[Blue Blood]

Events (October 19th)

• 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.
• 1216 - King John of England dies at Newark-on-Trent and is succeeded by his nine-year-old son Henry.
• 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.
• 1469 - Ferdinand II of Aragon marries Isabella of Castile, a marriage that paves the way to the unification of Aragon and Castile into a single country, Spain.
• 1512 - Martin Luther becomes a doctor of theology (Doctor in Biblia).
• 1781 - At Yorktown, Virginia, British commander Lord Cornwallis surrendered to a Franco-American force led by George Washington and the comte de Rochambeau, paving the way for the end of the American Revolutionary War.
• 1789 - Chief Justice John Jay is sworn in as the first Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.
• 1812 - Napoleon I of France retreats from Moscow.
• 1813 - The Battle of Leipzig concludes, giving Napoleon Bonaparte one of his worst defeats.
• 1822 - In Parnaíba; Simplício Dias da Silva, João Cândido de Deus e Silva, Domingos Dias declare the Independent of State of Piauí.
• 1864 - Battle of Cedar Creek - Union Army under Philip Sheridan destroys Confederate Army under Jubal Early.
• 1864 - Confederate raiders launch an attack on Saint Albans, Vermont from Canada.
• 1873 - Yale, Princeton, Columbia, and Rutgers universities draft the first code of American football rules.
• 1912 - Italy takes possession of Tripoli, Libya from the Ottoman Empire.
• 1914 - The First Battle of Ypres begins.
• 1917 - Love Field in Dallas, Texas is opened.
• 1921 - Portuguese Prime Minister António Granjo and other politicians are murdered in a Lisbon coup.
• 1933 - Germany withdraws from the League of Nations.
• 1935 - The League of Nations places economic sanctions on fascist Italy for its invasion of Ethiopia.
• 1943 - Streptomycin, the first antibiotic remedy for tuberculosis, is isolated by researchers at Rutgers University.
• 1944 - United States forces land in the Philippines.
• 1950 - The military of the People's Republic of China takes control of the town of Chamdo in eastern Tibet.
• 1953 - Arthur Godfrey fires Julius LaRosa live on American national TV.
• 1954 - First ascent of Cho Oyu
• 1960 - The United States government decides to place an embargo on Communist Cuba.
• 1969 - The first Prime Minister of Tunisia in twelve years, Bahi Ladgham, is appointed by President Habib Bourguiba.
• 1973 - President Richard Nixon rejects an Appeals Court demand to turn over the Watergate tapes.
• 1974 - Niue becomes independent from New Zealand
• 1982 - John De Lorean is arrested for trafficking in cocaine (later acquitted).
• 1983 - Maurice Bishop, Prime Minister of Grenada, is overthrown and executed in a military coup d'état led by Bernard Coard.
• 1985 - The first Blockbuster Video store opens in Dallas, Texas.
• 1986 - Samora Machel, President of Mozambique and a prominent leader of FRELIMO, and 33 others died when their Tupolev 134 plane crashed into the Lebombo Mountains.
• 1987 - In retaliation for Iranian attacks on ships in the Persian Gulf, the U.S. Navy disables three of Iran's offshore oil platforms.
• 1987 - (Black Monday) Dow Jones Industrial Average falls by 22%.
• 1989 - Guildford Four convictions are quashed by the Court of Appeal - they had spent 15 years in prison through a miscarriage of justice.
• 1991 - 7.0 Richter Scale earthquake in Northern Italy - 2000 dead
• 1994 - New Zealand's Goodnight Kiwi says good night for the last time.
• 1998 - The Earth Liberation Front sets fire to the Vail Mountain ski resort in Vail, Colorado, causing $12 million in damage.
• 2001 - SIEV-X, an Indonesian fishing boat en-route to Christmas Island, carrying over 400 asylum seekers, sank in international waters with the loss of 353 people.
• 2003 - Mother Teresa is beatified by Pope John Paul II.
• 2003 - David Blaine finally ended his 44-day endurance stunt of being sealed inside a transparent case suspended 30 feet in the air over Potters Fields Park, located in London.
• 2004 - Myanmar prime minister Khin Nyunt is ousted and placed under house arrest by the Thai government on charges of corruption.
• 2004 - Alain Robert dons a Spider-Man costume and climbs a building.
• 2005 - Saddam Hussein goes on trial in Baghdad for crimes against humanity.
• 2005 - Hurricane Wilma becomes the most intense Atlantic hurricane on record with a minimum pressure of 882 mb.
• 2005 - The last Major League Baseball game is played at Busch Memorial Stadium.
• 2006 - The Dow Jones Industrial Average closes above the 12,000 mark for the first time.

[Blue Blood]

Events (October 20th)

