Battle of the Milvian Bridge
312 Emperor Constantine the Great defeats rival Maxentius at the Battle of the Milvian Bridge
- 1265 Eleanor de Montfort, wife of slain baron rebellion leader Simon de Montfort and sister of King Henry III, leaves England for exile in France after negotiating end to siege of Dover Castle [1]
- 1420 Beijing is declared the capital of the Ming dynasty under the Yongle Emperor
- 1422 Charles V's son succeeds him as king Charles VII of France
- 1449 Christian I is crowned King of Denmark in the Church of Our Lady, Copenhagen, establishing the House of Oldenburg (still rules the Danish throne today)
Battle at Brustem
1467 Battle at Brustem: Duke of Burgundy Charles the Bold defeats Prince-Bishopric of Liège near Sint-Truiden, modern-day Belgium
Columbus Sights Cuba
1492 Christopher Columbus sights Cuba and claims it for Spain under the name "Juana"
- 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.
- 1538 The first university in the New World, the Universidad Santo Tomás de Aquino, is established on Hispaniola
- 1595 Battle at Giurgevo: Zsigmond Bathory of Transylvania beats Turks
Court Lutenist
1612 British King James I appoints musician Robert Dowland court lutenist
Gulliver's Travels
1726 "Gulliver's Travels" by Jonathan Swift is published by Benjamin Motte in London
Battle of White Plains
1776 Battle of White Plains: George Washington retreats to New Jersey
- 1790 New York gives up claims to Vermont for $30,000
Cotton Gin
1793 Eli Whitney applies for a patent for his cotton gin machine, used to pull cotton fibers from the seed [1]
Sense and Sensibility
1811 First known purchase of Jane Austen's novel "Sense and Sensibility" by the Prince Regent (later George IV), a fan
Clara Wieck's Debut
1828 Clara Wieck, age 9, makes her official debut in a piano recital at the Gewandhaus concert hall in Leipzig, Germany
Faraday, the Blacksmith's Boy Who Changed the World
1831 Michael Faraday demonstrates his dynamo invention, an electrical generator
- 1834 The Battle of Pinjarra occurs in the Swan River Colony in present-day Pinjarra, Western Australia. Between 14 and 40 Aborigines are killed by British colonists.
- 1835 Battle of Concepción: rebels led by James Bowie and James Fannin defeat Mexican troops at Mission Concepción, 2 miles (3.2 km) south of what is now San Antonio, Texas
- 1846 Pioneers suffer blizzard in Sierra Nevada; 42 die
- 1848 The first railroad in Spain - between Barcelona and Mataró - is opened.
French Magic
1856 French Magician Jean Eugène Robert-Houdin performs for Algerian Marabouts in Algeria to convince them that French magic is the stronger
- 1858 R. H. Macy & Co opens 1st store, (6th Ave-NYC) Gross receipts $11.06
- 1863 Battle at Wauhatchie, Georgia: 865 killed or injured
- 1864 Battle of Wauhatchie, Tennessee
- 1864 Second Battle at Fair Oaks, Virginia, ends with 1554 casualties
- 1864 Second Battle of Newtonia (American Civil War), Newton County, Missouri
- 1867 Maimonides College in Pennsylvania is first Jewish college in the US
- 1882 Athletics reveal $22,000 profit in their 1st season in the American Association
Statue of Liberty
1886 Statue of Liberty dedicated by US President Grover Cleveland, celebrated by first confetti (ticker tape) parade in New York City
- 1891 Quake strikes Mino-Owari, Japan kills 7,300
Pathetique
1893 Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky conducts first performance of his Symphony Number Six in B minor, "Pathetique", in St. Petersburg, Russia, 9 days before his death
- 1900 II Summer (Modern) Olympic Games, Paris, France: competition ends after 5 months; no opening or closing ceremonies conducted
- 1904 St Louis police try a new investigation method - fingerprints
- 1906 Belgian-British "Union Minière du Haut Katanga" mining company created in what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo
Daily Telegraph Affair
1908 The English Newspaper the Daily Telegraph prints an interview with Germany's Emperor Wilhelm II, who characterises himself as personally friendly to Britain but suggests the German people are hostile, causing uproar in both countries
An Alpine Symphony
1915 Richard Strauss' tone poem "Eine Alpensinfonie (An Alpine Symphony)" premieres in Berlin
Republic of Czechoslovakia
1918 Republic of Czechoslovakia created with Tomáš Masaryk as its 1st president
- 1918 Tomáš Massaryk claims independence for Czechoslovakia
Prohibition Established
1919 Volstead Act passed by US Congress, establishing prohibition, despite President Woodrow Wilson's veto
- 1921 Amsterdam's Tuschinski movie theater opens
- 1921 First American gubernatorial recall election is held in North Dakota. Governor Lynn Frazier loses to Ragnvald A. Nestos by just over 4,000 votes (1.8%).
