- 310 St Eusebius ends his reign as Catholic Pope
Event of Interest
335 Roman Emperor Constantine the Great rules that Jews are not allowed to purchase and circumcise Christian slaves
Constantine the Great
The Protestant Reformation
1512 Martin Luther joins the theological faculty of the University of Wittenberg.
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Event of Interest
1520 Explorer Ferdinand Magellan and his fleet reach Cape Virgenes and become the first Europeans to sail into the Pacific Ocean
Ferdinand Magellan
- 1553 Volumes of Talmud are burned
- 1555 English parliament refuses to recognize Philip of Spain as king
- 1568 2nd Altenburger sermon: Philippisten/Gnesiolutheranen
- 1591 Nijmegen surrenders to Earl Mauritius van Nassau
- 1601 Memorial service for Daitokuji's Shinju held for Ikkyu Sojun in Kyoto
- 1639 Sea battle at Dunes, Lt Admiral Maarten Tromp defeats Spanish armada under De Oquendo
- 1652 King Louis XIV returns to Paris
- 1708 Dutch & English troops occupy Lille (Rijsel)
- 1727 Russian & Chinese accord to correct boundaries
- 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.
- 1789 French Revolution: The National Assembly declares martial law in France to prevent uprisings
- 1797 The USS Constitution (Old Ironsides) is launched in Boston
- 1803 English scientist John Dalton reads his paper on the absorption of gases by water to the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Soc - 1st outline of his atomic theory
Victory in Battle
1805 Battle of Trafalgar: British Admiral Horatio Nelson defeats combined French and Spanish fleet. Nelson shot and killed during battle.
Horatio Nelson
Event of Interest
1854 Florence Nightingale with a staff of 38 nurses is sent to the Crimean War
Florence Nightingale
Otto von Bismarck
- 1887 Detroit clinches best-of-15 touring World Championship with its 8th victory in Game 11 this afternoon in Baltimore, 13-3
- 1895 The Republic of Formosa collapses as Japanese forces invade.
- 1897 Yerkes Observatory of University of Chicago is dedicated
- 1899 Battle at Elandslaagte Natal: (Boers vs British army)
- 1902 In the United States, a five month strike by United Mine Workers ends.
- 1911 RS Hichens & M Hudsons "Garden of Allah" premieres in NYC
- 1913 Transvaal women satyagrahis begin defiance activities, hawking without licenses in Vereeniging; they cross the Natal border and encourage the miners in Newcastle to strike
- 1914 Battle of Warsaw ends with German defeat
- 1915 1st transatlantic radiotelephone message, Arlington, Va to Paris
Event of Interest
1915 William Jennings Bryan's successor as US Secretary of State, Robert Lansing, sends a note to Britain protesting interference with US shipping
William Jennings Bryan
- 1917 1st Americans to see action on front lines of WWI: US troops enter front lines at Sommervillier under French command
- 1917 Petrograds garrison accepts Revolutionary Military Committee
- 1918 Margaret Owen sets world typing speed record of 170 wpm for 1 min
- 1921 Tuschinski Theater opens in Amsterdam
- 1921 Former Hungarian King Karl stages a second attempted coup and is arrested
- 1923 1st planetarium opens at Deutsche Museum in Munich
- 1924 KLM Fokker's F7 H-NACC departs to Dutch East Indies
- 1925 Sidney Howards "Lucky Sam McGarver" premieres in NYC
Event of Interest
1937 Francisco Franco's troops occupy Gijon
Francisco Franco
- 1938 Japanese troops occupies Canton
- 1940 RAF drops 1st anti-nazi pamphlets on Netherlands
- 1944 Canadian troops occupy Breskens
- 1944 World War II: US troops capture Aachen, 1st large German city to fall
- 1944 Walter Piston's "Fugue for a Victory Tune" premieres in NYC
- 1945 Women in France allowed to vote for 1st time
- 1947 Dutch Dakota explodes near Coopenhagen, 16 die
- 1948 Beersheba liberated by Israeli army
- 1948 Dutch Constellation crashes at Prestwick Scotland (40 murder)
- 1948 Facsimile high-speed radio transmission demonstrated (Washington, D.C.)
- 1948 UN rejects Russian proposal to destroy atomic weapons
Event of Interest
1949 Author of 'Brave New World' Aldous Huxley writes to congratulate George Orwell on his new novel '1984'
Aldous Huxley
George Orwell
Event of Interest
1954 Dorothy Parker/Arnaud d'Usseau's "Ladies of the Corridor" premieres
Dorothy Parker
Event of Interest
1959 Guggenheim Museum, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, opens in New York
Frank Lloyd Wright
John F. Kennedy
- 1961 USSR performs nuclear test at Sary Shagan USSR
- 1965 Nobel prize for chemistry awarded to Robert B Woodward
- 1965 Vivian Beaumont Theater (NYC) opens
- 1965 Comet Ikeya-Seki approaches perihelion, passing 450,000 kilometers from the sun.