• 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.
• 1752 - Arrival in Philadelphia of the Ship Duke of Wirtemberg, Daniel Montpelier, Commander, from Rotterdam (Holland), last from Cowes (England), with 133 immigrants including Johann Conrad Hesser.
• 1781 - Patent of Tolerance, providing limited freedom of worship, was approved in Habsburg Monarchy.
• 1803 - United States Senate ratifies the Louisiana Purchase.
• 1818 - The Convention of 1818 signed between the United States and the United Kingdom which, among other things, settled the US-Canada border on the 49th parallel for most of its length.
• 1824 - William H. Seward and Frances Adeline Miller Seward wed.
• 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. The most important result of this battle is the end of the Greek Liberation War and the affirmation of independence of modern Greece.
• 1883 - Peru and Chile signed the Treaty of Ancón, by which the Tarapacá province was ceded to the latter, bringing an end to Peru's involvement in the War of the Pacific.
• 1910 - The hull of the RMS Olympic, sister-ship to the ill-fated RMS Titanic, is launched from the Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast, Ireland.
• 1935 - The Long March ends
• 1941 - World War II: Thousands of civilians in Kragujevac in German-occupied Serbia are killed in the Kragujevac massacre.
• 1944 - The Soviet army and Yugoslav Partisans liberate Belgrade, the capital of Yugoslavia
• 1944 - Liquid natural gas leaks from storage tanks in Cleveland, then explodes; the explosion and resulting fire level 30 blocks and kill 130.
• 1944 - General Douglas MacArthur fulfills his promise to return to the Philippines when he commands an Allied assault on the islands, reclaiming them from the Japanese during the Second World War.
• 1947 - The House Un-American Activities Committee begins its investigation into Communist infiltration of Hollywood, resulting in a blacklist that prevents some from working in the industry for years.
• 1951 - The "Johnny Bright Incident" occurred in Stillwater, Oklahoma
• 1955 - Publication of The Return of the King, being the last part of The Lord of the Rings
• 1967 - A purported bigfoot is filmed by Patterson and Gimlin
• 1968 - Former First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy marries Greek shipping tycoon Aristotle Onassis.
• 1971 - The Nepal stock exchange collapses.
• 1973 - The Saturday Night Massacre: President Nixon fires Attorney General Elliot Richardson and Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus after they refuse to fire Watergate prosecutor Archibald Cox, who is finally fired by Robert Bork.
• 1973 - The Sydney Opera House opens.
• 1977 - A plane carrying Lynyrd Skynyrd crashes in Mississippi, killing lead singer Ronnie Van Zant and guitarist Steve Gaines.
• 1979 - The John F Kennedy library is opened in Boston, Massachusetts.
• 1984 - The Monterey Bay Aquarium opens in Monterey Bay, California.
• 1991 - The Oakland Hills firestorm kills 25 and destroys 3,469 homes and apartments, causing more than $2 billion in damage.
• 2004 - Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono is sworn in as the President of Indonesia.
• 2004 - Boston Red Sox defeated the New York Yankees 10-3 in Game 7 of the 2004 American League Championship Series, becoming the first team in baseball history to overcome a 3-0 series deficit in a best-of-seven series.

[Blue Blood]

Events (October 21st)

• 686 - Conon becomes Pope.
• 1512 - Martin Luther joins the theological faculty of the University of Wittenberg
• 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.
• 1774 - First display of the word "Liberty" on a flag, raised by colonists in Taunton, Massachusetts and which was in defiance of British rule in Colonial America.
• 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.
• 1805 - Napoleonic Wars: Austrian General Mack surrenders his army to the Grand Army of Napoleon at Ulm, reaping Napoleon over 30,000 prisoners and inflicting 10,000 casualties on the losers. Ulm was considered to be one of Napoleon's finest hours.
• 1824 - Joseph Aspdin patents Portland cement.
• 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.
• 1867 - Manifest Destiny: Medicine Lodge Treaty - Near Medicine Lodge, Kansas a landmark treaty is signed by southern Great Plains Indian leaders. The treaty requires Native American Plains tribes to relocate a reservation in western Oklahoma.
• 1879 - Using a filament of carbonized thread, Thomas Edison tests the first practical electric incandescent light bulb (it lasted 13½ hours before burning out).
• 1895 - The Republic of Formosa collapses as Japanese forces invade.
• 1902 - In the United States, a five month strike by United Mine Workers ends.
• 1921 - President Warren G. Harding delivers the first speech by a sitting President against lynching in the deep south.
• 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.
• 1945 - Women's suffrage: Women are allowed to vote in France for the first time.
• 1945 - Argentine military officer and politician Juan Perón married actress Evita.
• 1947 - 21 die as a fire destroys an asylum in Hoff, Germany.
• 1954 - The first part of JRR Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, The Fellowship of the Ring is published in the U.S.A.
• 1957 - The movie Jailhouse Rock, starring Elvis Presley, opens.
• 1959 - In New York City, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum opens to the public. It was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.
• 1959 - US President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs an executive order transferring Wernher von Braun and other German scientists from the United States Army to NASA.
• 1965 - Helen Schucman commits the first lines of A Course in Miracles to paper.
• 1966 - Aberfan disaster: A coal tip falls on the village of Aberfan in Wales, killing 144 people, mostly schoolchildren
• 1967 - Vietnam War: More than 100,000 war protesters gather in Washington, DC. A peaceful rally at the Lincoln Memorial is followed by a march to The Pentagon and clashes with soldiers and United States Marshals protecting the facility (event lasts until October 23; 683 people were arrested). Similar demonstrations occurred simultaneously in Japan and Western Europe.
• 1969 - A coup d'état in Somalia brings Siad Barre to power.
• 1973 - John Paul Getty III's ear is cut off by his kidnappers and sent to a newspaper in Rome; it doesn't arrive until November 8.
• 1976 - Keith Moon plays his last public show with The Who. He will die in 1978.
• 1977 - The European Patent Institute is founded
• 1977 - Meat Loaf's hit album Bat Out of Hell is released under Epic's Cleveland International Records
• 1978 - Australian civilian pilot Frederick Valentich vanishes in a Cessna 182 over the Bass Strait south of Melbourne, after reporting contact with an unidentified aircraft.
• 1983 - The metre is defined at the seventeenth General Conference on Weights and Measures in terms of the speed of light as the distance light travels in a vacuum in 1/299,792,458 of a second.
• 1986 - In Lebanon, pro-Iranian kidnappers claim to have abducted American writer Edward Tracy (he was released in August 1991).
• 1987 - Former Miss America Bess Myerson is arrested on charges of bribery, conspiracy, and mail fraud, all involving an alimony-fixing scandal. She is later found not guilty.
• 1994 - North Korea nuclear weapons program: North Korea and the United States sign an agreement that requires North Korea to stop its nuclear weapons program and agree to inspections.
• 2002 - Violence in Badlapur located in Mumbai Conurbation created a tension in the city resulted in a lot of property damage injuring 4 people.
• 2003 - Images of the dwarf planet Eris are taken and subsequently used in its discovery by the team of Michael E. Brown, Chad Trujillo, and David L. Rabinowitz.