Fascists March on Rome
1922 30, 000 Italian fascists conduct the 'March on Rome', leading to the assumption of power by Benito Mussolini
- 1922 First US coast-to-coast radio broadcast of a football game
- 1924 French-Russian trade agreement signed
Taung Child
1924 Miner M.de Bruin discovers the infant fossil skull, "Taung child" in a lime quarry in Taung, South Africa. Paleoanthropologist Raymond Dart identifies the fossil as a new hominin species, Australopithecus africanus.
- 1924 White Sox beat NY Giants 8-4 in Dublin, less than 20 fans attend
Tito Imprisoned
1927 Josip Broz Tito begins 7 months jail sentence in Croatia
- 1927 KLM airmail plane "Homing Pigeon" arrives back in Amsterdam after the first special round trip flight to the Dutch East Indies
- 1928 Indian freedom fighter Lala Lajpat Rai injured leading silent protest against visiting British commission in Lahore (dies of injuries 17th November)
- 1928 Indonesian child laws enforced in Bahasa Indonesia
- 1929 Dow Jones plummets 38.33 pts (13%) to 260.64
- 1934 Brooklyn Dodgers and Pittsburgh Pirates play first of only 4 penalty free games in NFL history; Dodgers wins 21-3 at Ebbets Field, Brooklyn
- 1935 Sidney Kingsley's play "Dead End" premieres in NYC
The Roaring Twenties
1939 Warner Bros, releases gangster film "The Roaring Twenties", directed by Raoul Walsh, starring James Cagney and Humphrey Bogart
- 1940 Greece successfully resists Italy's attack
- 1940 Meeting between Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini in Florence, Italy
How Green Was My Valley
1941 "How Green Was My Valley" based on the novel by Richard Llewellyn, directed by John Ford and starring Walter Pidgeon and Maureen O'Hara premieres in New York (Best Picture 1942)
- 1942 6th day battle at El Alamein: British offensive under Montgomery
- 1942 Train crashes into bus, killing 16 & injuring 20 (Detroit Michigan)
- 1943 German submarine U-220 sunk by US aircraft in the Atlantic
- 1944 Russia & Bulgaria sign weapons pact
- 1946 German rocket engineers begin work in USSR
- 1948 Flag of Israel is adopted
- 1949 Georges Bidault elected president of France
F1 World Champion
1951 Juan Manuel Fangio of Argentina wins Formula 1 World Drivers Championship by taking out the Spanish Grand Prix at Pedralbes in an Alpha Romeo; wins by 6 points from Alberto Ascari of Italy
- 1951 US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
- 1953 Bud Grant of CFL Winnipeg Blue Bombers intercepts 5 passes (record)
- 1953 Red Barber, resigns as Dodger sportscaster to join Yankees
- 1954 Major league owners vote down sale of A's to a Philadelphia syndicate
- 1954 N. Richard Nash's play "The Rainmaker" premieres in NYC
Ernest Hemingway
1954 Nobel Prize for Literature is awarded to Ernest Hemingway
- 1955 Egypt and Saudi Arabia sign defense treaty
- 1957 WMVS TV channel 10 in Milwaukee, WI (PBS) begins broadcasting
Papal Inauguration
1958 Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli elected Pope, taking name John XXIII
- 1958 Pete Runnels wins Comeback Player of Year (avg went from .230 to .322)
- 1959 American Football League awards Buffalo Bills franchise to Ralph C Wilson
Les Negres
1959 Jean Genet's play "Les Negres" premieres in Paris
- 1961 "Fiorello!" closes at Broadhurst Theater NYC starring Tom Bosley after 796 performances and a Pulitzer Prize
- 1961 Ground broken for Municipal (Shea) Stadium for NY Mets
Cuban Missile Crisis
1962 Cuban Missile Crisis: US President JFK receives letter from Soviet Leaderr Khrushchev suggesting agreement
- 1962 NY Giant Y. A. Tittle passes for 7 touchdowns vs Wash Redskins (49-34)
- 1962 Radio Moscow reports nuclear missiles in Cuba deactivated
- 1962 USSR performs nuclear test at the Semipalatinsk Test Site in northeast Kazakhstan
