Luther's Ninety-five Theses
1517 Martin Luther sends his Ninety-five Theses to Albert of Brandenburg, Archbishop of Mainz, precipitating the Protestant Reformation
The Last Judgement
1541 Michelangelo Buonarroti finishes painting "The Last Judgement" in the Sistine Chapel, Vatican City
John Wallis
1649 Parliamentary cryptographer John Wallis gives his Inaugural lecture as newly appointed Savilian Professor of Geometry at Oxford University,
Tamerlano
1724 George Frideric Handel's opera "Tamerlano" premieres at the King's Theatre in London
Casanova Escapes Prison
1756 Giacomo Casanova escapes from "The Leads" prison in Venice by climbing onto the roof
Dalton Explains Color Blindness
1794 John Dalton's first lecture to the Manchester Literary/Philosophical Society, "Extraordinary facts relating to the vision of colours"
Goya Made Court Painter
1799 Francisco Goya is appointed first court painter at the Spanish court in Madrid, the highest honor for a Spanish painter [1]
- 1808 Holland Brigade battle at Durango, Spain
- 1815 Cornishman Sir Humphry Davy patents miner's safety lamp
- 1837 Collision of river boat Monmouth & Trement on Mississippi; 300 die
- 1846 Donner party, unable to cross the Donner Pass, construct a winter camp
- 1863 The Maori Wars resumed as British forces in New Zealand led by General Duncan Cameron began their Invasion of the Waikato
- 1864 Nevada admitted as 36th state of the Union
- 1867 Australia's first royal tour begins as Prince Albert, son of Queen Victoria arrives in Adelaide, South Australia [1]
- 1868 Standard uniform approved for US postal carriers
- 1871 Founding of Netherland Protestant Union in Dokkum
- 1876 Great Backerganj Cyclone of 1876 ravages British India (Modern-day Bangladesh), over 200,000 killed
- 1881 Metropolitan club plays its last game of its non-league season. They win 80 of 151 games (18-43 versus NL teams)
- 1887 Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov's orchestral work "Capriccio Espagnol" premieres in St Petersburg, Russia
- 1888 Scottish vet John Boyd Dunlop patents pneumatic bicycle tyre
- 1889 Exposition Universelle (World's Fair) in Paris closes after 32 million visitors
Ban Johnson Seeks a Deal
1900 AL President Ban Johnson writes to NL President Nick Young seeking peace
- 1905 Great revolutionary demonstration for amnesty in St Petersburg
Caesar & Cleopatra
1906 George Bernard Shaw's play "Caesar & Cleopatra" premieres in NYC
- 1907 Calgary City Rugby Football Club's 1st game defeating Strathcona Rugby Foot-ball Club 15-0 at Calgary
- 1908 IV Summer (Modern) Olympic Games close in London
- 1913 1st US paved coast-to-coast highway, the Lincoln Highway is dedicated
- 1914 Great Britain & France declare war on Turkey
- 1916 Clare Kummer's play "Good Gracious Annabelle" premieres in NYC
In the Zone
1917 Eugene O'Neill's play "In the Zone" premieres in NYC
- 1917 World War I: Battle of Beersheba in southern Palestine - "last successful cavalry charge in history" performed by the 4th Australian Light Horse
- 1918 Short-lived Banat Republic founded in territory where Romania, Hungary and Serbia meet
The 1918 Flu Pandemic
1918 Spanish flu kills 21,000 people in the US in a single week
Mussolini Appointed PM
1922 Fascist leader Benito Mussolini (Il Duce) becomes Prime Minister of Italy
- 1922 Karel & Josef Čapek's play "World We Live In" premieres in NYC
- 1923 160 consecutive days of 100 degrees F begin at Marble Bar, Australia
- 1924 World Savings Day announced in Milan, Italy, by the Members of the Association at the 1st International Savings Bank Congress (World Society of Savings Banks)
- 1925 Cossack officer Reza Chan replaces sultan Ahmad as Shah of Persia
- 1926 Failed assassination attempt on Benito Mussolini by 15-year-old Anteo Zamboni, who was lynched on the spot
Venizelos Government Falls
1932 Greek government of Eleftherios Venizelos falls after defeat in national elections
'Hitler Will Have to Break Us or Lose the War'
1940 Battle of Britain, fought between the RAF and Luftwaffe over the English Channel and southern England, ends with a British victory
Warsaw Ghetto
1940 Deadline for Warsaw Jews to move into the Warsaw Ghetto
- 1941 Clothing factory fire in Huddersfield, England kills 49
- 1941 Mount Rushmore Monument is completed in South Dakota, designed by Gutzon Borglum
- 1941 Prior to US joining WWII, German submarine U-552 torpedoes US destroyer Reuben James near Iceland
- 1942 9th day of the Battle of El Alamein
- 1942 U-boats sink and damage 120 allied ships this month (659,457 tons)
Sammy Baugh
1943 Washington Redskin Sammy Baugh passes for 6 touchdowns vs Bkln (48-10)
- 1943 World War II: F4U Corsair accomplishes the first successful radar-guided interception.