[Blue Blood]

Events (October 22nd)

• 4004 BCE - The day the universe was created according to British scientist James Ussher after using the Bible's chronology to calculate the date.
• 362 - The temple of Apollo at Daphne, outside of Antioch, is destroyed in a mysterious fire.
• 1383 - The 1383-1385 Crisis in Portugal: A period of civil war and disorder began when King Fernando died without a male heir to the Portuguese throne.
• 1575 - Foundation of Aguascalientes.
• 1746 - The College of New Jersey (later renamed Princeton University) receives its charter.
• 1797 - One thousand meters (3,200 feet) above Paris, Andre-Jacques Garnerin makes the first recorded parachute jump.
• 1836 - Sam Houston is inaugurated as the first President of the Republic of Texas.
• 1844 - The Great Anticipation: Millerites, followers of William Miller, anticipated the end of the world in conjunction with the Second Advent of Christ. The following day became known as the Great Disappointment.
• 1877 - The Blantyre mining disaster in Scotland kills 207 miners. Those widows and orphans who were unable to support themselves were evicted by the mine owners and likely sent to the Poor House.
• 1878 - The first rugby match under floodlights takes place in Salford, between Broughton and Swinton.
• 1883 - The Metropolitan Opera House in New York City opens with a performance of Gounod's Faust (opera).
• 1895 - In Paris an express train overruns a buffer stop and crosses more than 30 metres of concourse before plummeting through a window at Gare Montparnasse.
• 1907 - Panic of 1907: A run on Knickerbocker Trust Company stock sets events in motion that will lead to a depression.
• 1910 - Dr. Crippen is convicted at the Old Bailey of poisoning his wife and was subsequently hanged at Pentonville Prison in London.
• 1924 - Toastmasters International is founded.
• 1926 - J. Gordon Whitehead sucker punches magician Harry Houdini in the stomach in Montreal.
• 1934 - In East Liverpool, Ohio, notorious bank robber Pretty Boy Floyd is shot and killed by Federal Bureau of Investigation agents.
• 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
• 1953 - Laos gains independence from France.
• 1956 - A concrete girder weighing 200 tons kills 48 in Karachi, Pakistan.
• 1957 - Vietnam War: First United States casualties in Vietnam.
• 1960 - Ed Yost makes the first free flight of a modern hot-air balloon at Bruning, Nebraska.
• 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.
• 1964 - Jean-Paul Sartre is awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, but turns down the honor.
• 1964 - Canada: A Multi-Party Parliamentary Committee selects the design which becomes the new official Flag of Canada.
• 1966 - The Supremes become the first all-female music group to attain a No. 1 selling album (The Supremes A' Go-Go).
• 1968 - Apollo program: Apollo 7 safely splashes down in the Atlantic Ocean after orbiting the Earth 163 times.
• 1969 - Led Zeppelin release the classic album Led Zeppelin II, featuring the hit single "Whole Lotta Love."
• 1972 - Vietnam War: In Saigon, Henry Kissinger and South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van Thieu meet to discuss a proposed cease-fire that had been worked out between Americans and North Vietnamese in Paris. Thieu rejects the proposal and accused the United States of conspiring to undermine his regime
• 1975 - Carlton Fisk of the Boston Red Sox hits a home run to win Game 6 of the 1975 World Series against the Cincinnati Reds.
• 1976 - Red Dye No. 4 is banned by the US Food and Drug Administration after it is discovered that it causes tumors in the bladders of dogs. The dye is still used in Canada.
• 1981 - The United States Federal Labor Relations Authority votes to decertify the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization for its strike the previous August.
• 1983 - Two correctional officers were killed by inmates in Marion, Illinois.
• 1986 - U.S. President Ronald Reagan signs the Tax Reform Act of 1986 into law.
• 1987 - John Coolidge Adams's opera Nixon in China debuts at the Houston Grand Opera in Houston, Texas.
• 1987 - The pinnacle rock Gendarme falls at Seneca Rocks.
• 1989 - Jacob Wetterling is abducted in St. Joseph, Minnesota.
• 1990 - Seminal grunge band Pearl Jam, then named Mookie Blaylock, play their first show as a band at the Off Ramp club in Seattle, WA.
• 1999 - Maurice Papon, an official in the Vichy France government during World War II, is jailed for crimes against humanity.
• 2002 - Internet users declare this day as the official Caps Lock Day.
• 2005 - Tropical Storm Alpha forms in the Atlantic Basin, making the 2005 Atlantic Hurricane Season the most active Atlantic hurricane season on record with 22 named storms.
• 2005 - Crash of Bellview Airlines Flight 210 in Nigeria kills all 117 on board.
• 2005 - The first phase of Transantiago, the new public transport system of Santiago de Chile is implemented.
• 2006 - Panama: Referendum concerning the Panama Canal Expansion Proposal.

