Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/October
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| << | Selected anniversaries for October | >> | ||||
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| An archive of historical anniversaries that appeared on the Main Page 2006 day arrangement |
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October 1: Yom Kippur in Judaism (begins at sunset, 2006); National Day in the People's Republic of China (1949); Independence Day in Cyprus and Nigeria (both 1960), Tuvalu (1978) and Palau (1994).
- 331 BC - Alexander the Great of Macedon defeated Darius III of Persia in the Battle of Gaugamela, and was subsequently crowned "King of Asia" in a ceremony in Arbela.
- 1850 - The University of Sydney, Australia's oldest university, was established.
- 1936 - Francisco Franco was declared Generalísimo and head of state during the Spanish Civil War.
- 1958 - NASA began operations, replacing the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA).
- 1964 - Tōkaidō Shinkansen, the first Shinkansen line of high-speed railways in Japan, opened. (0 Series Shinkansen train pictured)
Recent days: September 30 – September 29 – September 28
October 2: Labour Day in New South Wales, Australian Capital Territory and South Australia (2006); Independence Day in Guinea (1958), Gandhi Jayanti in India.
- 1187 - The Siege of Jerusalem: Ayyubid forces led by Saladin captured Jerusalem, prompting the Third Crusade.
- 1535 - French explorer Jacques Cartier sailed along the St. Lawrence River and reached an Iroquois fort on the island now known as Montréal.
- 1835 - Mexican dragoons dispatched to disarm settlers at Gonzales, Texas encountered stiff resistance from a Texian militia in the Battle of Gonzales, the first armed engagement of the Texas Revolution.
- 1928 - Saint Josemaría Escrivá (pictured) founded Opus Dei, a worldwide organization of lay members of the Roman Catholic Church.
- 1950 - Peanuts, a syndicated comic strip by Charles M. Schulz, featuring Charlie Brown and his pet beagle Snoopy, was first published in major newspapers.
Recent days: October 1 – September 30 – September 29
- 2333 BC - Dangun, a mythical figure, established the Kingdom of Go-Joseon (present-day Korea).
- 1283 - Dafydd ap Gruffydd the Prince of Wales, the last native ruler of Wales to resist English domination, was executed by drawing and quartering.
- 1935 - Italy invaded Ethiopia, igniting the Second Italo-Abyssinian War.
- 1990 - German reunification (reunited country flag pictured): The five re-established German states (Bundesländer) of East Germany formally joined West Germany.
- 1993 - Soldiers from Malaysian, Pakistani and U.S. armed forces attempted to capture Somalian warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid in the Battle of Mogadishu.
Recent days: October 2 – October 1 – September 30
October 4: Independence Day in Lesotho (1966); Feast Day of St. Francis of Assisi (Catholicism); World Animal Day.
- 1830 - Belgian Revolution: A provisional government in Brussels declared the creation of the independent and neutral state of Belgium, in revolt against the United Kingdom of the Netherlands.
- 1883 - The Orient Express began operations.
- 1910 - Manuel II (pictured), the last King of Portugal, fled to the United Kingdom when a revolution erupted in Lisbon and his palace was shelled. The Portuguese First Republic was proclaimed the next day.
- 1957 - Soviet spacecraft Sputnik 1 was launched by an R-7 rocket from Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakh SSR and became the first artificial satellite to orbit the Earth.
- 1993 - Russian Constitutional Crisis: In Moscow, tanks bombarded the White House, a government building that housed the Russian parliament, while demonstrators against President Boris Yeltsin rallied outside.
Recent days: October 3 – October 2 – October 1
October 5: Republic Day in Portugal (1910)
- 1877 - After battling U.S. armed forces for more than three months, retreating over 1,000 miles across Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and Montana, and enduring a five-day siege, Chief Joseph (pictured) and his Nez Percé band finally surrendered.
- 1908 - Prince Ferdinand became the first Tsar of Bulgaria since the Ottoman invasion in the 14th century.
- 1930 - The British airship R101 crashed in France en route to India on its maiden voyage, killing 48 passengers and crew.
- 1969 - The first episode of Monty Python's Flying Circus was broadcast on BBC1.
