Dutchman Willem Einthoven "for his discovery of the mechanism of the electrocardiogram"
Event of Interest
1926 Harry Houdini's last performance, at the Garrick Theatre in Detroit, Michigan
Harry Houdini
Coup d'état
1930 A bloodless coup d'état in Brazil ousts Washington Luís Pereira de Sousa, the last President of the First Republic. Getúlio Vargas then installed as "provisional president."
Getulio Vargas
- 1931 George Washington Bridge linking New York City and New Jersey dedicated, opens the next day
- 1932 British government signs trade treaty with USSR
Event of Interest
1933 Langston Hughes' "Mulatto" premieres in NYC
Langston Hughes
Event of Interest
1939 Joe DiMaggio wins AL MVP, Jimmie Foxx is runner-up
Joe DiMaggio
Meeting of Interest
1940 Adolf Hitler meets the Head of the French State Marshal Pétain
Adolf Hitler
- 1940 Japan eliminates US terms (strike, play ball) from baseball
- 1940 Protestant churches protest against dismissal of Jew civil servants
- 1942 Second day of battle at El Alamein: British infantry
- 1943 Anti-nazi Clandestine Radio Soldatsender Calais begins transmitting
- 1944 Rotterdam Passage fight frees 46 prisoners
- 1944 US air raid on Japanese battleships and cruisers in Sibuya Sea: Musashi sinks
- 1944 US aircraft carrier Princeton sinks at Philippines
- 1944 US Captain David Mccampbell shoots down 9-11 Japanese planes in Gulf of Leyte
United Nations Charter
- 1945 In France PC/PS/MRP win parliamentary election (25/24/23%)
- 1946 Netherlands & Indonesia sign cease fire
- 1946 A camera on board the V-2 No. 13 rocket, launched from Whites Sands US, takes the first photograph of earth from outer space.
- 1947 Series of forest fires burn over $30 million of timber across the New England States
- 1948 Bernard M Baruch introduces term "Cold War"
- 1948 Francis Poulenc's "Sinfonietta" premieres
- 1948 Pope Pius XII publishes encyclical In Multiplicibus Curis
- 1948 WJBK TV channel 2 in Detroit, MI (CBS) begins broadcasting
- 1949 Contruction begins on the United Nations headquaters in New York
- 1951 Jan de Hartog's "Four Poster" premieres in NYC
- 1951 United Nations publishes its first postage stamps
- 1952 Arab Liberation Movement becomes only political party in Syria
- 1953 KOOL (now KTSP) TV channel 10 in Phoenix, AZ (CBS) begins broadcasting
Event of Interest
1954 Dwight D. Eisenhower pledges United States' support to South Vietnam
Dwight D. Eisenhower
- 1954 Britain's Mike Hawthorne wins season ending Spanish Grand Prix at Pedralbes; Argentine Maserati driver Juan Manuel Fangio takes second Formula 1 World Drivers Championship by 17 points from countryman José Froilán González
- 1956 AP names Cin manager Birdie Tebbets as NL Manager of the Year
- 1956 Soviet troops invade Hungary, Imre Nagy becomes PM of Hungary
- 1956 Margaret Towner becomes first woman to be ordained into the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America (PCUSA)
- 1957 Cincinnati Redlegs decline to move to Roosevelt Stadium in Jersey City
- 1957 The USAF starts the X-20 Dyna-Soar program.
- 1958 USSR lends Egypt 400 million rubles to build Aswan Dam
- 1959 US premier of D Sjostakovitch's 1st Cello concert
- 1960 Disaster on USSR's Baikonoer launch pad, kills missile expert Nedelin & team (165 die-unconfirmed); USSR claims killed in plane crash
- 1961 "Evening with Yves Montand" opens at John Golden Theatre, NYC for 55 performances
Cuban Missile Crisis
1962 Cuban missile crisis: Soviet ships approach but stop short of the US blockade of Cuba
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Film Release
1962 "The Manchurian Candidate", directed by John Frankenheimer, starring Frank Sinatra and Laurence Harvey, is released
Frank Sinatra
- 1963 "110 in the Shade" opens at Broadhurst Theater NYC for 330 performances
- 1963 KRO shows first episode of Bonanza
- 1963 Sandy Koufax is unanimous winner of Cy Young Award
- 1964 "Cambridge Circus" closes at Plymouth Theater NYC after 23 performances
- 1964 Belgian paratroops liberate 1,000 white hostages in Stanleyville
- 1964 Zambia (formerly Northern Rhodesia) gains independence from Britain (National Day) with Kenneth Kaunda becoming President
- 1964 Test Cricket debut of Pakistani cricketers Asif Iqbal, Majid Khan and Khalid Ibadulla vs Australia. Khalid "Billy" Ibadulla scores 166 on debut.