[Blue Blood]

Events (October 23rd)

• 4004 BC - On the preceding eve of this day (in the proleptic Julian calendar), the universe was created, according to the archbishop James Ussher in what is now called the Ussher-Lightfoot Calendar.
• 42 BC - Roman Republican civil wars: Second Battle of Philippi - Brutus's army is decisively defeated by Mark Antony and Octavian. He commits suicide.
• 425 - Valentinian III is elevated as Roman Emperor, at the age of 6.
• 502 - The Synodus Palmaris, called by Gothic king Theodoric the Great, discharges Pope Symmachus of all charges, thus ending the schism of Antipope Laurentius.
• 1086 - At the Battle of az-Zallaqah, the army of Yusuf ibn Tashfin defeats the forces of Castilian King Alfonso VI
• 1641 - Outbreak of the Irish Rebellion of 1641 - anniversary commemorated by Irish Protestants for over 200 years
• 1694 - American colonial forces, led by Sir William Phips, fail to seize Quebec.
• 1707 - The first Parliament of Great Britain meets.
• 1739 - War of Jenkins' Ear starts: British Prime Minister, Robert Walpole, reluctantly declares war on Spain.
• 1812 - Claude François de Malet, a French general, begins a conspiracy to overthrow Napoleon Bonaparte, claiming that the Emperor died in Russia and that he was now the commandant of Paris. De Malet is executed on October 29.
• 1813 - The Pacific Fur Company trading post in Astoria, Oregon is turned over to the rival British North West Company (the fur trade in the Pacific Northwest was dominated for the next three decades by the United Kingdom).
• 1855 - Kansas Free State forces set up a competing government under their Topeka, Kansas, constitution, which outlaws slavery in the United States territory.
• 1861 - President Abraham Lincoln suspends the writ of habeas corpus in Washington, D.C., for all military-related cases.
• 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.
• 1867 - 72 Senators are summoned by Royal Proclamation to serve as the first members of the Canadian Senate.
• 1906 - Alberto Santos-Dumont flies the 14-bis in the first public and officially-recognised heavier-than-air flight at Champs de Bagatelle, Paris, France.
• 1911 - First use of aircraft in war: an Italian pilot takes off from Libya to survey Turkish lines during the Turco-Italian War.
• 1915 - Woman's suffrage: In New York City, 25,000-33,000 women march up Fifth Avenue to demand the right to vote.
• 1929 - Great Depression: After a steady decline in stock market prices since a peak in September, the New York Stock Exchange begins to show signs of panic.
• 1929 - The first transcontinental air service begins from New York City to Los Angeles.
• 1930 - The first miniature golf tournament finished in Chattanooga, Tennessee.
• 1935 - Dutch Schultz, Abe Landau, Otto Berman, and Bernard "Lulu" Rosenkrantz are fatally shot in a bar in Newark, New Jersey in what will become known as The Chophouse Massacre.
• 1941 - World War II: Georgy Zhukov assumes command of Red Army efforts to stop the German advance into Russia.
• 1941 - Burning of Odessa Jews, Ukraine: 19,000 Jews are burned alive at Dalnik in Odessa, by Romanian and German troops. The next day, another 10,000 Jews are killed. Romanian Lieutenant-Colonel Nicolae Deleanu administered the executions.
• 1942 - World War II: Second Battle of El Alamein starts - At El Alamein in Egypt, British forces begin a major offensive against Axis forces.
• 1944 - World War II: Battle of Leyte Gulf begins - The largest naval battle in history begins in Leyte Gulf, the Red Army enters Hungary
• 1946 - The United Nations General Assembly convened in New York for the first time, at an auditorium in Flushing Meadow.
• 1956 - Thousands of Hungarians protest against Soviet influence and occupation (Hungarian Revolution is put down on November 4).
• 1958 - Belgian cartoonist Peyo introduced a new set of comic strip characters The Smurfs.
• 1965 - Vietnam War: Operation Silver Bayonet - The U.S. 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile) in conjunction with South Vietnamese forces, launch a new operation, seeking to destroy North Vietnamese forces in Pleku Province in II Corps Tactical Zone (the Central Highlands).
• 1973 - Watergate Scandal: US President Richard M. Nixon agrees to turn over subpoenaed audio tapes of his Oval Office conversations about the scandal.
• 1973 - A U.N. sanctioned cease-fire officially ends the Yom Kippur War between Israel and Syria.
• 1983 - Lebanon Civil War: U.S. Marines barracks in Beirut hit by truck bomb, killing 241 U.S. servicemen. French barracks also hit the same morning, killing 58.
• 1987 - The U.S. Senate rejected the Supreme Court nomination of Robert H. Bork on a 58-42 vote.
• 1989 - The Hungarian Republic is officially declared by president Mátyás Szűrös (replacing the Hungarian People's Republic).
• 1992 - Akihito becomes the first Emperor of Japan to stand on Chinese soil.
• 1993 - The Toronto Blue Jays win their second straight World Series.
• 1996 - The civil trial of former American football player O.J. Simpson opens in Santa Monica, California.
• 1998 - Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Chairman Yasser Arafat reach a "land-for-peace" agreement.
• 1998 - Abortion in the United States: In Amherst, New York, abortion doctor Barnett Slepian is killed in his home by a sniper.
• 1998 - Swatch Internet Time introduced
• 1999 - Apple Computer's Mac OS 9 is released and sold
• 2001 - The Provisional Irish Republican Army of Northern Ireland commences disarmament after peace talks encouraged by American President Bill Clinton.
• 2001 - Apple Computer releases the first iPod.
• 2002 - Moscow Theatre Siege begins: Chechen rebels seize the House of Culture theater in Moscow and take approximately 700 theatergoers hostage.
• 2004 - Brazil's "Operation Cajuana" launches its first rocket into space, the VSB-30, just 14 months after its space program was devastated by a deadly launch pad accident.
• 2004 - A powerful earthquake and its aftershocks hit Niigata prefecture, northern Japan, killing 35 people, injuring 2,200, and leaving 85,000 homeless or evacuated.