- 1970 - Members of the Front de Libération du Québec kidnapped a British diplomat, sparking the October Crisis in Montréal, Canada.
Recent days: October 4 – October 3 – October 2
October 6: Sukkot in Judaism begins at sunset, Mid-Autumn Festival in the Chinese lunar calendar (2006); German-American Day in the United States.
- 105 BC - The Cimbri and the Teutons inflicted a major defeat on the Roman Republic in the Battle of Arausio.
- 1927 - The first successful talking movie The Jazz Singer, starring Al Jolson, was released.
- 1976 - Premier Hua Guofeng ordered the arrest of the Gang of Four and their associates, putting an end to the Cultural Revolution in China.
- 1981 - Egyptian President Mohamed Anwar el-Sadat (pictured) was assassinated while attending a parade in Cairo to mark the eighth anniversary of the Crossing of the Bar Lev Line at the start of the 1973 Arab-Israeli War.
- 1995 - An article in the journal Nature reported the discovery of a planet orbiting 51 Pegasi as the first known extrasolar planet around a main-sequence star.
Recent days: October 5 – October 4 – October 3
October 7: Feast Day of St. Osyth
- 3761 BCE - The epoch of the modern Hebrew calendar.
- 1571 - The Ottoman Empire was decisively defeated by the Christian West for the first time, as a multinational fleet led by Don John of Austria crushed the Turkish navy near the Gulf of Corinth in the Battle of Lepanto (painting by Paolo Veronese pictured).
- 1949 - The German Democratic Republic was proclaimed in East Berlin.
- 1959 - Soviet spacecraft Luna 3 captured the first photographs of the far side of the Moon.
- 1985 - The Mediterranean ocean liner Achille Lauro was hijacked by Palestine Liberation Front terrorists while sailing from Alexandria to Port Said.
Recent days: October 6 – October 5 – October 4
- 451: The Council of Chalcedon, the fourth ecumenical council in Christianity, opened. It repudiated the Eutychian doctrine of monophysitism, and set forth the Chalcedonian Creed.
- 1871: Two historic fires, the Great Chicago Fire and Wisconsin's Peshtigo Fire, broke out in the U.S. Midwest.
- 1962: The Spiegel scandal: Newsmagazine Der Spiegel uncovered the sorry state of the West German armed forces (the Bundeswehr), then facing the communist threat from the east. The magazine was accused of treason shortly afterwards.
- 1967: Marxist revolutionary and guerrilla leader Che Guevara (pictured) was captured near La Higuera, Bolivia.
- 2005: A major earthquake killed over 74,500 people in Pakistan, India, and Afghanistan.
Recent days: October 7 – October 6 – October 5
October 9: Thanksgiving in Canada (2006), Hangul Day in South Korea (1446), Leif Erikson Day and Columbus Day in the United States.
- 1514 - Mary Tudor (pictured), sister of Henry VIII of England, became queen consort of France.
- 1831 - John Capodistria, the Greek head of state, was assassinated in Náfplio.
- 1888 - The Washington Monument, then the world's tallest building, officially opened to the general public.
- 1919 - The Black Sox scandal: The Cincinnati Reds "defeated" "Shoeless Joe" Jackson and the Chicago White Sox to "win" the World Series major league baseball championship by 5 games to 3.
- 1962 - Uganda became independent from the United Kingdom, with Milton Obote as the first Prime Minister.
Recent days: October 8 – October 7 – October 6
October 10: National Day in Fiji (1970), Double Tenth Day in the Republic of China.
- 732: Battle of Tours: Charles Martel and the Franks defeated a large Andalusian Muslim army led by Abd er Rahman near Tours and Poitiers, stopping the northward advance of Islam from the Iberian Peninsula.
- 1911: The Xinhai Revolution began with the Wuchang Uprising, marking the beginning of the collapse of the Qing Dynasty in China.
- 1973: United States Vice President Spiro Agnew (pictured) resigned after being charged with tax evasion.
- 1982: St. Maximilian Kolbe, who had volunteered to die in place of another man in a Nazi concentration camp, was canonized by the Roman Catholic Church.
