Columbus Misses Florida
1492 Christopher Columbus misses Florida when he changes course
Cabrillo Lands at Catalina Island
1542 Explorer Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo, on a voyage for Spain, is the first European to discover Catalina Island off the coast of California
Lepanto – The Battle That Saved Europe
1571 Battle of Lepanto: Holy League of southern European nations formed by Pope Pius V destroy an Ottoman fleet in a significant loss off Western Greece
Siege of Breda
1637 Prince of Orange Frederick Henry occupies Breda during the Eighty Years' War
Proclamation of 1763
1763 George III of Great Britain issues Proclamation of 1763, closing lands in North America north and west of Alleghenies to white settlement
- 1765 Stamp Act Congress (First Congress of the American Colonies) convenes in New York City to devise a unified protest against new British taxation
- 1777 Americans beat British in Second Battle of Saratoga & Battle of Bemis Heights
- 1780 British defeated by American militia near Kings Mountain, SC
- 1806 Carbon paper patented in London by inventor Ralph Wedgwood
- 1816 1st double decked steamboat, Washington, arrives in New Orleans
- 1825 Miramichi Fire - forest fire disaster in New Brunswick destroys Douglastown and Newcastle, killing 200 to 500 people
- 1826 Granite Railway (1st chartered railway in US) begins operations
- 1828 The Greek city of Patras is liberated by the French expeditionary force in Peloponnese under General Maison.
- 1830 The Black Line begins; a leveé of colonists in Tasmania, Australia, attempts to round up Aborigines onto the Tasman Peninsula [1]
- 1840 Willem I resigns as king of Netherlands
- 1856 Cyrus Chambers Jr patents folding machine that folds book & newspapers
- 1864 -Oct 13th) Battle of Darbytown Road, Virginia
- 1864 Naval Engagement at Bahia Harbor, Brazil - CSS Florida vs USS Wachusett
- 1868 Cornell University (Ithaca NY) opens
- 1870 Leon Gambetta flees Paris in balloon
- 1871 16-hour fire injures 30 of Chicago's 185 firefighters
- 1879 Germany & Austrian-Hungary sign Twofold Covenant
- 1886 Spain abolishes slavery in Cuba
- 1900 The term "orienteering" is first used for an event
Chesbro's Season Record
1904 NY Highlanders beat Boston Americans, 3-2 at Hilltop Park, NYC for pitcher Jack Chesbro's MLB record 41st win of the season (41-12)
Farman's Biplane Takes Off
1907 France's Henri Farman flies 30m in a Voisin biplane
Edith Cavell Sentenced
1915 English nurse Edith Cavell sentenced to death along with 34 others by German court martial for running underground network to free Allied soldiers
Georgia Tech Crushes Cumberland 222-0
1916 Georgia Tech, coached by John Heisman, defeats Cumberland, 222-0; most lopsided score in the history of US college football
- 1916 The German submarine U-53 arrives off Newport, Rhode Island, and sinks 9 British merchant ships in international waters
- 1919 KLM (Koninklijke Luchtvaart Maatschappij), Royal Dutch Airlines, one of the oldest existing airline) is founded in Amsterdam
- 1922 Oud-burgem of Rotterdam Zimmerman becomes High Comm's of Austria
- 1923 Yankees Everett Scott runs his consecutive-game streak to 1,138
- 1924 Greek government of Dikalekopoulis forms
- 1926 Actress Theo Mann-Master resigns from stage
- 1926 Italian Great Fascist Council forms
World Record 10 Mile
1928 Paavo Nurmi runs world record 10 miles (50:15.0)
- 1928 Race Tafari Makonnen crowned King of Abyssinia
MacDonald Addresses Congress
1929 Ramsay MacDonald is first British Prime Minister to address US Congress
- 1931 1st infra-red photograph, Rochester, NY
Dodgers Fire Stengel
1936 7th-place Brooklyn Dodgers fire manager Casey Stengel
- 1937 Johan Wagenaar's "Feestmars" premieres in Amsterdam
- 1938 Germany requires all Jewish passports be stamped with letter J
- 1940 World War II: the McCollum memo proposes bringing the U.S. into the war in Europe by provoking the Japanese to attack the United States.