- 1965 Gateway Arch (630' (190m) high) completed in St Louis, Missouri
Happy Xmas (War is Over)
1971 John Lennon and Yoko Ono record the single "Happy Xmas (War is Over)" in NYC
Britain Joins the European Community
1971 The British Parliament debates the European Communities principle of membership and votes 356 to 244 in favour of joining, requiring a new law to be drafted and a later final vote on joining
- 1971 United Kingdom becomes the 6th nation to have a satellite in orbit with the launch of Prospero
- 1973 Elmore Smith of Lakers blocks 17 shots in a game (NBA record)
Event of Interest
1973 Indian Institute of Management Bangalore, designed by architect B. V. Doshi, inaugurated by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi
- 1974 1st time 2 Islanders hat trick in same game-MacMillian & Westfall
- 1974 Luna 23 launched (landing on Moon)
- 1974 US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
- 1975 Calvin Murphy (Houston) begins NBA free throw streak of 58 games
- 1975 Cleveland Metroparks assume operating responsibilities for Zoo (Cleveland, Ohio)
- 1975 Venezuela and foreign oil companies agree on nationalization as of January 1, 1976
Sports History
1976 Billy Martin named AL Manager of Year (NY Yankees)
- 1978 Don Ritchie runs world record 100k (6:10:20)
- 1978 NBC's premiere of Kiss' acting debut, "Kiss Meets The Phantom of the Park" TV film
- 1979 Dick Howser (best Yank manager win-lost pct .636) returns to New York, replacing Billy Martin
- 1979 USSR performs nuclear test at the Semipalatinsk Test Site in northeast Kazakhstan
- 1981 Edward M McIntrye elected 1st black mayor of Augusta Georgia
- 1982 NASA launches RCA-E
- 1982 Spain's socialists win/communists lose elections
- 1985 Ravi Ratnayeke takes 8-83 for Sri Lanka v Pakistan
- 1986 Stanley E. Hubbard's KOB sells the company's Albuquerque, New Mexico radio stations, KOB-AM and KOB-FM, the stations change their call signs to KKOB
- 1986 The centennial of the Statue of Liberty's dedication is celebrated in New York Harbor
- 1988 Jurors award $147,000 to Tacoma parishioner seduced by her minister
Event of Interest
1988 Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen gives $10 million to University of Washington library
- 1992 Lee Jang Rim predicts that today would be the end of the world!
- 1993 Cleveland Metroparks lease Brookside Park from Cleveland for 99-years
- 1993 Dutch Antilles government of Liberia-Peters resigns
- 1994 Japanese space probe Sakigake passes Earth for 3rd time
- 1996 Apple Records releases The Beatles "Anthology 3" (double CD/triple LP)", the last of 3-part series of rare recordings and outtakes by the Beatles; set covers the years 1968-70; album tops Billboard charts in US and peaks at no. 4 in UK
- 1996 Goa upset Karnataka to win their 1st Ranji Cricket Trophy game ever
- 1997 NBA announces hiring of Dee Kantner & Violet Palmer as 1st women to officiate a major-league all-male sports league
- 1998 An Air China (Mainland China) jetliner is hijacked by disgruntled pilot Yuan Bin and flown to Taiwan.
Donnie Darko
2001 The indie cult hit "Donnie Darko", starring Jake Gyllenhaal, is released
- 2005 Plame affair: Lewis Libby, Vice-president Dick Cheney's chief of staff, is indicted in the Valerie Plame case. Libby resigns later that day.
- 2006 Funeral service for the peace of the executed at Bykivnia forest, outside of Kyiv, Ukraine, with reburial of 817 Ukrainian civilians (out of some 100,000) executed by Bolsheviks at Bykivnia in 1930s - early 1940s.
- 2007 "Bee Movie" premieres in the US and the UK
- 2008 In the UK, 500,000 mortgage holders are left in negative equity after house prices drop 15% since the previous summer
- 2009 NASA successfully launches the Ares I-X mission, the only rocket launch for its later-cancelled Constellation program.
