This Day In History...

[Yana]

October 9th

[Yana]

October 10th...

1845

The U.S. Naval Academy opened in Annapolis, Md.

1886

The tuxedo dinner jacket made its debut at a ball in Tuxedo Park, N.Y.

1911

Sun Yat-sen's revolutionaries overthrew the Manchu dynasty in China.

1935

George Gershwin's opera Porgy and Bess debuted on Broadway.

1943

Chiang Kai-shek took the oath of office as president of China.

1970

Fiji gained its independence from Great Britain.

1973

Vice President Spiro Agnew resigned after being charged with tax evasion.

2001

California representative Nancy Pelosi became minority whip.

2002

The US Congress gave President Bush authorization to use military force against Iraq.

[Yana]

October 11...

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.

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

1634 - the Burchardi flood

[Yana]

October 12th...

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.[citation needed]

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.

1945 - World War II: Desmond Doss and others receive the Medal Of Honor on the White Houselawn from Harry S. Truman.

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 F

[Yana]

October 13...

54 - Nero ascends to the Roman throne

409 - Vandals and Alans cross the Pyrenees and appear in Hispania.

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 is 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.

1881 - Revival of the Hebrew language as Eliezer Ben-Yehuda and friends agree to use Hebrew exclusively in their conversations.

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

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

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 F

[Yana]

October 14th...

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 - Seven Years' War: 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-Auerst

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October 15...

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.

1938 - The District of Columbia formally adopts a design for its flag

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 G

[Yana]

October 16th...

456 - Magister militum Ricimer defeats the Emperor Avitus at Piacenza and becomes master of the western Roman Empire.

1775 - Portland, Maine burnt by the British.

1780 - Royalton, Vermont and Tunbridge, Vermont last major raid of the American Revolutionary War.

1781 - George Washington captures Yorktown, Virginia after the Siege of Yorktown.

1793 - Marie Antoinette, wife of Louis XVI, is guillotined at the height of the French Revolution.

1793 - Battle of Wattignies.

1813 - The Sixth Coalition attacks Napoleon Bonaparte in the Battle of Leipzig.

1834 - Much of the ancient structures of the Palace of Westminster in London is burnt down.

1841 - Queen's University is founded in Kingston, Ontario, Canada.

1843 - Sir William Rowan Hamilton comes up with the idea of quaternions, a non-commutative extension of complex numbers.

1859 - John Brown leads raid on Harper's Ferry, West Virginia

1869 - Cardiff Giant, one of the most famous American hoaxes, is discovered.

1869 - England's first residential college for women, Girton College, Cambridge, is founded.

1875 - Brigham Young University is founded in Provo, Utah.

1882 - The Nickel Plate Railroad opens for business.

1905 - The Partition of Bengal (India) occurred.

1906 - The Captain of K

[Yana]

October 17th...

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.

1091 - T8/F4 tornado strikes the heart of London.

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 Cura

[Yana]

October 18th...

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 P

[Yana]

October 18th...

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.

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 Parna