- 1965 Benjamin Britten's "Voices for Today" premieres
- 1965 Jim Clark in a Lotus is forced to retire from season-ending Mexican Grand Prix at Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez with engine trouble; American Richie Ginther is race winner and Clark claims his second F1 World Drivers Championship
Event of Interest
1968 Mick Jagger & Marianne Faithful busted for pot, released on £50 bail
Mick Jagger
- 1968 The People's Democracy (PD) stage a protest demonstration at Stormont Parliament buildings, Belfast, Northern Ireland
- 1968 16 year old American swimmer Debbie Meyer wins the inaugural women's 800m gold medal in 9:24.0 at the Mexico City Olympics; first swimmer to win 3 individual gold medals at a Games (200/400m)
- 1968 Australian swimmer Michael Wendon wraps up the Mexico City Games sprint double when he wins the men's 200m freestyle gold medal in Olympic record 1:55.2
- 1969 Hanif, Mushtaq & Sadiq Mohammad start their only Test Cricket together
- 1970 Nancy Walker creates Ida Morgenstein role on "The Mary Tyler Moore Show"
Election of Interest
1970 Marxist Salvador Allende elected President of Chile by the Chilean Congress
Salvador Allende
- 1971 Harry Drake sets longest arrow flight by a footbow (1 mile 268 yds)
- 1971 Texas Stadium opens-Cowboys beat Patriots 44-21
- 1971 President of Sinn Féin Ruairi O'Brady, addresses a party conference in Dublin and proclaims that the North of Ireland must be made ungovernable as a first step to achieve a united Ireland
- 1971 A member of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) is shot dead by undercover Royal Ulster Constabulary officers during a bomb attack in Belfast
- 1972 2 Catholic men are found dead at a farm at Aughinahinch, near Newtownbbutler, County Fermanagh - British soldiers carry out the killings
- 1973 Heavy fog causes 65 car collision killing 9 on New Jersey Turnpike
Event of Interest
1973 John Lennon sues US government to admit FBI is tapping his phone
John Lennon
- 1973 Yom Kippur War ends, Israel 65 miles from Cairo, 26 from Damascus
- 1974 Billy Martin named AL Manager of Year (Texas Rangers)
- 1975 Turkish diplomat shot dead in Paris
- 1976 1st Jewish film & TV festival
- 1976 6th NYC Women's Marathon won by Miki Gorman in 2:39:11
- 1976 7th NYC Marathon won by Bill Rodgers in 2:10:10
- 1976 Sadiq & Mushtaq Mohammad score hundreds in same Test Cricket innings v NZ
- 1976 English McLaren driver James Hunt finishes 4th in the season ending Japanese Grand Prix at Fuji Speedway to win his first Formula 1 World Drivers Championship by 1 point from Niki Lauda
- 1976 1st Toronto International Film Festival opens
Event of Interest
1978 Keith Richards convicted of heroin possession in Toronto
Keith Richards
Event of Interest
1979 Guinness Book of Records presents Paul McCartney with a rhodium disc as all-time best selling singer-songwriter
Paul McCartney
- 1980 Great Britain performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
- 1980 Iraqi troops occupies Khorramshar
- 1980 John Lennon releases "(Just Like) Starting Over" in UK
- 1980 Polish government legalizes independent labor union Solidarity
Event of Interest
1981 Pablo Picasso's 1937 painting Guernica goes on display in Madrid Spain to celebrate the centenary of the artist's birth
Pablo Picasso
Event of Interest
1982 Steffi Graf plays her 1st pro tennis match
Steffi Graf
- 1984 11 members of Colombo crime family arrested
- 1984 Intelsat 5 re-enters Earth's atmosphere 5 months after it failed
- 1986 Dodgers' Bill Russell, 38, announces his retirement
- 1986 Great Britain drops diplomatic relations with Syria
- 1987 Bork's supreme court nomination rejected by senate
- 1987 NBC technicians accept pact, end 118 day strike
Event of Interest
1988 NY Islander's & NHL high scorer, Mike Bossy retires
Mike Bossy
- 1988 Typhoon Ruby sinks Philippine ferry; hundreds drown
- 1989 After a weeks delay due to earthquake, World Series game 3 is played
- 1989 France performs nuclear test at Mururoa atoll
- 1989 American televangelist Jim Bakker is sentenced to 50 years for fraud
- 1990 USSR performs nuclear test at Novaya Zemlya USSR
- 1991 "Dancing at Lughnasa" opens at Plymouth Theater NYC for 421 performances
- 1991 Larry Ryckman purchases CFL Calgary Stampeders
- 1992 Toronto beats Braves, 4-3 in Game 6 at Atlanta–Fulton County Stadium to win their first Baseball World Series; Toronto catcher Pat Borders MVP
- 1992 10th Rugby League World Cup: Australia beats Great Britain 10-6
- 1993 "Wonderful Tennessee" opens at Plymouth Theater NYC for 9 performances
- 1994 Bomb attack on opposition in Sri Lanka, 55+ killed
- 1995 Total solar eclipse in SW/S Asia (2m09s)
- 1996 Hasan Raza makes Test Cricket debut for Pakistan age 14 yrs 238 days
- 1996 Last game at Atlanta County Fulton Stadium. Yanks win record 8th straight road post season win (with no loses)
- 1997 Marv Albert sentenced in assault case
- 1998 Launch of Deep Space 1 on comet and asteroid mission
- 2002 Police arrest spree killers John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo, ending the Beltway sniper attacks in the area around Washington, D.C.
