- 79 Mt. Vesuvius erupts, burying the cities of Pompeii, Herculaneum, Oplontis and Stabiae and killing thousands. New research in 2018 suggests the eruption occurred at about this date, not the previously used 24 August. [1] [2]
- 1260 Qutuz, Mamluk Sultans of Egypt (1259-60), is assassinated by Baibars, a fellow Mamluk leader, who seizes power for himself
- 1260 The spectacular Cathedral of Chartres is dedicated in the presence of King Louis IX of France; now a UNESCO World Heritage Site
- 1360 The Treaty of Brétigny is ratified at Calais, marking the end of the first phase of the Hundred Years' War
- 1492 24 Jews are burned at the stake in Mecklenburg, Germany
- 1531 Bavaria joins Schmalkaldic League
- 1593 Alleged teleportation of Spanish soldier Gil Perez from the Philippines to Mexico
- 1596 -26] Battle at Kerestes: Ottoman beat Austria-Hungary & Germany
Imperial Mathematician
1601 Johannes Kepler succeeds Tycho Brahe as imperial mathematician to Holy Roman Emperor Rudolph II
- 1648 Treaty of Westphalia ends The Thirty Years' War in the Holy Roman Empire; Switzerland's independence recognized
- 1656 Treaty of Vilnius: Russia & Poland sign anti-Swedish covenant
- 1681 Earl of Shaftesbury accused of high treason in London
- 1795 3rd Partition of Poland, between Austria, Prussia & Russia
Battle of Maloyaroslavets
1812 Napoleonic Wars: The Battle of Maloyaroslavets takes place near Moscow, French army then forced to retreat through the snow towards Smolensk
Mendelssohn's 1st Concert
1818 Felix Mendelssohn, aged 9, performs his first public concert in Berlin, Germany
- 1836 Earliest American patent for a phosphorus friction match by Alonzo Dwight Phillips of Springfield, Massachusetts
- 1851 William Lassell discovers Ariel & Umbriel, satellites of Uranus
- 1856 Constitution of South Australia adopted
- 1857 Recognised by FIFA as oldest existing club still playing football in the world, Sheffield FC is founded in Yorkshire, England; now based in Dronfield, Derbyshire
- 1861 First US transcontinental telegram is sent (from San Francisco to Washington, D.C.)
- 1861 West Virginia secedes from Virginia
- 1871 Mob in Los Angeles, California hangs 18 Chinese
- 1877 Russo-Turkish War: Russian and Romanian forces encircle Plevna, Ottoman Empire (now Pleven, Bulgaria), choking off supplies
Statue of Liberty
1881 Levi P Morton, US ambassador to France drives first rivet in Statue of Liberty
- 1885 Johann Strauss' operetta "Zigeunerbaron (Gypsy Baron)" premieres in Vienna
- 1889 Softball rules adopted by Mid Winter Indoor Baseball League
- 1899 Battle at Rietfontein, South Africa: Boers vs British army
- 1900 General Redvers Buller returns to England
- 1901 First woman to go over Niagara Falls in a barrel (Anna Taylor)
- 1902 Santa Maria volcano in Guatemala erupts, killing 6,000 people and becoming one of the three largest eruptions of the 20th century
- 1903 First trotter to run a mile under 2 minutes (Lou Dillon 1:58.1)
- 1903 George Sutton becomes billards champion
- 1908 Billy Murray hits the charts with "Take Me Outto the Ball Game"
- 1909 Italy and Russia sign the Racconigi Pact in which both nations promise to support the status quo in the Balkans
Terra Nova Expedition
1911 Captain Robert Falcon Scott's expedition leaves Cape Evans for South Pole
Wright's Glider Record
1911 Orville Wright remains in the air for 9 minutes and 45 seconds in a glider at Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina, setting a new world record that stands for 10 years
- 1913 Joe Tinker fired as Cincinnati Reds manager
- 1916 Moroccan troops capture Ft Douaumont
- 1917 Battle at Caporetto: German & Austria smash Italian army