- 1987: After two military coups in Fiji led by Sitiveni Rabuka, the military government revoked the constitution and declared Fiji a republic.
Recent days: October 9 – October 8 – October 7
October 11: General Pulaski Memorial Day and National Coming Out Day in the United States.
- 1865 - The Morant Bay rebellion, led by Paul Bogle and George William Gordon, began in Jamaica and was brutally suppressed by Governor Edward John Eyre.
- 1899 - The Second Boer War erupted in South Africa between the United Kingdom and the Boers.
- 1954 - Ho Chi Minh (pictured) and the Viet Minh took control of North Vietnam.
- 1962 - Pope John XXIII convened the Second Vatican Council, the first Roman Catholic ecumenical council in 92 years.
- 1968 - NASA launched Apollo 7, the first manned mission of the Apollo program.
Recent days: October 10 – October 9 – October 8
October 12: Hispanic Day in Spain, Day of Indigenous Resistance in Venezuela, Our Lady Aparecida's Day & Children's Day in Brazil.
- 1492 - Christopher Columbus made landfall in the Caribbean, believing he has reached East Asia.
- 1810 - The first Oktoberfest was held in Munich, to celebrate the wedding of Prince Ludwig I of Bavaria.
- 1859 - Self-described "Emperor of the United States and Protector of Mexico" Joshua A. Norton (pictured) "ordered" the United States Congress to dissolve.
- 1984 - The Provisional Irish Republican Army failed in its attempt to assassinate British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and most of her cabinet in the Brighton hotel bombing.
- 2002 - A series of car bombs exploded in Bali, Indonesia, killing 202 people and injuring a further 209.
Recent days: October 11 – October 10 – October 9
October 13: Shemini Atzeret/Simchat Torah in Judaism begins at sunset (2006)
- 54 - Claudius was fatally poisoned by his wife Agrippina the Younger, making her 17-year-old son Nero the next Roman Emperor.
- 1307 - Thousands of members of the Knights Templar (seal pictured) were simultaneously arrested by agents of Phillip the Fair and subsequently tortured into "admitting" heresy.
- 1843 - The Independent Order of B'nai B'rith, the oldest continually-operating Jewish service organization in the world, was founded in New York City.
- 1917 - An estimated 70,000 people in the Cova da Iria fields near Fátima, Portugal witnessed "The Miracle of the Sun."
- 1943 - World War II: With a new government led by General Pietro Badoglio, parts of Italy switched sides to the Allies and declared war on the Axis Powers.
Recent days: October 12 – October 11 – October 10
October 14: Simchat Torah in Judaism begins at sunset (2006), Teachers' Day in Poland.
- 1066 - Battle of Hastings: The Norman invasion forces of William the Conqueror (pictured) defeated the English army and killed Harold Godwinson, the last crowned Anglo-Saxon king of England.
- 1773 - The first recorded ministry of education, the Commission of National Education, was formed in Poland.
- 1947 - Flying a Bell X-1, test pilot Chuck Yeager became the first person to break the sound barrier.
- 1981 - Hosni Mubarak was elected President of Egypt, one week after Anwar Sadat was assassinated.
Recent days: October 13 – October 12 – October 11
October 15: Simchat Torah in Judaism ends at sunset (2006); White Cane Safety Day in the United States.
- 1582 - The Gregorian calendar was implemented to replace the Julian calendar, in use since 45 BC.
- 1988 - Tom was born.
- 1894 - The Dreyfus affair: Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish artillery officer in the French military, was wrongly arrested for treason.
- 1917 - Dutch exotic dancer Mata Hari (pictured) was executed by a firing squad for spying for Germany.
- 1987 - The Great Storm of 1987 hit France and England.
- 2003 - Chinese space program: Shenzhou 5, China's first manned space mission was launched, carrying astronaut Yang Liwei.
Recent days: October 14 – October 13 – October 12
- 456 - Magister militum Ricimer defeated Emperor Avitus at Piacenza and became master of the Western Roman Empire.
- 1813 - The Sixth Coalition attacked Napoleon and the First French Empire in the Battle of Leipzig, the largest conflict in the Napoleonic Wars.