[Blue Blood]

Events (October 24th)

• 69 - Second Battle of Bedriacum, forces under Antonius Primus, the commander of the Danube armies, loyal to Vespasian, defeat the forces of Emperor Vitellius.
• 1260 - The spectacular Cathedral of Chartres is dedicated in the presence of King Louis IX of France; the cathedral is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
• 1260 - Saif ad-Din Qutuz, Mamluk sultan of Egypt, is assassinated by Baibars, who seizes power for himself.
• 1360 - The Treaty of Brétigny is ratified at Calais, marking the end of the first phase of the Hundred Years' War.
• 1593 - Alleged teleportation of Gil Perez.
• 1648 - The Peace of Westphalia is signed, marking the end of the Thirty Years' War.
• 1795 - Partitions of Poland: The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth is completely divided between Austria, Prussia and Russia
• 1812 - Napoleonic Wars: The Battle of Maloyaroslavets takes place near Moscow.
• 1857 - Sheffield F.C., the world's first football club, is founded in Sheffield, England.
• 1861 - The first transcontinental telegraph line across the United States is completed, spelling the end for the 18-month-old Pony Express.
• 1917 - Battle of Caporetto starts on the Austro-Italian front of World War I
• 1929 - "Black Thursday" stock market crash on the New York Stock Exchange.
• 1930 - A bloodless coup d'état in Brazil ousts Washington Luís Pereira de Sousa, the last President of the First Republic. Getúlio Dornelles Vargas is then installed as "provisional president."
• 1935 - Italy invades Ethiopia
• 1944 - World War II: The Japanese aircraft carrier Zuikaku is sunk.
• 1945 - Founding of the United Nations
• 1947 - Walt Disney testifies to the House Un-American Activities Committee, naming Disney employees he believes to be communists.
• 1954 - Dwight D. Eisenhower pledges United States support to South Vietnam
• 1957 - the USAF starts the X-20 Dyna-Soar program.
• 1960 - Nedelin catastrophe: An R-16 ballistic missile explodes on the launch pad at the Soviet Union's Baikonur Cosmodrome space facility, killing 165. Among the dead is Field Marshall Mitrofan Nedelin, whose death is reported to have occurred in a plane crash.
• 1964 - Northern Rhodesia gains independence from the United Kingdom and becomes the Republic of Zambia (Southern Rhodesia remained a colony)
• 1973 - Yom Kippur War ends
• 1977 - Veterans Day is observed on the fourth Monday in October for the seventh and last time. (The holiday is once again observed on November 11 beginning the following year.)
• 1980 - Government of Poland legalizes Solidarity trade union
• 1986 - Nezar Hindawi is sentenced to 45 years in prison, the longest sentence handed down by a British court, for the attempted bombing on an El Al flight at Heathrow. After the verdict, the United Kingdom breaks diplomatic relations with Syria, claiming that Hindawi was helped by Syrian officials.
• 1990 - Italian prime minister Giulio Andreotti reveals to the Italian parliament the existence of Gladio, the Italian "stay-behind" clandestine paramilitary NATO army.
• 1995 - A total solar eclipse is visible from Iran, India, Thailand, and SE Asia.
• 1998 - Launch of Deep Space 1 comet/asteroid mission
• 2002 - Police arrest spree killers John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo, ending the Beltway sniper attacks in the area around Washington, DC.
• 2003 - Concorde makes its last commercial flight, bringing the era of airliner supersonic transport to a close, at least for the time being.
• 2004 - A plane carrying ten members of the NASCAR Hendrick Motorsports team crashes en route to the race held at Martinsville Speedway. There were no survivors.
• 2005 - Hurricane Wilma makes landfall in South Florida.

[Blue Blood]

Events (October 25th)