- 1922 German parliament mandates Ebert president until July 1925
- 1922 Irish Parliament adopts a constitution for an Irish Free State
- 1923 General Otto von Lossow calls Reichswehr to Berlin to form a dictatorship
- 1924 Christian General Feng Joe Siang occupies Beijing
- 1924 Nobel prize for physiology or medicine awarded to Dutchman Willem Einthoven "for his discovery of the mechanism of the electrocardiogram"
Houdini's Last Performance
1926 Harry Houdini's last performance, at the Garrick Theatre in Detroit, Michigan
Black Thursday
1929 "Black Thursday", start of stock market crash of 1929, Dow Jones Industrial Average drops 12.8%
- 1929 Belgian princess Marie-Jose & Italian crown prince Umberto get engaged, assassination attempt on Umberto fails
The Fleishmann's Yeast Hour
1929 Rudy Vallee's "The Fleishmann's Yeast Hour" begins broadcasting on NBC radio
Brazilian Coup d'état
1930 A bloodless coup d'état in Brazil ousts Washington Luís Pereira de Sousa, the last President of the First Republic. Getúlio Vargas then installed as "provisional president."
Let's Dance
1939 Benny Goodman records "Let's Dance"
DiMaggio Wins MVP
1939 Joe DiMaggio wins AL MVP, Jimmie Foxx is runner-up
- 1939 Nylon stockings go on sale for first time (Wilmington, Delaware)
Hitler Meets Petain
1940 Adolf Hitler meets the Head of the French State Marshal Philippe Pétain
- 1940 Japan eliminates US terms (strike, play ball) from baseball
- 1940 Protestant churches protest against dismissal of Jew civil servants
- 1940 US Fair Labor Standards of 1938 comes into effect - minimum wage, 44 hr week
- 1942 Second day of battle at El Alamein: British infantry
- 1943 Anti-nazi Clandestine Radio Soldatsender Calais begins transmitting
- 1944 Rotterdam Passage fight frees 46 prisoners
- 1944 US air raid on Japanese battleships and cruisers in Sibuya Sea: Musashi sinks
- 1944 US aircraft carrier Princeton sinks at Philippines
Flying Ace David McCampbell
1944 US naval pilot David McCampbell sets a combat mission record by shooting down 9 Japanese planes during Battle of Leyte Gulf, in the Philippines
United Nations Charter
1945 Charter of United Nations comes into effect
- 1945 In France PC/PS/MRP win parliamentary election (25/24/23%)
- 1946 A camera on board the V-2 No. 13 rocket, launched from Whites Sands US, takes the first photograph of earth from outer space.
- 1946 Netherlands & Indonesia sign cease fire
- 1947 Series of forest fires burn over $30 million of timber across the New England States
- 1948 Bernard Baruch introduces the term "Cold War"
- 1948 Francis Poulenc's "Sinfonietta" premieres
- 1948 WJBK TV channel 2 in Detroit, MI (CBS) begins broadcasting
- 1949 Construction begins on the United Nations headquarters in New York
- 1951 Jan de Hartog's "Four Poster" premieres in NYC
- 1951 United Nations publishes its first postage stamps
- 1952 Arab Liberation Movement becomes only political party in Syria
- 1953 KOOL (now KTSP) TV channel 10 in Phoenix, AZ (CBS) begins broadcasting
Fangio F1 Champion
1954 Britain's Mike Hawthorne wins season ending Spanish Grand Prix at Pedralbes; Argentine Maserati driver Juan Manuel Fangio takes second Formula 1 World Drivers Championship by 17 points from countryman José Froilán González
Event of Interest
1954 Dwight D. Eisenhower pledges United States' support to South Vietnam
- 1956 AP names Cin manager Birdie Tebbets as NL Manager of the Year
- 1956 Margaret Towner becomes first woman to be ordained into the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America (PCUSA)
Music Concert
1959 US premiere of Dmitri Shostakovich's 1st Cello concert