- 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.
Event of Interest
2004 German Ferrari driver Michael Schumacher finishes 8th at season-ending Brazilian F1 Grand Prix at Autódromo José Carlos Pace; his 5th straight World Drivers Championship, record 7th career world title; Ferrari's 6th straight Constructors title
Michael Schumacher
- 2004 Manchester United beats Arsenal, 2-0 at Old Trafford; ends Gunners' English Premier League record 49-game unbeaten streak
- 2006 Justice Rutherford of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice struck down the "motive clause", an important part of the Canadian Anti-Terrorism Act
- 2006 MESSENGER spacecraft performs a Venus flyby
- 2008 "Bloody Friday" saw many of the world's stock exchanges experienced the worst declines in their history, with drops of around 10% in most indices.
- 2008 Iceland receives a £1.3 billion bailout package from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), 1st European country to require an emergency loan as a result of the financial crisis
- 2008 Breeders' Cup Horse Racing, Santa Anita Racetrack; Day 1 winners: Ventura, Maram, Stardom Bound, Together Forever, Zenyatta
- 2009 First International Day of Climate Action, organized with 350.org, a global campaign to address a claimed global warming crisis.
- 2012 Libyan militias capture Bani Walid resulting in 130 civilian deaths
- 2012 3 people are shot dead and two critically wounded after being shot by an unknown gunman in Downey, California
- 2012 Hurricane Sandy makes landfall in Jamaica killing 1 person and causing over $50 million in damage
- 2013 St Louis Cardinals defeat Boston Red Sox to tie the MLB 2013 World Series 1-1
- 2015 Even results in Argentine Presidential Election between Daniel Scioli and Mauricio Macrieven trigger 1st ever Presidential run off 22 Nov
- 2016 Suicide bomb kills 61 and injures 117 at a police training academy in Quetta, Pakistan, ISIS claims responsibility
- 2017 Dog doping scandal confirmed by officials of Iditarod, Alaskan dog sled race after dogs test positive for a banned substance
Event of Interest
2017 Crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman vows to return Saudi Arabia to moderate Islam after announcing 500bn independent economic zone
Mohammed bin Salman
Event of Interest
2017 Albert Einstein's "Theory of Happiness", written as a note for a bellboy instead of a tip in Tokyo in 1922 sells for $1.56 million
Albert Einstein
Event of Interest
2018 Pipe bombs sent to prominent US Democrats including the Obamas, Clintons, John Brennan and CNN, but safely defused
Barack Obama
- 2018 Largest jackpot in US history at 1.6 billion won by one person in Southern Carolina
- 2018 Kenyan marathon runner Eliud Kipchoge named UN Person of the Year for setting a new marathon world record and for his work with AIDS/HIV in Kenya
- 2018 Scientists confirm East Island in Hawaii, half a mile long, has been wiped out after contact with Hurricane Walaka
- 2018 EU directive bans single-use plastics by 2021
October in History
Jumping Jacques Makes First Parachute Descent
Daredevil André-Jacques Garnerin took to the sky in a hydrogen balloon on this day and after cutting himself adrift performed the first ‘parachute’ descent.
October 22, 1797
Test of Time for the Date of Creation
The assertion by a 17th Century bishop that the universe was created on this day in the year 4004 BC was put to the test in a famous trial in the United States.
October 23, 4004 BC
The Charge of the Light Brigade, a Brave and Foolish Tale
The Charge of the Light Brigade is infamous as an act of bravery in the face all insurmountable odds. An event immortalized in poetry by Alfred Tennyson.
October 25, 1854
The Gunfight at OK Corral
Said to have lasted just 30 seconds, the gunfight at OK Corral in Tombstone, Arizona, is remembered as one of the great shootouts in the annals of the Wild West
October 26, 1881