- 1843 - William Rowan Hamilton first wrote down the fundamental formula for quaternions on Broom Bridge in Dublin, Ireland.
- 1940 - World War II: Hans Frank established the Warsaw Ghetto, the largest Jewish ghetto in occupied Poland.
- 1978 - Karol Józef Wojtyła, a cardinal from Kraków, Poland, became Pope John Paul II (pictured), the first non-Italian pope since the 16th century and the first ever from a Slavic country.
Recent days: October 15 – October 14 – October 13
October 17: International Day for the Eradication of Poverty
- 1346 - King David II of Scotland led an invasion of England during the Hundred Years' War, but was captured in the Battle of Neville's Cross.
- 1604 - Kepler's Star: German astronomer Johannes Kepler (pictured) observed an exceptionally bright star which had suddenly appeared in the constellation Ophiuchus.
- 1662 - King Charles II of England sold Dunkerque to France for £40,000.
- 1977 - German Autumn: Four days after it was hijacked, Lufthansa Flight 181 landed in Mogadishu, Somalia, where a team of German GSG 9 commandos rescued all remaining hostages on board.
- 2003 - The pinnacle was fitted on the roof of the 106-floor skyscraper Taipei 101 in Taipei, allowing it to surpass the Petronas Twin Towers in Kuala Lumpur and become the world's tallest building.
Recent days: October 16 - October 15 - October 14
October 18: Alaska Day; Feast day of Saint Luke.
- 1009 - The Church of the Holy Sepulchre, a Christian church now within the walled Old City of Jerusalem, was destroyed by the "mad" Fatimid caliph Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah.
- 1016 - Danish forces led by Canute the Great decisively defeated Edmund Ironside in the Battle of Ashingdon, gaining control over most of the Kingdom of England.
- 1851 - Moby-Dick, a novel by Herman Melville (pictured), was first published as The Whale.
- 1922 - The British Broadcasting Company was founded by a consortium to establish a network of radio transmitters to provide a national broadcasting service in the United Kingdom.
- 1954 - Texas Instruments introduced the first transistor radio.
Recent days: October 17 – October 16 – October 15
October 19: Constitution Day in Niue (1974); Mother Teresa Day in Albania.
- 202 BC - Proconsul Scipio Africanus of the Roman Republic defeated Hannibal and the Carthaginians in the Battle of Zama, concluding the Second Punic War.
- 1469 - Ferdinand II of Aragon wedded Isabella of Castile (pictured), a marriage that paved the way to the unification of Aragon and Castile into a single country, Spain.
- 1781 - American Revolutionary War: British forces led by Lord Cornwallis officially surrendered to Franco-American forces under George Washington, ending the Siege of Yorktown.
- 1943 - Streptomycin, the first antibiotic remedy for tuberculosis, was first isolated by researchers at Rutgers University.
- 1987 - The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell by 22% on Black Monday, the second largest one-day percentage decline in history.
Recent days: October 18 – October 17 – October 16
October 20: Al-Quds Day in Iran (2006); Birth of the Báb, a holy day in the Bahá'í Faith.
- 1740 - Maria Theresa (pictured) assumed the throne of Austria, following the Pragmatic Sanction of 1713.
- 1818 - The United Kingdom and the United States signed the Treaty of 1818, which settled the Canada-United States border on the 49th parallel for most of its length.
- 1827 - An allied British, French, and Russian naval force destroyed a combined Turkish and Egyptian fleet at the Battle of Navarino, a decisive moment in the Greek War of Independence.
- 1941 - World War II: Thousands of civilians in Kragujevac in German-occupied Serbia were killed in the Kragujevac massacre.
- 1973 - The Sydney Opera House in Sydney, Australia was formally opened by Queen Elizabeth II.
Recent days: October 19 – October 18 – October 17
October 21: Diwali in Hinduism, Sikhism, Jainism, and Buddhism (2006); Overseas Chinese Day in Taiwan.
- 1805 - Napoleonic Wars: Lord Nelson led the British fleet to victory in the Battle of Trafalgar, defeating Pierre-Charles Villeneuve and his combined French and Spanish navy.
