- 1137 Battle of Rignano between Ranulf of Apulia and Roger II of Sicily.
- 1270 The Eighth Crusade and siege of Tunis ended by 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 Battle (or Tarifa): King Afonso IV of Portugal and King Alfonso XI of Castile defeat Sultan Abu al-Hasan 'Ali of Morocco and Yusuf I of Granada, last Marīnids invasion of Iberian Peninsula
- 1389 French King Charles VI visits pope Clemens VII
- 1468 Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, occupies & plunders Liege
- 1470 Wars of the Roses: Henry VI of England returns to the English throne after Earl of Warwick defeats Yorkists in battle
- 1485 Henry VII of England crowned at Westminster Abbey
- 1489 Peace of Tours, between emperor Maximilian I & Flemings
Event of Interest
1502 Vasco da Gama returns to Calicut, India for the second time.
Vasco da Gama
- 1697 Germany signs French/English/Spanish/Dutch/Brandenburgs peace treaty ending Nine Year War
- 1739 Great Britain declares war on Spain: War of Jenkin's Ear [NS=Oct 19]
- 1766 St. Paul's Chapel in New York is consecrated
- 1768 First Methodist church in North American colonies initiated (Wesley Chapel, NYC)
Event of Interest
1772 Captain James Cook arrives with ship Resolution in Capetown
James Cook
Event of Interest
1866 Jesse James' gang robs bank in Lexington, Missouri ($2000)
Jesse James
- 1868 John Menard of Louisiana is 1st African American elected to US Congress
- 1873 P T Barnum's circus, "Greatest Show on Earth", debuts (New York City)
- 1883 Austria-Hungary, Germany and Romania sign military treaty
- 1886 Great Britain and Germany agree boundaries in East Africa
- 1888 John J Loud patents ballpoint pen
Event of Interest
1888 Ndebele-king Lobengula grants Cecil Rhodes, Mashonaland £100 per month
Cecil Rhodes
- 1893 US Senate approves repealing Sherman Silver Purchase Act of 1890
- 1894 Daniel Cooper patents time clock
- 1894 Domenico Melegatti obtains a patent for a procedure to be applied in industrial production of pandoro (a traditional Italian sweet yeast bread).
- 1896 Martha Hughes Cannon of Utah becomes 1st female senator
- 1899 Battle of Ladysmith, Natal: Boers defeat the British, leading to the Siege of Ladysmith
Event of Interest
1899 British Morning Post reporter Winston Churchill reaches Capetown
Winston Churchill
Event of Interest
1905 "October Manifesto" Russian Tsar Nicholas II grants civil liberties and accepts the first Duma (Parliament)
Nicholas II
Event of Interest
1905 George Bernard Shaw's "Mrs Warren's Profession" premieres in NYC
George Bernard Shaw
Event of Interest
1917 British government gives final approval to Balfour Declaration
Arthur Balfour
Event of Interest
1922 Benito Mussolini forms government in Italy
Benito Mussolini
Agreement of Interest
1939 USSR & Germany agree on partitioning Poland, Adolf Hitler deports Jews
Adolf Hitler
- 1939 German U boat fails on attack of English battleship Nelson with Winston Churchill, Dudley Pound & Charles Forbes aboard
- 1942 8th day of battle at El Alamein: new Australian assault
- 1942 US aircraft carrier Enterprise reaches Noumea
Vyacheslav Molotov
- 1943 Soviet forces under Fyodor Ivanovich Tolbukhin commenced offensive on the 4th Ukranian Front
Event of Interest
1944 Anne Frank is deported from Auschwitz to Belsen
Anne Frank
- 1944 Last transport for Auschwitz arrives in Birkenau
- 1944 Scots Highlanders liberate Waalwijk
- 1944 Sweden announces intention to stay neutral & refuse sanctuary in WW II
- 1944 Tholen Island (Netherlands) freed during WWII
- 1945 US government announces end of shoe rationing
- 1947 23 countries sign GATT agreement in Geneva
- 1948 20 die & 6,000 made ill by smog in Donora, Pennsylvania
- 1948 Operation Hiram: Israelis take control of Galilee
- 1950 Pope Pius XII witnesses "The Miracle of the Sun" while at the Vatican
- 1951 US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
Event of Interest
1952 Clarence Birdseye sells first frozen peas
Clarence Birdseye
Nobel Prize
1953 Dr Albert Schweitzer & Gen George Marshall win Nobel Peace Prize
George Marshall
- 1954 US Defense Department announces elimination of all racially segregated regiments
- 1955 Imtiaz Ahmed scores 209 v NZ, the record for a no 8 batsman
- 1955 Businessman and horse breeder William Woodward, Jr. is shot dead by his wife Ann Cromwell after she mistook him for an intruder
- 1956 Israel captures Egyptian military post at El-Thamad
- 1957 Soviet Union launches Sputnik II, carrying a dog named Laika
- 1960 Guatemala's "La Hora" reports plan for invasion on Cuba
- 1960 Michael Woodruff performs the first successful kidney transplant in the United Kingdom at the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary.