- 1941 German army occupies Viarma, USSR
- 1942 1 salvo Katjoesja-rocket destroys Nazi battalion in Stalingrad
- 1942 Last camouflaged German raider Komet leaves Flushing (Netherlands)
- 1942 US & UK government announce establishment of United Nations
- 1943 Weill, Perelman and Nash' musical "One Touch of Venus" premieres in NYC
- 1944 Allies bombs sea dikes at Vlissingen
Rommel Ordered to Berlin
1944 Field Marshal Erwin Rommel ordered to return to Berlin
- 1944 Riots in Amersfoort/Utrecht/Strugle
- 1945 Dutch author A M de Jong's murderer Ton van Gog escapes
String Quartet No. 2
1946 Charles Ives' 2nd string quartet premieres
- 1949 German Democratic Republic formed from Russian occupation zone (National Day). Wilhelm Pieck becomes 1st president, Otto Greatwohl 1st premier
- 1950 US forces invade North Korea by crossing 38th parallel
- 1950 Walter Bedell Smith replaces Roscoe H Hillenkoetter as 4th CIA head
- 1950 William H Jackson becomes deputy director of CIA
Ben-Gurion Holds On
1951 David Ben-Gurion forms 3rd Israeli government
American Bandstand
1952 First "Bandstand" broadcast in Philadelphia on WFIL-TV (Dick Clark joins in 1955 as a substitute-host)
Sports History
1953 Bill Veeck tells St. Louis Browns stockholders he faces bankruptcy unless they drop their suit to block his move to Baltimore, they comply
- 1954 Hassan el Hodeiby, leader of the Muslim Brothership, arrested in Egypt
- 1955 Aircraft carrier USS Saratoga launched at Brooklyn
Event of Interest
1955 Beat poet Allen Ginsberg reads his poem "Howl" for the first time at a poetry reading in San Francisco.
Pillow Talk
1959 "Pillow Talk" film directed by Michael Gordon and starring Doris Day and Rock Hudson is first released
Far Side of the Moon Revealed
1959 Far side of Moon seen for the 1st time, courtesy of USSR's Luna 3 space probe
Event of Interest
1960 JFK and Richard Nixon's second presidential debate
Music History
1963 The Rolling Stones record the Lennon-McCartney song "I Wanna Be Your Man" at Kingsway Sound Studio in London
- 1964 The Beatles appear on episode of "Shindig" (ABC-TV) in the US
- 1965 50 mph gust helps Robert Mitera ace 447-yd 10th hole at Miracle Hills, Omaha, Nebr to score world's longest straight hole-in-one
- 1965 Charles Linster does 6,006 consecutive push-ups
- 1966 Rolling Stones record four songs for their 1st live LP "Got Live If You Want It!" at a concert at Colston Hall in Bristol
- 1967 Beatles turn down $1 million offer by Sid Berstein for a return performance at Shea Stadium in NYC
- 1967 Rolf Hochhuth's play "Soldaten" premieres in West Berlin
- 1968 Motion Picture Association of America adopts film rating system
- 1968 Rioting continues in Derry, Northern Ireland after Royal Ulster Constabulary put down civil rights march two days earlier
- 1969 WJMN TV channel 3 in Escanaba, MI (ABC/NBC) begins broadcasting
The French Connection
1971 "The French Connection" directed by William Friedkin and starring Gene Hackman, Roy Scheider and Fernando Rey premieres in the US (Academy Awards Best Picture 1972)
Meeting of Interest
1971 Northern Ireland Prime Minister Brian Faulkner meets with British Prime Minister Edward Heath; they agree to send an additional 1,500 British Army troops to Northern Ireland
F1 World Champion
1973 Scotsman Jackie Stewart wins his 3rd Formula 1 World Drivers Championship despite withdrawing from the season ending US Grand Prix at Watkins Glen; wins title by 16 points from Emerson Fittipaldi
Music History
1975 US decides John Lennon won't be deported due to UK pot conviction
Event of Interest
1976 Hua Guofeng succeeds Mao as Chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China
- 1977 USSR adoption of the Fourth Soviet Constitution.