• 1147 - The Portuguese, under Afonso I, and Crusaders from England and Flanders conquer Lisbon after a four-month siege.
• 1315 - Adam Banastre, Henry de Lea and William Bradshaw, led an attack on Liverpool Castle.
• 1415 - The army of Henry V of England defeats the French at the Battle of Agincourt.
• 1616 - Dutch sea-captain Dirk Hartog makes second recorded landfall by a European on Australian soil, at the later-named Dirk Hartog Island off the Western Australian coast.
• 1747 - British fleet under Admiral Sir Edward Hawke defeats French at the second battle of Cape Finisterre.
• 1760 - George III becomes King of Great Britain
• 1813 - War of 1812: Canadians and Mohawks defeat the Americans in the Battle of Chateauguay.
• 1828 - The St Katharine Docks opened in London.
• 1854 - The Battle of Balaklava during the Crimean War (Charge of the Light Brigade).
• 1861 - The Toronto Stock Exchange was created.
• 1900 - The United Kingdom annexes the Transvaal.
• 1917 - The Bolshevik Revolution commences (according to the Julian calendar, which Russia used at the time of the Revolution. On the Gregorian calendar, the date was November 7).
• 1922 - The Dail of the Irish Free State approves the constitution of the new state, formally bringing it into being.
• 1923 - The United States Senate begins investigating the Teapot Dome scandal
• 1924 - The forged Zinoviev Letter is published in the Daily Mail, wrecking the British Labour Party's hopes of re-election.
• 1935 - Hurricane floods Haiti, killing over 2,000 people.
• 1936 - Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini create the Rome-Berlin Axis.
• 1938 - The Archbishop of Dubuque, Francis J. L. Beckman, denounces Swing music as "a degenerated musical system... turned loose to gnaw away at the moral fiber of young people", warning that it leads down a "primrose path to hell".
• 1944 - Heinrich Himmler orders a crackdown on the Edelweiss Pirates, a loosely organized youth culture in Nazi Germany that had assisted army deserters and others to hide from the Third Reich
• 1944 - The USS Tang (SS-306) under Richard O'Kane (the top submarine captain of World War II) is sunk by her own torpedo.
• 1944 - The Romanian Army liberates Carei, the last Romanian city under Axis Powers' occupation.
• 1945 - The Republic of China takes over administration of Taiwan following Japan's surrender to the Allies.
• 1962 - Cuban missile crisis: Adlai Stevenson shows photos at the UN proving Soviet missiles are installed in Cuba
• 1971 - The United Nations seated the People's Republic of China and expelled the Republic of China (see political status of Taiwan and China and the United Nations)
• 1972 - The Washington Post reports that White House Chief of Staff H.R. Haldeman was the fifth person to control a secret cash fund designed to finance illegal political sabotage and espionage during the 1972 presidential election campaign (see also Watergate scandal)
• 1980 - Proceedings on the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction conclude at The Hague
• 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.
• 1986 - The New York Mets defeat the Boston Red Sox due to Bill Buckner's infamous error in Game 6 of the World Series. They would win Game 7 two days later and claim the World Title.
• 1991 - History of Slovenia: Three months after the end of the Ten-Day War, the last soldier of the Yugoslav People's Army leaves the territory of the Republic of Slovenia.
• 1992 - Latvia establishes its first post-Soviet constitution.
• 1993 - Jean Chrétien becomes prime minister of Canada with a massive majority for his Liberal Party in a general election in which the governing Progressive Conservatives, led by Kim Campbell, lost 149 of 151 seats in the parliament.
• 1995 - A commuter train slams into a school bus in Fox River Grove, Illinois, killing seven students.
• 1996 - The "Days of Action", the largest one day strike in Ontario, Canada's history, as over 250,000 protestors converged on the Ontario Legislature and attempted to shut-down Toronto, in protest to the Mike Harris Government's budget cuts.
• 1997 - After a brief civil war which has driven President Pascal Lissouba out of Brazzaville, Denis Sassou-Nguesso proclaims himself the President of the Republic of the Congo.
• 2001 - Windows XP is officially released.
• 2002 - Carlton Television of London aired a regionally for the last time, to be followed by the majority of the ITV Network two days later.
• 2003 - The Cedar Fire is reported at 5:37 pm. It becomes the second largest wildfire in California history.
• 2003 - Australia defeat Namibia in the 2003 Rugby World Cup by a record 142 points to zero.
• 2004 - Fidel Castro, Cuba's President, announces that transactions using the American Dollar will be banned by November 8th.
• 2006 - Oasis Hong Kong Airlines starts operations to London Gatwick

[Blue Blood]

Events (October 26th)

