Portal:War/Selected anniversaries/October

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Selected anniversaries in October

October 1

• 331 BC - Alexander the Great defeats Darius III of Persia in the Battle of Gaugamela.
• 1189 - Gerard de Ridefort, grandmaster of the Templars since 1184 is killed in the Siege of Acre.
• 1827 - The Russian army under Ivan Paskevich storms Yerevan, ending a millennium of Muslim domination in Armenia.
• 1943 - World War II: Naples falls to Allied soldiers.

October 2

• 1187 - Siege of Jerusalem: Saladin captures Jerusalem after 88 years of Crusader rule.
• 1263 - Battle of Largs fought between Norwegians and Scots.
• 1552 - Conquest of Kazan by Ivan the Terrible.
• 1835 - The Texas Revolution begins with the Battle of Gonzales: Mexican soldiers attempt to disarm the people of Gonzales, Texas, but encounter stiff resistance from a hastily assembled militia.
• 1864 - American Civil War: Battle of Saltville - Union forces attack Saltville, Virginia, but are defeated by Confederate troops.

October 3

• 42 BC - First Battle of Philippi: Triumvirs Mark Antony and Octavian fight an indecisive battle with Caesar's assassins Brutus and Cassius.
• 1574 - The Siege of Leiden is lifted by the Watergeuzen.
• 1935 - Italy invades Ethiopia under General de Bono (replaced November 11 by Pietro Badoglio).
• 1952 - United Kingdom successfully tests a nuclear weapon.

October 4

• 1777 - Battle of Germantown: troops under George Washington are repelled by British troops under Sir William Howe.
• 1853 - Crimean War: the Ottoman Empire declares war on Russia.

October 5

• 1877 - Chief Joseph surrenders his Nez Perce band to General Nelson A. Miles.
• 1915 - Bulgaria enters World War I as one of the Central Powers.
• 1944 - Canadian Air Force pilots shoot down the first German jet fighter over France.

October 6

• 105 BC - Battle of Arausio: the Cimbri inflict a major defeat on the Roman army of Gnaeus Mallius Maximus.
• 68 BC - Battle of Artaxata: Lucullus averts the bad omen of this day by defeating Tigranes the Great of Armenia.
• 1884 - The Naval War College of the United States Navy was founded in Newport, Rhode Island.
• 1973 - The Crossing: 80,000 Egyptian troops cross the Suez Canal, destroying the fortified Israeli Bar-Lev Line and starting the Yom Kippur War.

October 7

• 1506 - Pope Julius II and France occupy Bologna.
• 1513 - Battle of La Motta: Spanish troops under Ramón de Cardona defeat the Venetians.
• 1571 - The Battle of Lepanto is fought, and the Holy League destroys the Ottoman fleet.
• 1777 - American Revolutionary War: Americans beat the British in the Battle of Second Saratoga and the Battle of Bemis Heights.
• 1864 - Battle of Darbytown Road (American Civil War): the Confederate forces' attempt to regain ground that had been lost around Richmond is thwarted.
• 1940 - Germany invades Romania.
• 1950 - United States forces cross the 38th parallel.

October 8

• 314 - Roman Emperor Licinius is defeated by his colleague Constantine I at the Battle of Cibalae, and loses his European territories.
• 1862 - American Civil War: Battle of Perryville - Union forces under General Don Carlos Buell halt the Confederate invasion of Kentucky by defeating troops led by General Braxton Bragg at Perryville, Kentucky.
• 1912 - First Balkan War begins: Montenegro declares war against Turkey.
• 1918 - World War I - In the Argonne Forest in France, United States Corporal Alvin C. York almost single-handedly kills 25 German soldiers and captures 132.
• 1932 - The Indian Air Force is established.

October 9

• 1812 - War of 1812: In a naval engagement on Lake Erie, American forces capture two British ships, the HMS Detroit and the HMS Caledonia.
• 1864 - American Civil War: Battle of Tom's Brook - Union cavalrymen in the Shenandoah Valley defeat Confederate forces at Tom's Brook, Virginia.
• 1914 - World War I: Siege of Antwerp - Antwerp, Belgium falls to German troops.
• 1940 - World War II: Battle of Britain - During a nighttime air raid by the German Luftwaffe, St. Paul's Cathedral is pierced by a bomb.