- 1944 Chief of staff Kruls names De Quay chairman of Universal Commission
- 1949 Dutch Nazi Henri 'Hakkie' Holdert, director of Amsterdam paper De Telegraaf and member of the SS, sentenced to 12 years imprisonment
- 1949 WOC (now KWQC) TV channel 6 in Davenport, IA (NBC) 1st broadcast
Lloyd 1st African-American NBA Player
1950 The Big Cat, Earl Lloyd becomes the first African-American to play a game in the NBA, scoring 6 points on debut for the Washington Capitols
- 1951 French Second Chamber accepts the Schuman Plan
- 1952 1st thermonuclear bomb detonated at Marshall Islands
- 1953 TV broadcasting begins in Belgium
- 1954 Algerian Revolution against French begins
- 1954 KREM TV channel 2 in Spokane, WA (CBS/ABC) begins broadcasting
- 1955 Bernardus Johannes Alfrink installed as Archbishop of Utrecht
- 1956 Britain and France join Israeli forces in Egypt and begin to bomb Egypt to reopen Suez Canal
- 1956 Brooklyn, NY ends streetcar service
- 1956 Rear Adm GJ Dufek becomes 1st American to land an airplane at South Pole
Event of Interest
1959 Lee Harvey Oswald announces in Moscow he will never return to USA
What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?
1962 "What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?" horror film released directed by Robert Aldrich, starring Bette Davis and Joan Crawford, based on novel by Henry Farrell
The Beatles on Ed Sullivan
1963 Ed Sullivan witnesses Beatlemania firsthand at London's Heathrow Airport as the Beatles are greeted by their fans upon returning from Sweden
Event of Interest
1963 J. Edgar Hoover's last meeting with President John F. Kennedy
- 1963 Leaking propane gas explodes kills 64 at 'Holiday on Ice' in Indiana
#1 in the Charts
1964 Barbra Streisand's "People" album goes #1 for 5 weeks
Windmill Girls Get Dressed And Leave Town
1964 London's notorious Windmill Theatre closes after 32 years of "Revudeville" programs featuring vaudeville, comic, and nude tableaux vivants
- 1967 KIMO TV channel 13 in Anchorage, AK (ABC) begins broadcasting
Event of Interest
1967 Nguyễn Văn Thiệu takes oath of office to become the 1st President of the Second Republic of South Vietnam
- 1967 SF Giants Mike McCormick wins NL Cy Young Award
Music History
1968 Linda Eastman moves to UK permanently
- 1968 Milwaukee Bucks win their 1st game beating Detroit 138-118 (6th game)
- 1968 US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
Event of Interest
1968 US President Lyndon B. Johnson orders a halt to all bombing of North Vietnam
- 1969 Eastside race riot in Jacksonville, Florida
Something
1969 George Harrison's "Something" is released by the Beatles as a single in UK, his first "A" side
Music History
1970 Jim Morrison is sentenced to six months in jail and a $500 fine for indecent exposure and open profanity, though remains free on a $50,000 bond pending appeal
Sports History
1972 Cleveland Indians pitcher Gaylord Perry wins AL Cy Young award
- 1973 Three Provisional Irish Republican Army volunteers escape from Mountjoy Prison in Dublin using a hijacked helicopter
Sports History
1973 Tom Seaver wins NL Cy Young Award
- 1974 Dutch Marines end hostage crisis in Scheveningen prison
Music History
1975 Irish singer-songwriter Bob Geldof's first appearance with The Boomtown Rats
- 1976 Pakistani cricketer Javed Miandad scores 206 v NZ, aged 19 yrs 141 days (29 fours 1 six)
- 1978 Iranian oil workers go on strike
- 1978 People's Democratic Republic of Yemen (South Yemen) adopts constitution
- 1979 Baltimore Orioles pitcher Mike Flanagan wins AL Cy Young Award
- 1979 US DC-10 crashes at Mexico-City, 74 killed
- 1980 Julian Nott sets world hot-air balloon altitude record (16,806 m)
- 1980 Polish government recognizes Solidarity trade union
- 1980 Senegal routes troops to Gambia due to Libyan threat
- 1981 1st live US radio drama in 25 years (Halloween Story on NBC)
Papal Visit
1982 Pope John Paul II becomes first pontiff to visit Spain
Canonization
1982 Pope John Paul II canonizes Canadian Marguerite Bourgeoys, founder of the Congregation of Notre Dame of Montreal, as a saint [1]