- 1978 LA Dodgers win the pennant
- 1978 USSR performs nuclear test
- 1979 Cleveland Browns' Dino Hall sets club records with 9 kickoff returns
- 1979 Ferrari driver Jody Scheckter retires with tyre trouble in US Grand Prix at Watkins Glen; becomes first South African to claim Formula 1 World Drivers Championship; wins by 4 points from race winner Gilles Villeneuve
Sports History
1979 Frank Mahovlich formally retires from the NHL after a failed comeback attempt with the Detroit Red Wings
- 1979 USSR performs underground nuclear test
- 1980 Belgium 3rd government of Martens resigns
Event of Interest
1981 Hosni Mubarak becomes acting-president of Egypt
- 1981 In 1st Eastern Division championship Yanks beat Brewers 5-3
- 1982 Musical "Cats" opens at Winter Garden Theater on Broadway, NYC; runs for nearly 18 years before closing on September 10, 2000, wins 7 Tony and 1 Grammy Award
Event of Interest
1982 Olof Palme forms Swedish government
- 1984 Striking umps return for Game 5 of NLCS, San Diego Padres win pennant
Sports History
1984 Walter Payton passes Jim Brown as NFL's career rushing leader
- 1985 21st NASA Space Shuttle Mission (51-J): Atlantis 1 lands at Edwards AFB
- 1985 KHQ-AM in Spokane Wash's final transmission
- 1985 Lynette Woodward chosen as 1st woman in Harlem Globetrotters
- 1985 PLO terrorists seize Italian cruise liner Achille Lauro
- 1986 First edition of new British newspaper "Independent" published
Sports History
1986 Steve Yzerman is named captain of the Detroit Red Wings, a title he would hold for over 1,300 games
- 1988 Jim Fregosi is fired as manager of White Sox
- 1988 Latvian flag raised in Riga for first time since annexation by USSR
- 1988 Lou Piniella is fired as manager of Yankees for 2nd time
- 1988 WNBC 660 final transmission, WFAN moves from 1050 to 660 & WUKQ begins on 1050 at 5:30 PM (NYC radio)
Baseball Record
1989 Oakland A's Rickey Henderson steals a record 8 bases in a playoff series (5 games) against Toronto Blue Jays
Event of Interest
1991 Law Professor Anita Hill accuses Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas of making sexually inappropriate comments to her
Nobel Prize in Literature
1993 Nobel prize for literature awarded to American writer Toni Morrison
- 1994 China performs nuclear test at Lop Nor, PRC
- 1994 Faud Guliyev appointed premier of Azerbijan
- 1994 Ingvar Carlsson forms Swedish government
- 1994 Lu Bin swims female 200m medley world record (2:11.57)
- 1995 Boston's Fleet Center opens, NY Islanders & Boston Bruins tie at 4-4
- 1995 Mariners rally from 5-0 to force Game 5 of Division Series vs Yankees
Event of Interest
1996 Rupert Murdoch launches Fox News with Roger Ailes as CEO
- 1998 Matthew Shepard, a gay student at the University of Wyoming, is found tied to a fence after being savagely beaten by two young adults in Laramie, Wyoming.
- 2000 Last ever competitive soccer match at Wembley Stadium, England defeated 1-0 by Germany, last goal scored by Liverpool's Dietmar Hammann. Match is Tony Adams' 60th at Wembley, the record for most appearances at the stadium.