October 10

• 680 - Battle of Karbala: Shia Imam Husayn bin Ali, the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad, was decapitated by forces under Caliph Yazid I. This is commemorated by Shi'a Muslims as Aashurah.
• 732 - Battle of Tours: Near Poitiers, France, leader of the Franks, Charles Martel and his men, defeat a large army of Moors, stopping the Muslims from spreading into Western Europe. The governor of Cordoba, Abdul Rahman Al Ghafiqi, is killed during the battle.
• 1471 - Battle of Brunkeberg in Stockholm: Sten Sture the Elder, the Regent of Sweden, with help of farmers and miners, repels an attack by Christian I, King of Denmark.
• 1575 - Battle of Dormans: Catholic forces under Duke Henry of Guise defeated the Protestants, capturing Philippe de Mornay among others.
• 1877 - Lieutenant-Colonel George Armstrong Custer is given a funeral with full military honors.

October 11

• 1776 - American Revolution: Battle of Valcour Island - On Lake Champlain 15 American gunboats are defeated but give Patriot forces enough time to prepare defenses of New York City.
• 1862 - American Civil War: In the aftermath of the Battle of Antietam, Confederate General J.E.B. Stuart and his men loot Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, during a raid into the north.
• 1899 - Second Boer War begins: In South Africa, a war between the United Kingdom and the Boers of the Transvaal and Orange Free State erupts.
• 1942 - World War II: Battle of Cape Esperance - On the northwest coast of Guadalcanal, United States Navy ships intercept and defeat a Japanese fleet on their way to reinforce troops on the island.

October 12

• 539 BC - The army of Cyrus the Great of Persia takes Babylon.
• 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.
• 1942 - The USS Duncan is sunk by Japanese naval gunfire at the Battle of Cape Esperance.

October 13

• 1775 - The United States Continental Congress orders the establishment of the Continental Navy (later renamed the United States Navy).
• 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.
• 1943 - World War II: The new government of Italy sides with the Allies and declares war on Germany.

October 14

• 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.
• 1758 - Austria defeats Prussia at the Battle of Hochkirk.
• 1806 - Battle of Jena-Auerstädt France defeats Prussia.
• 1914 - World War I: German troops occupy Bruges.
• 1939 - World War II: German U-boat U-47 sinks British battleship HMS Royal Oak.
• 1944 - World War II: Allied troops land on Corfu.

October 15

• 1552 - Khanate of Kazan is conquered by troops of Ivan Grozny.
• 1863 - American Civil War: The first submarine to sink a ship, and first to sink an enemy warship, CSS H. L. Hunley sinks during a test, killing its inventor, Horace L. Hunley.
• 1880 - Mexican soldiers kill Victorio, one of the greatest Apache military strategists.
• 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.
• 1945 - World War II: The former premier of Vichy France Pierre Laval is shot by a firing squad for treason.
• 1946 - Nuremberg Trials: Hermann Göring poisons himself the night before his execution.

October 16

• 456 - Magister militum Ricimer defeats the Emperor Avitus at Piacenza and becomes master of the western Roman Empire
• 1813 - The Sixth Coalition attacks Napoleon Bonaparte in the Battle of Leipzig.
• 1946 - Ten war criminals of the Second World War, condemned in the Nuremberg trials hanged.
• 1949 - Nikolaos Zachariadis, leader of the Communist Party of Greece, announces a "temporary cease-fire", effectively ending the Greek Civil War.

October 17

• 1244 - Battle of La Forbie: Crusaders are defeated by Khwarezmians and Egyptians.
• 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 fought an Ottoman army led by Murad II.
• 1777 - American troops defeat the British in the Battle of Saratoga.
• 1912 - Bulgaria, Greece and Serbia declare war on the Ottoman Empire, joining Montenegro in the First Balkan War.
• 1917 - First British bombing of Germany in World War I

October 18

• 1016 - The Danes defeat the Saxons in the Battle of Ashingdon.
• 1561 - Fourth Battle of Kawanakajima - Takeda Shingen defeats Uesugi Kenshin in the climax of their ongoing conflicts.
• 1748 - Signing of the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle ends the War of the Austrian Succession.
• 1860 - The Second Opium War finally ends at the Convention of Peking with the ratification of the Treaty of Tientsin, an unequal treaty.
• 1945 - The USSR's nuclear program receives plans for the USA's plutonium bomb from Klaus Fuchs at the Los Alamos National Laboratory

October 19

• 202 BC - The Battle of Zama results in the defeat of Carthage and Hannibal.
• 439 - The Vandals, led by King Gaiseric, take Carthage in North Africa.
• 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 Toruń. Gdansk Pomerania and Prussia as a whole are incorporated into Poland; the Teutonic Knights are allowed to rule its eastern part as Polish vassals.
• 1864 - Battle of Cedar Creek - Union Army under Philip Sheridan destroys Confederate Army under Jubal Early.
• 1914 - The First Battle of Ypres begins.