- 1824 - English stonemason, bricklayer and inventor Joseph Aspdin patented Portland cement.
- 1854 - Florence Nightingale (pictured) and a staff of 38 nurses were sent to the Crimean War.
- 1944 - World War II: HMAS Australia was hit in the first kamikaze attack; 30 crewmen, including the commanding officer, were killed.
- 1969 - Siad Barre became President after a military coup in Somalia.
Recent days: October 20 – October 19 – October 18
October 22: International Stuttering Awareness Day
- 1383 - In Portugal, a period of civil war and anarchy began when King Ferdinand I died without a male heir to the Portuguese throne.
- 1844 - Millerites and members of the Seventh-day Adventist Church were greatly disappointed that Jesus did not return as predicted by preacher William Miller (pictured).
- 1924 - Toastmasters International was founded.
- 1962 - Cuban Missile Crisis: U.S. President John F. Kennedy announced on television that Soviet nuclear weapons had been discovered in Cuba and that he had ordered a naval "quarantine" of the island nation.
- 1999 - Vichy France official Maurice Papon was jailed for crimes against humanity committed during World War II.
Recent days: October 21 – October 20 – October 19
October 23: Eid ul-Fitr in Islam begins at sunset, Labour Day in New Zealand (2006); Chulalongkorn Memorial Day in Thailand.
- 4004 BC - The universe was created, according to the Ussher-Lightfoot Calendar.
- 1906 - Early flight: Alberto Santos-Dumont (pictured) flew the 14-bis aircraft for over 200 feet at an altitude of about 10 feet.
- 1958 - Belgian cartoonist Peyo introduced a new set of comic strip characters, The Smurfs.
- 1983 - Lebanese Civil War: Suicide bombers destroyed two barracks in Beirut, Lebanon, killing 241 U.S. Marines and 58 French paratroopers of the international peacekeeping force.
- 2002 - Chechen rebels seized a crowded theater in Moscow, taking approximately 700 theatergoers and performers hostage in the Moscow theater hostage crisis.
Recent days: October 22 – October 21 – October 20
October 24: Eid ul-Fitr (2006); United Nations Day; Independence Day in Zambia (1964).
- 1260 - The Cathedral of Chartres (pictured) was dedicated in the presence of King Louis IX of France.
- 1648 - The Peace of Westphalia was signed, ending the Thirty Years' War and "officially" recognizing the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands and Swiss Confederation as independent states.
- 1929 - The Great Depression: The New York Stock Exchange crashed on "Black Thursday", setting off a chain of bankruptcies and triggering a worldwide economic depression.
- 1945 - The UN Charter, the constitution of the United Nations, entered into force.
- 1960 - A prototype of the Soviet R-16 intercontinental ballistic missile exploded on the launch pad at the Baikonur Cosmodrome, killing over 100 people in the Nedelin catastrophe.
Recent days: October 23 – October 22 – October 21
October 25: Republic Day in Kazakhstan (1990); Retrocession Day in Taiwan; Armed Forces Day in Romania.
- 1147 - Reconquista: Forces under King Afonso I of Portugal captured Lisbon from the Moors after a four-month siege during the Second Crusade.
- 1415 - Hundred Years' War: Henry V of England and his lightly armoured infantry and archers defeated the heavily armoured French cavalry in the Battle of Agincourt (pictured) on Saint Crispin's Day.
- 1616 - The Dutch sailing ship Eendracht reached Shark Bay on the western coastline of Australia, as documented on the Hartog Plate.
- 1922 - The Third Dáil adopted the Constitution of the Irish Free State.
- 1971 - The People's Republic of China replaced the Republic of China as China's representative at the United Nations.
Recent days: October 24 – October 23 – October 22
October 26: Angam Day in Nauru, National Day in Austria.
- 1597 - Twelve Korean ships commanded by Admiral Yi Sunsin defeated a large Japanese invasion fleet in the Battle of Myeongnyang.
- 1863 - The Football Association, the oldest governing body in football, was formed in London in England.
- 1881 - The Gunfight at the O.K. Corral took place in Tombstone, Arizona, United States.