- 2001 Crude oil resumes flowing through the trans-Alaska pipeline after workers welded shut a bullet hole that caused 260,000 US gallons of oil to spill out
- 2001 U.S. invasion of Afghanistan starts with an air assault and covert operations on the ground
Election of Interest
2003 California holds gubernatorial recall election - Governor Gray Davis loses and actor Arnold Schwarzenegger becomes governor
Event of Interest
2004 King Norodom Sihanouk of Cambodia abdicates
Film & TV History
2006 Novaya Gazeta Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya shot and killed outside her apartment in Moscow
- 2008 Music, podcast, and video streaming service Spotify is launched by Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon
Carl Gustav Jung's Red Book
2009 A digital version of psychiatrist Carl Gustav Jung's 'Red Book' is published 48 years after his death and contains personal notes on his subconscious during the period in which he developed his principal theories
Nobel Prize in Literature
2010 Peruvian author Mario Vargas Llosa is awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature "for his cartography of structures of power and his trenchant images of the individual’s resistance, revolt, and defeat" [1]
- 2012 13 people are killed after a Sudanese military aeroplane crashes near Khartoum
- 2012 ICC Men's Cricket T20 World Cup, Colombo: West Indies beat Sri Lanka by 36 runs for first title; Player of the Series: Australian all-rounder Shane Watson (249 runs • 11 wickets)
- 2012 ICC Women's Cricket T20 World Cup, Colombo: Jess Cameron's 45 from 34 balls leads Australia to 142/4; beat England 138/9 to win by 4 runs to retain WC
NFL Record
2012 New Orleans quarterback Drew Brees breaks Johnny Unitas' NFL record for consecutive games with a TD pass (48) when he connects with Devery Henderson in Saints 31-24 win over San Diego at the SuperDome
- 2012 Sébastien Loeb wins the World Rally Championship for the ninth consecutive year
- 2013 James Rothman, Randy Schekman and Thomas C. Südhof win the 2013 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their work on transport systems in cells
- 2013 Mulatu Teshome becomes president of Ethiopia
- 2014 Isamu Akasaki, Hiroshi Amano and Shuji Nakamura win the 2014 Nobel Prize in Physics for inventing blue light emitting diodes
- 2014 Spanish nurse diagnosed with Ebola, the first case outside west Africa
- 2015 Nobel prize in Chemistry awarded to Tomas Lindahl (Sweden), Paul Modrich (US) and Aziz Sancar (Turkey) for work on cells DNA repair
Event of Interest
2015 US President Barack Obama apologises to Doctors without Borders President and the President of Afghanistan for the bombing of a hospital in Kunduz
Nobel Peace Prize
2016 Colombia's President Juan Manuel Santos wins the Nobel Peace Prize for attempts to end armed conflict with FARC
Event of Interest
2016 Washington Post releases videotape of Donald Trump boasting of groping and kissing women without consent
- 2017 New Zealand clinch their 5th Rugby Championship with 25-24 win over South Africa at Cape Town; All Blacks undefeated in 6 games
- 2018 China confirms it has detained Interpol chief Meng Hongwei, who resigns from his position after being reported missing
- 2018 Jodie Whittaker debuts in her first full episode as the 13th and first female Doctor Who on BBC television
- 2018 Limousine crash kills 20 people, including two pedestrians in Schoharie, New York
- 2018 Romanian referendum to ban same sex marriage fails with only 20.4% voting
- 2019 Nobel Prize for Medicine or Physiology awarded to Peter Ratcliffe, William Kaelin and Gregg Semenza for discovering how cells sense oxygen
- 2020 Hurricane Delta makes landfall on Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula, with 100-mph winds, the 25th named storm for 2020
- 2020 Nobel Prize for Chemistry awarded to Emmanuelle Charpentier, and Jennifer A. Doudna “for the development of a method for genome editing”
- 2021 Zanzibar born writer Abdulrazak Gurnah is awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature [1]
- 2022 Nobel Peace Prize awarded jointly to Belarusian human rights advocate Ales Bialiatski, Russian human rights organisation Memorial and Ukrainian human rights organisation Center for Civil Liberties [1]
Hamas Attacks Israel
2023 Hamas launches a major air and ground attack on Israel from Gaza, killing over a thousand people and taking hundreds of hostages, prompting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to declare "We are at war." [1]
- 2023 Two 6.8 magnitude earthquakes strike Afghanistan's Herat Province, killing at least 2,400 people [1]