October 20

• 1740 - Maria Theresa takes the throne of Austria. France, Prussia, Bavaria and Saxony refuse to honour the Pragmatic Sanction and the War of the Austrian Succession begins.
• 1827 - Battle of Navarino - a combined Turkish and Egyptian armada is destroyed by an allied British, French, and Russian naval force in the port of Navarino in Pylos, Greece.
• 1883 - Peru and Chile sign the Treaty of Ancón, by which the Tarapacá province is ceded to the latter, bringing an end to Peru's involvement in the War of the Pacific.

October 21

• 1600 - Tokugawa Ieyasu defeats the leaders of rival Japanese clans in the Battle of Sekigahara, which marks the beginning of the Tokugawa shogunate, who in effect rule Japan until the mid-Nineteenth century.
• 1797 - In Boston Harbor, the 44-gun United States Navy frigate USS Constitution is launched.
• 1805 - Napoleonic Wars: Battle of Trafalgar - a British fleet led by Admiral Lord Nelson defeats a combined French and Spanish fleet off the coast of Spain under Admiral Villeneuve. It signalled the virtual end of French maritime power and left Britain navally unchallenged until the twentieth century.
• 1854 - Florence Nightingale and a staff of 38 nurses were sent to the Crimean War.
• 1861 - American Civil War: Battle of Ball's Bluff - Union forces under Colonel Edward Baker are defeated by Confederate troops in the second major battle of the war. Baker, a close friend of Abraham Lincoln, is killed in the fighting.
• 1944 - The first kamikaze attack: HMAS Australia was hit by a Japanese plane carrying a 200 kg (441 pound) bomb off Leyte Island, as the Battle of Leyte Gulf began.

October 22

• 1943 - Kassel: RAF conducts an air raid on the city of 236,000 people, killing 10,000, rendering 150,000 homeless. Second firestorm raid in Germany.
• 1957 - Vietnam War: First United States casualties in Vietnam.
• 1962 - Cuban Missile Crisis: US President John F. Kennedy announces that American spy planes have discovered Soviet nuclear weapons in Cuba, and that he has ordered a naval "quarantine" of the island nation.

October 23

• 42 BC - Roman Republican civil wars: Second Battle of Philippi - Brutus's army is decisively defeated by Mark Antony and Octavian. He commits suicide.
• 1086 - At the Battle of az-Zallaqah, the army of Yusuf ibn Tashfin defeats the forces of Castilian King Alfonso VI.
• 1739 - War of Jenkins' Ear starts: British Prime Minister, Robert Walpole, reluctantly declares war on Spain.
• 1864 - American Civil War: Battle of Westport - Union forces under General Samuel R. Curtis defeat Confederate troops led by General Sterling Price at Westport, near Kansas City.
• 1911 - First use of aircraft in war: an Italian pilot takes off from Libya to survey Turkish lines during the Turco-Italian War.

October 24

• 69 - Second Battle of Bedriacum, forces under Antonius Primus, the commander of the Danube armies, loyal to Vespasian, defeat the forces of Emperor Vitellius.
• 1360 - The Treaty of Brétigny is ratified at Calais, marking the end of the first phase of the Hundred Years' War.
• 1648 - The Peace of Westphalia is signed, marking the end of the Thirty Years' War.
• 1812 - Napoleonic Wars: The Battle of Maloyaroslavets takes place near Moscow.
• 1944 - World War II: The Japanese aircraft carrier Zuikaku is sunk.

October 25

• 1147 - The Portuguese, under Afonso I, and Crusaders from England and Flanders conquer Lisbon after a four-month siege.
• 1415 - The army of Henry V of England defeats the French at the Battle of Agincourt.
• 1747 - British fleet under Admiral Sir Edward Hawke defeats French at the second battle of Cape Finisterre.
• 1813 - War of 1812: Canadians and Mohawks defeat the Americans in the Battle of Chateauguay.
• 1854 - The Battle of Balaklava during the Crimean War (Charge of the Light Brigade).
• 1983 - Operation Urgent Fury: the United States and its Caribbean allies invade Grenada, six days after Prime Minister Maurice Bishop and several of his supporters were executed in a coup d'état.