- 1966 116 children and 28 adults died as a coal waste heap slid and engulfed a school in Aberfan, South Wales
- 1967 Egypt sinks Israeli torpedo boat
- 1967 Tens of thousands of anti-Vietnam War protesters march on the Pentagon, besieging the military headquarters for two days
- 1969 Bloodless coup in Somalia (National Day)
- 1969 Leonard Gersh's "Butterflies are Free" premieres in NYC
Election of Interest
1969 German statesman Willy Brandt is elected chancellor of West Germany (1969-1974)
Willy Brandt
- 1969 Maj Gen Mohamed Siad Barre becomes President of Somali
- 1970 777 Unification church couples wed in Korea
- 1970 Caledonian Airways takes over British United Airways
- 1970 Nobel prize of peace awarded to Norman E Borlaugh
- 1970 Bernadette Devlin is released from prison having served four months of her six month sentence for riotous behaviour
Nobel Prize
1971 Nobel prize for literature awarded to Pablo Neruda
Pablo Neruda
- 1971 USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakh/Semipalitinsk USSR
- 1971 William H Rehnquist & Lewis F Powell nominated to US Supreme Court by Nixon, following resignations of Justices Hugo Black & John Harlan
- 1974 1st Islander shut-out opponent-Billy Smith 5-0 vs Caps
- 1975 Coast Guard Academy 1st allows women to enroll
- 1975 Mexico City's 1st major subway accident takes 26 lives
- 1975 USSR performs nuclear test at Novaya Zemlya USSR
Nobel Prize
1976 Nobel prize for literature awarded to American Saul Bellow
Saul Bellow
Event of Interest
1979 Israeli minister of Foreign affairs Moshe Dayan resigns
Moshe Dayan
Election of Interest
1980 Mikhail Gorbachev elected member of Politburo
Mikhail Gorbachev
Event of Interest
1982 Private funeral service held for Bess Truman, former First Lady of the United States
Bess Truman
Appointment of Interest
1983 Pope John Paul II names 3 new Dutch bishops
John Paul II
- 1985 Qasim Omar (206) & Javed Miandad (203*) make 397 stand v SL
- 1986 Hugh Whitemore's "Breaking the Code" premieres in London
- 1986 IBM re-forms in South Africa
- 1986 Republic of Marshall Islands signs Compact of Free Association with US
- 1986 American writer Edward Tracy kidnapped in Beirut
- 1987 7th Belgium government of Martens forms
- 1987 Nobel Prize in Economics awarded to Robert M Solow
- 1987 Senate debate begins rejecting Robert Bork's Supreme Ct nomination
Event of Interest
1988 Philippine former first couple Ferdinand & Imelda Marcos indicted on racketeering charges
Imelda Marcos
Event of Interest
1991 Former California Governor Jerry Brown announces his run for the US Presidency
Jerry Brown
- 1991 US hostage Jesse Turner released from 5 years in captivity in Beirut
- 1993 Military coup by Burundi President Ndadaye; 525,000 Hutus flee
- 1994 Hana bridge is Seoul Korea crashes, 32+ die
- 1994 North Korea signs pact to end their nuclear projects
- 1995 Addison Vance, 18, of Hickory NC, crowned 7th Ms Venus Swimwear
- 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.
Canonization
2012 Kateri Tekakwitha canonized as the 1st Native American saint by Pope Benedict XVI
Benedict XVI
Event of Interest
2013 The Parliament of Canada confers Honorary Canadian citizenship on women's rights and education activist Malala Yousafzai
Malala Yousafzai
- 2014 Oscar Pistorius is sentenced to five years in prison for killing his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp
Event of Interest
2015 German Chancellor Angela Merkel says German view of Holocaust will not change, after Benjamin Netanyahu says idea came from Mufti of Jerusalem
Angela Merkel
Benjamin Netanyahu
- 2017 Spanish government suspends Catalonia's autonomy in the face of a deepening political crisis over the region's push for independence
- 2018 Train derails in Yilan County, Taiwan, killing 18 and injuring 178
- 2018 Sectarian fighting between Muslim and Christian youths kill 55 at Kasuwan Magani, Nigeria
October in History
The Tragedy of Aberfan
One hundred and sixteen young children died on this day when an avalanche of coal tip waste and debris thundered down a hillside and engulfed their school.
October 21, 1966Jumping 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, 1797Test 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 BCThe 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