Pipes of Peace
1983 Paul McCartney releases "Pipes of Peace" album
- 1983 Ron Grant completes a 217 day, 8,316 mile run around Australia
- 1984 Howard Goodall & Melvyn Bragg's musical "Hired Man" premieres in London
Assassination
1984 Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi is assassinated by her bodyguards, Satwant Singh and Beant Singh at her home in New Delhi
- 1984 Puerto Rican tanker 'San Francisco' explodes spilling 2 million gallons of oil as ship caught fire
Assassination
1984 Rajiv Gandhi takes office as India's 6th Prime Minister succeeding his mother Indira Gandhi who was assassinated
- 1985 Last day in Test cricket for Pakistan's Zaheer Abbas
- 1987 A pair in Coventry, England, ties world record for longest singles tennis match at 80 hrs 21 minutes
- 1987 American jockey Chris Antley becomes first rider to win 9 races in a day (4 at Aqueduct / 5 at The Meadowlands)
- 1988 19°F lowest October temperature ever recorded in Cleveland, Ohio
- 1988 First Monday Night NFL game played in Indianapolis; Colts beat Denver Broncos, 55-23
- 1988 Journalists demand greater press freedom in Yugoslavia
- 1989 AR Gurney's play "Love Letters" premieres in NYC
- 1989 France performs nuclear test at Mururoa atoll
- 1989 Turgat Ozal elected president of Turkey
- 1989 US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
- 1990 Pakistan make 3-0 drubbing of NZ, Waqar Younis 29 series wkts
- 1991 Palestinians attend US mideast peace talks in Madrid
- 1992 Don Keller makes his 18,000th sky dive
Event of Interest
1992 Roman Catholic church apologizes for its treatment of Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei after 359 years
- 1993 25 people killed during Ghana-Ivory Coast soccer match
- 1993 German unemployment hits national record of 3.5 million
Music History
1993 Rapper Tupac Shakur charged with aggravated assault
- 1994 "Creep" single released by TLC – their 1st US No.1 (Billboard Song of the Year 1995)
- 1994 American Eagle ATR-72 crash down at Gary, Indiana: 68 killed
- 1994 American jam band Phish performs The Beatles "White Album" as a musical costume during a show at the Glens Falls Civic Center in Glens Falls, New York.
Sports History
1994 American tennis star Venus Williams makes her professional debut as a 14-year-old with a 6-3, 6-4 win over former NCAA champion and world No. 58 Shaun Stafford in the Bank of the West Classic in Oakland, California
- 1995 American jam band Phish performs The Who's "Quadrophenia" as a musical costume during a show at the Rosemont Horizon in Rosemont, Illinois
- 1995 NHL NJ Devils agree to stay in NJ
- 1996 American jam band Phish performs The Talking Heads' "Remain In Light" as a musical costume during a show at the Omni Coliseum in Atlanta, Georgia
- 1996 Transportes Aéreos Regionais (TAM) Flight 402, a Fokker F100, crashes into several houses in São Paulo, Brazil killing 98 including 2 on the ground.
Event of Interest
1997 British au pair Louise Woodward, 19, sentenced to life for the death of Matthew Eappen 8½ months (judge changes to time served)
- 1998 American jam band Phish performs The Velvet Underground's "Rock and Roll" as a musical costume during a show at the Thomas & Mack Center at the University of Nevada in Paradise, Nevada
- 1998 Iraq disarmament crisis begins: Iraq announces it would no longer cooperate with United Nations weapons inspectors.
- 1999 EgyptAir Flight 990 traveling from New York City to Cairo crashes off the coast of Nantucket, Massachusetts, killing all 217 on-board.
- 1999 Finnish McLaren driver Mika Häkkinen wins season ending Japanese Grand Prix at Suzuka to clinch his second straight F1 World Drivers Championship; wins by 2 points from Irishman Eddie Irvine
- 1999 Roman Catholic Church and Lutheran Church leaders sign the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification, ending a centuries-old doctrinal dispute over the nature of faith and salvation.
- 1999 Yachtsman Jesse Martin returns to Melbourne after 11 months of circumnavigating the world, solo, non-stop and unassisted.