October 26

• 1917 - Battle of Caporetto: Italy suffers a catastrophic defeat at the hands of Germany and Austria during the First World War.
• 1918 - Erich Ludendorff, quartermaster-general of the Imperial German Army, is dismissed by Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany for refusing to cooperate in peace negotiations.
• 1942 - World War II: In the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands during the Guadalcanal Campaign, one U.S. aircraft carrier is sunk and another heavily damaged.
• 1944 - The Battle of Leyte Gulf ends.

October 27

• 1644 - Second Battle of Newbury in the English Civil War.
• 1797 - Treaty of Campo Formio is signed between France and Austria.
• 1870 - Marshal François Achille Bazaine surrenders to Prussian forces at Metz along with 140,000 French soldiers in one of the biggest French defeats of the Franco-Prussian War.
• 1916 - Battle of Segale: Negus Mikael, marching on the Ethiopian capital in support of his son Emperor Iyasus V, is defeated by Fitawrari Habte Giyorgis, securing the throne for Empress Zauditu.

October 28

• 312 - Battle of Milvian Bridge: Constantine I defeats Maxentius, becoming the only Roman Emperor.
• 1516 - Battle of Yaunis Khan: Turkish forces under the Grand Vizier Sinan Pasha defeat the Mameluks near Gaza.
• 1531 - Battle of Amba Sel: Imam Ahmad ibn Ibrihim al-Ghazi again defeats the army of Lebna Dengel, Emperor of Ethiopia. The southern part of Ethiopia falls under Imam Ahmad's control.
• 1628 - The Siege of La Rochelle, which had been ongoing for 14 months, ends with Huguenot surrender.
• 1776 - American Revolutionary War: Battle of White Plains - British Army forces arrive at White Plains, attack and capture Chatterton Hill from the Americans.
• 1864 - American Civil War: Second Battle of Fair Oaks ends - Union Army forces under General Ulysses S. Grant withdraw from Fair Oaks, Virginia, after failing to breach the Confederate defenses around Richmond, Virginia.

October 29

• 1863 - American Civil War: Battle of Wauhatchie - Forces under Union General Ulysses S. Grant ward-off a Confederate attack led by General James Longstreet. Union forces thus open a supply line into Chattanooga, Tennessee.
• 1944 - Breda in the Netherlands is liberated by the 1st Polish Armoured Division.
• 1955 - The Soviet battleship Novorossiisk strikes a World War II mine in the harbor at Sevastopol.
• 1956 - Suez Crisis begins: Israel invades the Sinai Peninsula and push Egyptian forces back toward the Suez Canal.

October 30

• 1137 - Battle of Rignano between Ranulf of Apulia and Roger II of Sicily.
• 1340 - Battle of Rio Salado.
• 1864 - Second war of Schleswig ends: Duke Frederick and the Danish Crown recognize Prussia's and Austria's annexation of Schleswig, Holstein and Lauenburg.
• 1918 - The Ottoman Empire signs an armistice with the Allies, ending the First World War in the Middle East.
• 1953 - Cold War: US President Dwight D. Eisenhower formally approves the top secret document National Security Council Paper No. 162/2, which states that the United States' arsenal of nuclear weapons must be maintained and expanded to counter the communist threat.
• 1961 - Nuclear testing: The Soviet Union detonates the hydrogen bomb Tsar Bomba over Novaya Zemlya; at 58 megatons of yield, it is still the largest nuclear device ever detonated. Nikita Kruschev announces that the scientists had planned to make it 100 megatons, but had reduced the yield so as to avoid breaking all the windows in Moscow.

October 31

• 1861 - American Civil War: Citing failing health, Union General Winfield Scott resigns as Commander of the United States Army.
• 1863 - The Maori Wars resume as British forces in New Zealand led by General Duncan Cameron began their Invasion of the Waikato.
• 1917 - World War I: Battle of Beersheba.
• 1941 - World War II: The destroyer USS Reuben James is torpedoed by a German U-boat near Iceland, killing more than 100 United States Navy sailors.