• 740 - An earthquake strikes Constantinople, causing much damage and death.
• 1640 - The Treaty of Ripon is signed, restoring peace between Scotland and Charles I of England
• 1774 - The first Continental Congress adjourns.
• 1795 - The French Directory, a five-man revolutionary government, is created
• 1825 - The Erie Canal opens - passage from Albany, New York to Lake Erie
• 1859 - The Royal Charter is wrecked on the coast of Anglesey, north Wales with 459 dead
• 1863 - The Football Association is formed
• 1881 - The Gunfight at the O.K. Corral takes place at Tombstone, Arizona.
• 1905 - Norway becomes independent from Sweden
• 1912 - The city of Thessaloniki is unified with Greece on the feast day of its patron Saint Demetrius.
• 1917 - Battle of Caporetto: Italy suffers a catastrophic defeat at the hands of Germany and Austria during the First World War
• 1918 - Erich von Ludendorff, quartermaster-general of the Imperial German Army, is dismissed by Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany for refusing to cooperate in peace negotiations.
• 1936 - The first electric generator at Hoover Dam went into full operation.
• 1940 - The P-51 Mustang makes its maiden flight.
• 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.
• 1944 - Future Vice-president, and later, President Harry Truman publicly denies ever having been a member of the Ku Klux Klan.
• 1947 - The Maharaja of Kashmir agrees to allow his kingdom to join India.
• 1947 - The British Military Occupation ends in Iraq.
• 1948 - Killer smog settles into Donora, Pennsylvania.
• 1954 - Trieste return to Italy.
• 1955 - After the last Allied troops have left the country and following the provisions of the Austrian Independence Treaty, Austria declares its permanent neutrality.
• 1955 - Ngo Dinh Diem declares himself Premier of South Vietnam
• 1958 - Pan American Airways makes the first commercial flight of the Boeing 707 from New York to Paris.
• 1964 - Eric Edgar Cooke hanged, last person in Western Australia to be executed.
• 1965 - The Beatles are appointed Members of the Order of the British Empire (MBEs)
• 1965 - The body of Sylvia Likens is found in Indianapolis, Indiana, USA.
• 1977 - The last natural case of smallpox was discovered in Merca district, Somalia. The WHO and the CDC consider this date the anniversary of the eradication of smallpox, the most spectacular success of vaccination.
• 1978 - Independent Counsel Act signed into law
• 1979 - Park Chung-hee, President of South Korea is assassinated by KCIA head Kim Jae-kyu. Choi Kyu-ha becomes the acting President; Kim is executed the following May.
• 1984 - "Baby Fae" receives a heart transplant from a baboon
• 1984 - John D. McCollum shoots and kills himself after spending a day listening to Ozzy Osbourne records; a lawsuit is later filed by his parents over the song "Suicide Solution", but the case eventually gets thrown out.
• 1992 - The command and control system of the London Ambulance Service fails catastrophically.
• 1992 - The Charlottetown Accord fails to win majority support in a Canada wide referendum.
• 1994 - Jordan and Israel sign a peace treaty
• 1994 - Announcement that Andrew Wiles correctly proved Fermat's last theorem.
• 1995 - Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: Mossad agents assassinate Islamic Jihad leader Fathi Shikaki in his hotel in Malta.
• 1997 - The left arms of Chen Ming-Kuo and Yang Chung-ming are amputated by the rope in a 1,500-person tug-of-war contest in Taipei; both arms are successfully reattached later on.
• 1997 - Basketball player Charles Barkley is charged with aggravated battery and resisting arrest after throwing Jorge Lugo through a plate glass window in a dance club in Orlando, Florida.
• 1999 - Britain's House of Lords votes to end the right of hereditary peers to vote in Britain's upper chamber of Parliament.
• 2000 - Laurent Gbagbo takes over as president of Côte d'Ivoire following a popular uprising against President Robert Guéï
• 2000 - The successor to the highly successful PlayStation, the PlayStation 2 was released.
• 2001 - The United States passes the controversial USA PATRIOT Act into law.
• 2002 - Moscow Theater Siege ends: Approximately 50 Chechen rebels and 150 hostages die when Russian Spetsnaz storm the House of Culture theater in Moscow, which had been occupied by the rebels three days before.
• 2004 - AT&T Wireless is officially acquired by Cingular Wireless.
• 2005 - The Chicago White Sox defeat the Houston Astros in the World Series to win their first championship since 1917

[Blue Blood]

Events (October 27th)

• 625 - Honorius I becomes Pope.
• 939 - Edmund I succeeds Athelstan as King of England.
• 1275 - Traditional founding of the city of Amsterdam.
• 1553 - Condemned as a heretic, Michael Servetus is burned at the stake just outside Geneva.
• 1644 - Second Battle of Newbury in the English Civil War.
• 1682 - Philadelphia, Pennsylvania is founded.
• 1795 - The United States and Spain sign the Treaty of Madrid, which establishes the boundaries between Spanish colonies and the U.S.
• 1797 - Treaty of Campo Formio is signed between France and Austria.
• 1810 - United States annexes the former Spanish colony of West Florida.
• 1838 - Missouri governor Lilburn Boggs issues the Extermination Order, which orders all Mormons to leave the state.
• 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.
• 1904 - First New York City Subway line opens; the system becomes biggest in United States of America, and one of the biggest in world.
• 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.
• 1924 - The Uzbek SSR is founded in the Soviet Union.
• 1936 - Mrs Wallis Simpson filed for divorce which would eventually allow her to marry King Edward VIII of the United Kingdom, thus forcing his abdication from the throne.
• 1946 - First commercially-sponsored television program airs (Geographically Speaking, sponsored by Bristol-Myers).
• 1948 - Léopold Sédar Senghor founds the Senegalese Democratic Bloc (BDS).
• 1949 - An airliner flying from Paris to New York crashes near the Azores. Among the victims are violinist Ginette Neveu and boxer Marcel Cerdan.
• 1953 - British nuclear test Totem 2 is detonated at Emu Field, South Australia.
• 1954 - Benjamin O. Davis Jr. becomes the first African-American general in the United States Air Force.
• 1958 - Iskander Mirza, the first President of Pakistan, is deposed in a bloodless coup d'état by General Ayub Khan, who was appointed the enforcer of martial law by Mirza 20 days earlier.
• 1961 - NASA launched the first Saturn I rocket in Mission Saturn-Apollo 1.
• 1962 - Major Rudolph Anderson of the US Air Force became the only direct human casualty of the Cuban Missile Crisis when his U-2 reconnaissance airplane was shot down in Cuba by a Soviet-supplied SA-2 Guideline surface-to-air missile.
• 1971 - Democratic Republic of the Congo is renamed Zaire.
• 1973 - The Canyon City meteorite, a 1.4 kg chondrite type meteorite strikes in Fremont County, Colorado.
• 1981 - The Soviet submarine U 137 runs aground on the east coast of Sweden.
• 1990 - Supreme Soviet of Kirghiz SSR chooses Askar Akayev as republic's first president.
• 1991 - Turkmenistan achieved independence from the Soviet Union.
• 1995 - Latvia applies for membership in the European Union.
• 1997 - Stock markets around the world crash because of fears of a global economic meltdown. The Dow Jones Industrial Average plummets 554.26 points to 7,161.15. For the first time, the New York Stock Exchange activated their "circuit breakers" twice during the day eventually making the controversial move of closing the Exchange early (see October 27, 1997 mini-crash).
• 1998 - Gerhard Schröder becomes Chancellor of Germany for the first time.
• 2002 - Trades unionist Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is elected as President of Brazil.
• 2002 - The ITV Network aired a constant regional service for the last time in England and Wales, but London Weekend Television (LWT) lost its identity completely. All companies (except UTV, Channel, Scottish TV & Grampian TV) formed the national ITV1 with regional references only before regional programmes.
• 2004 - Curse of the Bambino: The Boston Red Sox defeat the St. Louis Cardinals in Game 4 of the World Series, winning their first championship since 1918.
• 2005 - Riots begin in Paris after the deaths of two Muslim teenagers
• 2006- St. Louis Cardinals win their 10th World Series title.