- 2000 A chartered Antonov An-26 explodes after takeoff in Northern Angola killing 50
- 2000 A Singapore Airlines Boeing 747-400 operating as Flight 006 collides with construction equipment upon takeoff in Taipei, Taiwan killing 79 passengers and four crew members
- 2000 Pope John Paul II declares Saint Thomas More as "the heavenly Patron of Statesmen and Politicians"
- 2000 The last Multics (Multiplexed Information and Computing Service) machine shut down
- 2002 A federal grand jury in Houston, Texas formally indicted former Enron Corp. chief financial officer Andrew Fastow on 78 counts of wire fraud, money laundering, conspiracy and obstruction of justice related to the collapse of his ex-employer.
- 2003 A bankruptcy court approves MCI's reorganization plans, essentially clearing the telecommunications company to exit bankruptcy
Sports History
2003 Bethany Hamilton, aged 13, has her arm bitten off by a shark while surfing in Hawaii
Appointment of Interest
2003 Mahathir Mohamad resigns as Prime Minister of Malaysia and is replaced by Deputy Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, marking an end to Mahathir's 22 years in power
- 2008 Whitepaper "Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System" is published by the pseudonymous Satoshi Nakamoto. It describes a decentralized peer-to-peer network that could track and verify transactions while producing a transparent, verifiable record.
Sports History
2010 Belgian tennis star Kim Clijsters beats Caroline Wozniacki of Denmark 6–3, 5–7, 6–3 for her 3rd season ending WTA Championship in Doha, Qatar
- 2010 Belgium leaves the recession with 0.5% growth in the third quarter
The Walking Dead
2010 Post-apocalyptic zombie TV series "The Walking Dead" premieres, starring Andrew Lincoln, Jon Bernthal and Lauren Cohan on AMC
Baseball Hall of Fame
2014 Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine, Frank Thomas, Bobby Cox, Tony La Russa and Joe Torre are inducted into Baseball Hall of Fame, Cooperstown, NY
Rugby World Cup
2015 8th Rugby World Cup Final, Twickenham, London: All Blacks fly-half Dan Carter lands 4 penalties and 2 conversions as New Zealand defeats Australia, 34-17
- 2015 Russian airliner crashes killing all 224 on board in Sinai Peninsula, Egypt - Russia's worst air disaster
- 2016 Lebanon parliament elects Michel Aoun President after 2 1/2 years without a leader
- 2017 John Kelly, White House Chief of Staff comments in TV interview that “the lack of an ability to compromise led to the Civil War", draws criticism
- 2017 Judge on Maui, Hawaii orders man to write ex-girlfriend 144 compliments after violating protection order to send 144 nasty text messages
- 2017 Takahiro Shiraishi arrested in Zama, Japan, a day after nine dismembered bodies found in his apartment
- 2017 Terrorist attack in New York when a truck mows down people on a cycle lane, killing 8, injuring 10
- 2017 Two men convicted of raping and impregnating their 10-year-old niece in Chandigarh, India
- 2018 In landmark verdict, Pakistani Supreme Court acquits Christian woman of blasphemy against the prophet Mohammed after eight years on death row
- 2018 US and Great Britain call for a cease-fire in Saudi-led war in Yemen, in 3-year war that has claimed over 10,000 lives and created famine conditions
Statue of Unity
2018 World's biggest statue, the Statue of Unity at 182m is unveiled of Indian independence leader Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel in Gujarat state
- 2019 Fire destroys most of historic Shuri Castle, once seat of the Ryukyu Kingdom, on island of Okinawa, Japan
- 2019 Gas canister explodes on a train in Rahim Yar Khan, Pakaistan killing at least 70 and injuring 30
- 2019 Jihadist group Islamic State names Abu Ibrahim al-Hashemi al-Qurashi as its new leader after US special forces kill its former leader
- 2019 Joel Embiid is suspended from the NBA for two games without pay due to an altercation with Karl-Anthony Towns
Event of Interest
2019 US House of Representatives votes to formalize impeachment proceedings against President Donald Trump
- 2020 New Zealand Rugby Union team routs Australia, 43-5 in Sydney to retain Bledisloe Cup (2-1) for 18th straight series; Wallabies' largest ever defeat by All Blacks
- 2021 World's largest solar farm goes live in Sirindhorn reservoir, Thailand, as a hydro-floating solar hybrid system the size of 70 football fields [1]
Music History
2022 Taylor Swift becomes the first artist in history to claim all top 10 slots on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart, all tracks from her album "Midnights" [1]
Charles Express Regret
2023 Kenyan President William Ruto, holds state banquet for King Charles III in Nairobi, whose speech acknowledges “the wrongdoings of the past are a cause of the greatest sorrow and the deepest regret” [1]