- 1937 - Second Sino-Japanese War: Xie Jinyuan and his 'Lone Battalion' of Chinese soldiers began the Defense of Sihang Warehouse against waves of Japanese attackers during the Battle of Shanghai.
- 1955 - Prime Minister Ngô Đình Diệm (pictured) became the first President of South Vietnam, replacing Nguyễn Emperor Bảo Đại as the head of state.
Recent days: October 25 – October 24 – October 23
October 27: Independence Day in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines (1979) and Turkmenistan (1991)
- 1553 - Condemned as a heretic, Michael Servetus was burned at the stake outside Geneva.
- 1904 - The first section of the New York City Subway opened, running between City Hall and the Bronx.
- 1958 - General Ayub Khan deposed Iskander Mirza in a bloodless coup d'état to become the second President of Pakistan, less than 3 weeks after Mirza had appointed him the enforcer of martial law.
- 1961 - NASA launched the first Saturn I rocket (pictured).
- 1971 - The Democratic Republic of the Congo was renamed Zaire.
Recent days: October 26 – October 25 – October 24
October 28: Okhi Day in Greece (1940)
- 312 - Roman Emperor Constantine the Great defeated Maxentius in the Battle of Milvian Bridge, ending the Tetrarchy. According to legends, he credited his victory to the god of the Christians.
- 1886 - In New York Harbor, U.S. President Grover Cleveland dedicated the Statue of Liberty (pictured), a gift from France, to commemorate the centennial of the United States Declaration of Independence.
- 1918 - Czechoslovakia gained its independence from Austria-Hungary.
- 1922 - The Fascist Blackshirts marched on Rome to take over the Italian government.
- 1940 - Italy invaded Greece from Albania, as part of the Balkans Campaign in World War II.
Recent days: October 27 – October 26 – October 25
October 29: Republic Day in Turkey
- 1268 - Conradin, the last Duke of Swabia, was beheaded in Naples after failing to reclaim Sicily for the House of Hohenstaufen from Charles of Anjou.
- 1787 - Mozart's opera Don Giovanni received its first performance in Prague.
- 1923 - Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (pictured) became the first President of the Republic of Turkey, a new nation founded from remnants of the Ottoman Empire.
- 1956 - The Suez Crisis began: Israel invaded the Sinai Peninsula and pushed Egyptian forces back toward the Suez Canal.
- 1998 - After more than three decades, 77-year old John Glenn returned to space aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery on STS-95, to study the effects of space flight on the elderly.
Recent days: October 28 – October 27 – October 26
October 30: Double Ninth Festival in the Chinese calendar (2006)
- 1470 - Richard Neville, the Earl of Warwick, restored Henry VI as the King of England during the Wars of the Roses.
- 1831 - African American slave Nat Turner was captured after leading a brutally suppressed slave rebellion.
- 1905 - Russian Revolution: Tsar Nicholas II (pictured) reluctantly signed the "October Manifesto", establishing the State Duma as the elected legislature in Imperial Russia.
- 1938 - The radio drama The War of the Worlds frightened many listeners in the United States into believing that an actual Martian invasion was in progress.
- 1961 - The Soviet hydrogen bomb Tsar Bomba was detonated over Novaya Zemlya Island in the Arctic Sea as a test; with a yield of around 50 megatons, it was the largest nuclear weapon ever detonated.
Recent days: October 29 – October 28 – October 27
October 31: Halloween, Reformation Day in Protestantism
- 1517 - According to traditional accounts, Martin Luther (pictured) nailed his 95 Theses onto the door of a church in Wittenberg, Germany, marking the beginning of the Protestant Reformation.
- 1863 - The New Zealand land wars resumed as British forces in New Zealand led by General Duncan Cameron began their Invasion of the Waikato along the Waikato River.
- 1922 - Benito Mussolini became the youngest Premier in the history of Italy at age 39.
- 1941 - Gutzon Borglum and 400 workers completed the colossal busts of U.S. Presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln at Mount Rushmore.
- 1984 - Prime Minister Indira Gandhi of India was assassinated by two of her own bodyguards. Riots soon broke out in New Delhi.
Recent days: October 30 – October 29 – October 28