- 1960 Catastrophe at Baikonur Cosmodrome: Prototype missile explodes on launch pad, killing Chief Marshal of Artillery Mitrofan Nedelin and over 100 personnel killed; USSR claims victims died in plane crash, suppressing true details until 1989
The Manchurian Candidate
1962 "The Manchurian Candidate", directed by John Frankenheimer, starring Frank Sinatra and Laurence Harvey, is released
Cuban Missile Crisis
1962 Cuban Missile Crisis: Soviet ships approach but stop short of the US blockade of Cuba
- 1963 Dutch KRO-TV shows first episode of American western series "Bonanza"
Sports History
1963 Sandy Koufax is unanimous winner of Cy Young Award
- 1964 Belgian paratroopers, with American Air Force support, liberate hundreds of hostages held by rebels in Stanleyville, Democratic Republic of the Congo
- 1964 Test cricket debut of Pakistani standouts Asif Iqbal, Majid Khan and Khalid Ibadulla in drawn 1st Test vs Australia in Karachi; Khalid "Billy" Ibadulla scores 166 on debut
- 1964 Zambia (formerly Northern Rhodesia) gains independence from Britain (National Day) with Kenneth Kaunda becoming President
Music History
1965 Benjamin Britten's "Voices for Today" premieres
F1 World Champion
1965 Jim Clark in a Lotus is forced to retire from season-ending Mexican Grand Prix at Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez with engine trouble; American Richie Ginther is race winner and Clark claims his second F1 World Drivers Championship
- 1968 16-year old American swimmer Debbie Meyer wins the inaugural women's 800m gold medal in 9:24.0 at the Mexico City Olympics; first swimmer to win 3 individual gold medals at a Games (200/400m)
- 1968 Australian swimmer Michael Wendon wraps up the Mexico City Games sprint double when he wins the men's 200m freestyle gold medal in Olympic record 1:55.2
Music History
1968 Mick Jagger & Marianne Faithful busted for pot, released on £50 bail
- 1968 The People's Democracy (PD) stage a protest demonstration at Stormont Parliament buildings, Belfast, Northern Ireland
- 1969 Pakistani cricketing brothers Hanif, Mushtaq and Sadiq Mohammad start their only Test together; drawn 1st Test v NZ in Karachi
Election of Interest
1970 Marxist Salvador Allende elected President of Chile by the Chilean Congress
- 1970 Nancy Walker creates Ida Morgenstein role on "The Mary Tyler Moore Show"
- 1971 A member of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) is shot dead by undercover Royal Ulster Constabulary officers during a bomb attack in Belfast
- 1971 Harry Drake sets longest arrow flight by a footbow (1 mile 268 yds)
- 1971 President of Sinn Féin Ruairi O'Brady, addresses a party conference in Dublin and proclaims that the North of Ireland must be made ungovernable as a first step to achieve a united Ireland
- 1971 Texas Stadium opens-Cowboys beat Patriots 44-21
- 1972 2 Catholic men are found dead at a farm at Aughinahinch, near Newtownbbutler, County Fermanagh - British soldiers carry out the killings
- 1973 Heavy fog causes 65 car collision killing 9 on New Jersey Turnpike
Music History
1973 John Lennon sues US government to admit FBI is tapping his phone, they deny doing so
- 1973 Yom Kippur War ends, Israel 65 miles from Cairo, 26 from Damascus
Sports History
1974 Billy Martin named AL Manager of Year (Texas Rangers)
F1 World Champion
1976 English McLaren driver James Hunt finishes 4th in the season ending Japanese Grand Prix at Fuji Speedway to win his first Formula 1 World Drivers Championship by 1 point from Niki Lauda
- 1976 Sadiq & Mushtaq Mohammad score hundreds in same Test Cricket innings v NZ
Music History
1978 Keith Richards convicted of heroin possession in Toronto