- 2009 The 28 October 2009 Peshawar bombing kills 117 and wounds 213.
- 2012 15 people are killed and 33 injured by a series of Baghdad car bombings
Sports History
2012 American Serena Williams wins her 3rd season ending tennis title; beats Maria Sharapova of Russia 6–4, 6–3 in the WTA Championship decider in Istanbul, Turkey
- 2012 Syrian ceasefire collapses and 128 people are killed in ongoing civil war violence
- 2015 Research indicating Plague dates back to the Bronze age in skeletons 5,783 years old, published by University of Copenhagen team in "Cell"
- 2015 Third Republican presidential candidates debate run by CNBC in Boulder, Colorado
- 2015 World Heath Organization ranks Tuberculosis alongside HIV as world's deadliest infectious diseases, killing 1.2 million (2014)
How Far I'll Go
2016 Disney Records releases Alessia Cara's single "How Far I'll Go" from the film "Moana"
- 2016 Ross Sea Region Marine Protected Area established off Antarctica - world's largest marine protected area at 598,000 square miles (2.06 million square-kilometers), larger than Mexico [1]
- 2017 Twin car bomb attacks in Mogadishu, Somalia, kill at least 27, Islamist militant group al-Shabab claim responsibility
F1 World Champion
2018 British Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton finishes 4th in the Mexican Grand Prix at Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez to clinch his 5th Formula 1 World Drivers Championship
- 2018 Michael D. Higgins is re-elected Irish president
- 2018 Political crisis in Sri Lanka after President Sirisena sacks Prime Minister Ranil Wickramasinghe and the cabinet, suspends parliament for two weeks with one man killed in protests
- 2018 Ukrainian tennis star Elina Svitolina registers biggest win of her career when she rallies for a 3-6, 6-2, 6-2 triumph over American Sloane Stephens in a classic WTA Finals title decider in Singapore
- 2019 Country of Georgia hit by a massive cyber attack affecting 2,000 websites, TV channels and government departments.
- 2019 EU agrees to another Brexit extension to January 31 2020
- 2019 Landslide after heavy rains in Bafoussam, Cameroon, buries at least 42 people
- 2020 15th-century medieval manuscript "The Book of Lismore", returns to Ireland after donated by Chatsworth Settlement to University College Cork
Event of Interest
2020 French President Emmanuel Macron announces France will enter a new 4-week lockdown October 30 in televised address
- 2020 Global COVID-19 cases record one-day increase of more than 500,000 for the first time, rising 25% in under two weeks according to Reuters
- 2020 Hurricane Zeta makes landfall in the US near Cocodrie, Louisiana, as category 2 storm
- 2020 New coral reef 500m (1,640ft) high, taller than the Empire State Building, discovered north of Australia's Great Barrier Reef
- 2020 Tanzania reelects President John Magufuli, with opposition parties calling the vote fraudulent
- 2020 Typhoon Molave strikes Vietnam triggering heavy rain and landslides, leaving more than 60 people dead
- 2021 Largest-ever drug bust in Asia made by police in Laos with 55 million methamphetamine tablets and 1.5 tonnes of crystal meth discovered in beer crates [1]
Event of Interest
2021 Mark Zuckerberg announces Facebook will change its corporate name to Meta amid increased public scrutiny over leaked internal documents
- 2021 One of world's largest floor mosaics unveiled after restoration at Hisham's Palace (660-750 AD) by Palestinian authorities in Jericho, West Bank [1]
- 2021 Researchers announce name of a new human ancestor, Homo bodoensis, from Africa during the Middle Pleistocene, about half a million years ago, the direct ancestor of modern humans [1]
Event of Interest
2022 Hammer-wielding intruder attacks Paul Pelosi, 82-year old husband of US Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, at their California home
- 2022 Swedish engineers in Linköping produce the world's first female crash dummy (previous female dummies just a scaled down version of the male figure) [1]
- 2022 Tropical storm Nalgae stikes makes landfall in Virac, the Philippines, will go on to kill 112 people in the country [1]
- 2023 10th Rugby World Cup, Stade de France: South Africa become first to win 4 World Cups and second to go back-to-back, after gripping 12-11 win over New Zealand; MVP: Springboks flanker Pieter-Steph du Toit