- 1961 Soviet Union tests a 58 megaton hydrogen bomb named Tsar Bomba, the most powerful nuclear weapon ever detonated
Event of Interest
1961 Soviet Party Congress unanimously approves a resolution removing Stalin's body from Lenin's tomb in Red Square
Joseph Stalin
- 1962 US performs atmospheric nuclear test at Johnston Island
- 1963 Morocco & Algeria sign cease fire
- 1963 Sandy Koufax wins NL MVP award
- 1964 Tran Van Huong appointed premier of South Vietnam
- 1965 Fireworks explosions kill 50 in Cartagena, Colombia
- 1967 USSR Kosmos 186 & 188 make 1st automatic docking & Venmera 13 launch
- 1968 Nobel prize for chemistry awarded to Lars Onsager (thermodynamics)
- 1968 Nobel prize for physics awarded to Luis Alvarez (bubble chamber)
- 1968 Queen Juliana opens IJ tunnel in Amsterdam
Meeting of Interest
1968 Jack Lynch, Irish Prime Minister (Taoiseach), meets with Harold Wilson, then British Prime Minister, in London, calling for the ending of partition as a means to resolve the unrest in Northern Ireland
Harold Wilson
- 1970 There are serious riots in the Catholic Ardoyne area of Belfast which last for three nights
- 1970 Northern Ireland Prime Minister James Chichester-Clark meets with British Home Secretary Reginald Maulling to discuss matters related to reforms and security
- 1972 Worst US rail accident in 14 years; 45 die in Chicago, llinois
- 1972 The Northern Ireland Office issues a discussion document 'The Future of Northern Ireland'; the paper states Britain's commitment to the union as long as the majority of people wish to remain part of the United Kingdom
- 1972 Loyalist paramilitaries carry out a raid on Royal Ulster Constabulary station in County Derry, and steal 4 British Army Sterling sub-machine Guns
- 1973 Tom Seaver becomes 1st non-20-game winner to win Cy Young award
Opening of the Bosphorus Bridge
1973 The Bosphorus Bridge in Istanbul, Turkey is completed, connecting the continents of Europe and Asia over the Bosporus for the first time
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- 1974 Catfish Hunter is named AL Cy Young Award
- 1975 King Juan Carlos assumes power in Spain
- 1975 NY Daily News runs headline "Ford to City: Drop Dead"
- 1976 Jane Pauley becomes news co-anchor of Today Show
- 1976 Rev Joseph Evans elected president of United Church of Christ
- 1977 Panama 747SP lands after polar flight around Earth in record 54:07
- 1978 Laura Nickel & Curt Noll find 25th Mersenne prime, 2 ^ 21701-1
- 1978 Uganda troops attack Tanzania
- 1979 NASA launches space vehicle S-203
- 1979 Richard Arrington, Jr. is elected the first African American mayor in Birmingham, Alabama
- 1980 Honduras and El Salvador sign a peace treaty ending the "Football War"
- 1980 NASA launches Flt Satcom-4
- 1982 Portugal revises constitution
- 1983 The first democratic elections are held in Argentina after seven years of military rule.
- 1984 Tigers reliever Willie Hernandez wins AL Cy Young Award
- 1985 22nd Space Shuttle Mission (61-A)-Challenger 9-launched
- 1986 Discovery moves to OPF where more than 200 modifications are made
- 1987 In Japan, NEC releases the first 16-bit home entertainment system, the TurboGrafx-16, known as PC Engine.
- 1988 2 gambling clubs & 1 player share 61.38 M California lotto jackpot
- 1988 Jim Elliott (US) completes 24-hr paced outdoor race for 548.9 mi
- 1989 August A. Busch III becomes CEO of St Louis Cards
- 1989 Smith Dairy at Orrville Ohio, makes largest milk shake (1,575.2 gal)
- 1990 Britain and France complete the "Chunnel" under the English Channel
- 1991 Colombian government negotiate with M-19-guerrilla
- 1991 Mid East peace conference begins in Madrid Spain
- 1992 MTA begins installing automated fare collection turnstiles
- 1994 Leftist coalition wins Macedonian parliamentary election
- 1994 Thomas Nicely reports bug in Intel's Pentium-processor on Internet
- 1995 Québec votes in a referendum to remain part of Canada
- 1996 Exxon confirms that it is in talks with state-owned Qatar General Petroleum Corporation concerning the application of new technology to convert natural gas to petroleum products
- 1997 Shirley Allen, 51, held Illinois police off for 39 days captured
- 2005 The rebuilt Dresden Frauenkirche (destroyed in the firebombing of Dresden during World War II) is reconsecrated after a thirteen-year rebuilding project.
- 2013 44 people are killed after a bus catches fire in Mahbubnagar, India
- 2014 Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks win the 2014 Japan Series
- 2016 Canada and the EU sign free trade deal after opposition by Belgium
Event of Interest
2017 President Trump’s former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort and associate Rick Gates are indicted on fraud charges, advisor George Papadopoulos pleads guilty to lying to the FBI
Donald Trump
- 2017 Kenyan election rerun, President Uhuru Kenyatta declared the winner with 38% turnout
- 2017 US federal judge blocks President Trump's ban on transgender people in the military
Event of Interest
2018 Boston mob boss James "Whitey" Bulger killed in prison at the Penitentiary Hazelton in Bruceton Mills, West Virginia
Whitey Bulger
- 2018 WWF conservation group says "exploding human consumption" has caused a 60% decline in all wildlife between 1970 and 2014
- 2018 US Pentagon sends 5,200 troops to Mexican border in advance of migrant caravan from Central America
- 2018 German ex-nurse Niels Högel admits in court to killing over 100 patients, making him one of the world's worst serial killers
October in History
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
The Man Who Saved The World
Many people think John F Kennedy saved the world with his handling of the Cuban missile crisis. But an unknown Russian sailor also played a dramatic role.
October 27, 1962
'Splendid Achievement' becomes the 'Road To Hell'
London's orbital road, the M25 was hailed as a splendid achievement by PM Margaret Thatcher when she opened it on this day. But it soon developed another nickname...
October 29, 1986
Panic Over War of the Worlds
When Orson Welles decided to present the War of the Worlds story in a radio newscast format, his broadcast on this day apparently caused panic across the US.
October 30, 1938