- 1978 NHL Toronto Maple Leafs set own team record of 28 pts vs NY Islanders
- 1979 Billy Martin punches a marshmallow salesman, puts job in jeopardy
Music History
1979 Guinness Book of Records presents Paul McCartney with a rhodium disc as all-time best selling singer-songwriter
- 1980 Great Britain performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
- 1980 Iraqi troops occupies Khorramshar
- 1980 John Lennon releases single "(Just Like) Starting Over" in UK
- 1980 Polish government legalizes independent labor union Solidarity
Event of Interest
1981 Pablo Picasso's 1937 painting Guernica goes on display in Madrid Spain to celebrate the centenary of the artist's birth
Sports History
1982 Steffi Graf plays her 1st pro tennis match
- 1984 11 members of Colombo crime family arrested
- 1984 Intelsat 5 re-enters Earth's atmosphere 5 months after it failed
- 1986 Great Britain drops diplomatic relations with Syria
- 1986 MLB Los Angeles Dodgers' infielder Bill Russell (38) announces his retirement
- 1987 NBC technicians accept pact, end 118 day strike
Sports History
1988 New York Islanders and NHL high scorer, Mike Bossy (31) retires
- 1988 Typhoon Ruby sinks Philippine ferry; hundreds drown
Event of Interest
1989 American televangelist Jim Bakker is sentenced to 45 years in prison for fraud but the sentence is later reduced to eight years on appeal
- 1989 France performs nuclear test at Mururoa atoll
- 1990 USSR performs nuclear test at Novaya Zemlya USSR
- 1991 Larry Ryckman purchases CFL Calgary Stampeders
- 1994 Bomb attack on opposition in Sri Lanka, 55+ killed
- 1995 Total solar eclipse in SW/S Asia (2m09s)
- 1996 Hasan Raza makes Test Cricket debut for Pakistan age 14 yrs 238 days
- 1996 Last game at Atlanta County Fulton Stadium. Yanks win record 8th straight road post season win (with no loses)
- 1997 Marv Albert sentenced in assault case
- 1998 Launch of Deep Space 1 on comet and asteroid mission
- 2002 Police arrest spree killers John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo, ending the Beltway sniper attacks in the area around Washington, D.C.
- 2003 Concorde makes its last commercial flight
Music Concert
2003 Walt Disney Concert Hall, new home of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, designed by Frank Gehry, opens in downtown Los Angeles, California
- 2004 10 people including NASCAR driver Ricky Hendrick and 4 family members are killed in a plane crash near Martinsville Speedway in Virginia; plane owned by NASCAR team Hendrick Motorsports
F1 World Champion
2004 German Ferrari driver Michael Schumacher finishes 8th at season-ending Brazilian F1 Grand Prix at Autódromo José Carlos Pace; his 5th straight World Drivers Championship, record 7th career world title; Ferrari's 6th straight Constructors title
- 2004 Manchester United beats Arsenal, 2-0 at Old Trafford; ends Gunners' English Premier League record 49-game unbeaten streak
- 2006 Justice Rutherford of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice struck down the "motive clause", an important part of the Canadian Anti-Terrorism Act
- 2006 MESSENGER spacecraft performs a Venus flyby
- 2008 Iceland receives a £1.3 billion bailout package from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), 1st European country to require an emergency loan as a result of the financial crisis
- 2008 In a "Bloody Friday" many of the world's stock exchanges experience the worst decline in their history, with drops of around 10% in most indices
- 2009 First International Day of Climate Action, organized with 350.org, a global campaign to address a claimed global warming crisis.