[Blue Blood]

Events (October 28th)

• 306 - Maxentius is proclaimed Roman Emperor.
• 312 - Battle of Milvian Bridge: Constantine I defeats Maxentius, becoming the only Roman Emperor.
• 1492 - Christopher Columbus lands in Cuba.
• 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.
• 1628 - The Siege of La Rochelle, which had been ongoing for 14 months, ends with Huguenot surrender
• 1636 - A vote of the Great and General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony establishes the first college in what would become the United States, today known as Harvard University.
• 1664 - The Duke of York and Albany's Maritime Regiment of Foot later to be known as the Royal Marines is established.
• 1776 - American Revolutionary War: Battle of White Plains - British Army forces arrive at White Plains, attack and capture Chatterton Hill from the Americans.
• 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.
• 1848 - The first railroad in Spain - between Barcelona and Mataró - is opened.
• 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.
• 1868 - Thomas Edison applied for his first patent, an electrical vote recorder.
• 1886 - In New York Harbor, President Grover Cleveland dedicates the Statue of Liberty.
• 1914 - The single largest one-day percentage decline of the Dow Jones Industrial Average in the recorded history of the New York stock market.
• 1918 - Czechoslovakia is granted its independence from Austria-Hungary.
• 1918 - New Polish government in Western Galicia (Central Europe) is established.
• 1919 - The U.S. Congress passes the Volstead Act over President Woodrow Wilson's veto, paving the way for Prohibition to begin the following January.
• 1922 - March on Rome: Italian fascists led by Benito Mussolini march on Rome and take over the Italian government with the assistance of the Catholic Church; Pope Pius XI declares that "Mussolini is a man sent by divine providence."
• 1936 - US President Franklin D. Roosevelt rededicates the Statue of Liberty on its 50th anniversary.
• 1940 - World War II: Italy invades Greece through Albania. This was the selected anniversary of Greece's entry into World War II. It is celebrated in Greece as Oxi (No) Day (Όχι=No) Day.
• 1941 - Holocaust in Kaunas, Lithuania: German SS forces arrange the massacre of more than 9,000 Jews of Kaunas ghetto. All Jews, men, women, children at 6 am, assembled on the big Demokratu square to be shot and buried later into the gigantic ditches.
• 1942 - The Alaska Highway (Alcan Highway) is completed through Canada to Fairbanks, Alaska.
• 1942 - Holocaust: 2,000 Jewish children and 6,000 Jewish adults from Cracow are deported by Germans to Belzec death camp.
• 1942 - Holocaust: SS directive orders all Jewish children's mittens and stockings to be sent from the death camps to the SS families.
• 1943 - The fictitious The Philadelphia Experiment supposedly occurred.
• 1948 - Swiss chemist Paul Müller is awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his discovery of the insecticidal properties of DDT.
• 1949 - Georges Bidault becomes Prime Minister of France
• 1950 - The Jack Benny Show, starring Jack Benny, premieres on American TV. It ran for 15 years.
• 1954 - The modern Kingdom of the Netherlands is re-founded as a federal monarchy.
• 1958 - Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli becomes the Pope and takes the name Pope John XXIII.
• 1962 - Cuban Missile Crisis: Soviet Union leader Nikita Khrushchev announces that he had ordered the removal of Soviet missile bases in Cuba.
• 1962 - Y.A. Tittle of the New York Giants became the third quarterback in NFL history to throw seven touchdown passes in one game.
• 1965 - French foreign minister Couve de Murville travels to Moscow.
• 1965 - Nostra Aetate, the "Declaration on the Relation of the Church with Non-Christian Religions" of the Second Vatican Council, is promulgated by Pope Paul VI; it absolves the Jews of the alleged killing of Jesus, reversing Innocent III's declaration from 760 years ago. In short, Pope Paul VI announces that the ecumenical council has decided that Jews are not collectively responsible for the killing of Christ.
• 1965 - In St. Louis, Missouri, the 630-foot-tall parabolic (catenarian) stainless steel Gateway Arch monument is completed.
• 1970 - The land speed record set by Gary Gabelich in a rocket-powered automobile called the Blue Flame, fueled with natural gas.
• 1976 - John D. Ehrlichman, former domestic policy adviser of President Nixon and convicted Watergate felon, arrives at the Swift Trail Camp minimum-security facility in southeastern Arizona.
• 1981 - The heavy metal band Metallica is founded in San Francisco.
• 1986 - The centennial of the Statue of Liberty's dedication is re-celebrated in New York Harbor.
• 1988 - The French drug manufacturer Roussel Uclaf states that it will resume distribution of the so-called abortion drug RU-486.
• 1997 - The Dow Jones Industrial Average gains a record 337.17 points to close at 7,498.32.
• 1998 - An Air China (Mainland China) jetliner is hijacked by disgruntled pilot Yuan Bin and flown to Taiwan.
• 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.