- 2012 3 people are shot dead and two critically wounded after being shot by an unknown gunman in Downey, California
- 2012 Hurricane Sandy makes landfall in Jamaica killing 1 person and causing over $50 million in damage
- 2012 Libyan militias capture Bani Walid resulting in 130 civilian deaths
- 2015 Even results in Argentine Presidential Election between Daniel Scioli and Mauricio Macrieven trigger 1st ever Presidential run off 22 Nov
- 2016 Suicide bomb kills 61 and injures 117 at a police training academy in Quetta, Pakistan, ISIS claims responsibility
Theory of Happiness
2017 Albert Einstein's "Theory of Happiness", written as a note for a bellboy instead of a tip in Tokyo in 1922 sells for $1.56 million
Moderate Islam for Saudi Arabia
2017 Crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman vows to return Saudi Arabia to moderate Islam after announcing a $500b independent economic zone
- 2017 Dog doping scandal confirmed by officials of Iditarod, Alaskan dog sled race after dogs test positive for a banned substance
- 2018 EU directive bans single-use plastics by 2021
Cricket History
2018 Indian cricketer Virat Kohli becomes the 12th and the fastest-ever to score 10,000 runs in one day international matches, taking just 205 innings
- 2018 Joel Embiid becomes the first NBA player to reach 30 points and 19 rebounds in the same game since Charles Barkley in 1991
UN Person of the Year
2018 Kenyan marathon runner Eliud Kipchoge named UN Person of the Year for setting a new marathon world record and for his work with AIDS/HIV in Kenya
- 2018 Largest jackpot in US history at $1.6 billion won by one person in South Carolina
Mail Bombing Attempt
2018 Pipe bombs sent to prominent US Democrats including the Obamas, Clintons, John Brennan and CNN, but safely defused
- 2018 Scientists confirm East Island in Hawaii, half a mile long, has been wiped out after contact with Hurricane Walaka
- 2019 Bangladesh sentences 16 men to death for the murder of Nusrat Jahan Rafi, who was set on fire after accusing a teacher of inappropriate behavior
Music History
2019 Jason Mraz endorses Bernie Sanders for president in the 2020 Democratic Party presidential primaries
Franco Exhumation
2019 Remains of Spanish dictator Francisco Franco removed from mausoleum in Valley of the Fallen and reburied in private family vault in Madrid
- 2020 Colombia records more than 1 million cases of COVID-19, the 8th globally and 3rd in Latin America
- 2020 Deadliest shipwreck of the year claims 140 lives on a ship that sank with 200 migrants on board off the coast of Senegal [1]
- 2021 COVID-19 cases in Eastern Europe pass 20 million with Russia, Ukraine and Romania in top five countries reporting deaths globally [1]
Air Jordans Sneaker Record
2021 Michael Jordan's 1984 Nike Air Ships sell for $1.472 million at Sotheby's, a new record for sneakers at auction [1]
- 2021 Strongest storm to ever hit the West Coast of the US, with California recording barometric pressure of 945.2 mb, and San Francisco its wettest October day [1]
- 2022 China continues its Covid-zero policy with 28 cities and 207 million people affected by some form of lockdown, including Wuhan [1]
- 2022 Five-month-old bar-tailed godwit becomes a world record holder by flying 8,425 miles non-stop from Alaska to Australia in 11 days; bird departed Yukon Kuskokwim Delta in Alaska, US, on October 13 and touched down in Ansons Bay in Tasmania, Australia
Sunak Replaces Truss
2022 UK's ruling Conservative party appoints Rishi Sunak as their next leader and Prime Minister, replacing Liz Truss after six weeks; Sunak is the first PM of color in the country's history [1]
- 2022 US Mint issues first US currency featuring an Asian-American - silent film actress Anna May Wong; coin is part of American Women Quarters Program celebrates female trailblazers [1] [2]
- 2023 Aid Agency Save the Children says 2,000 children have been killed in Gaza by Israeli bombing amid calls for a ceasefire at the UN [1]
The Woman in Me
2023 American pop singer Britney Spears releases her memoir "The Woman in Me" [1]
Trump's Lawyer Pleads Guilty
2023 Former lawyer to Donald Trump Jenna Ellis is the fourth person to plead guilty and accept a plea deal in the Georgia election interference case [1]
- 2023 Women in Iceland go on strike to protest at gender inequalities, including its Prime Minister Katrín Jakobsdóttir [1]
