- 79 Mt. Vesuvius erupts, burying the cities of Pompeii, Herculaneum, Oplontis, and Stabiae and killing thousands. New research in 2018 suggests the eruption occurred around this date, not the previously used August 24. [1] [2]
- 1260 Qutuz, Mamluk Sultan of Egypt (1259-60), is assassinated by Baibars, a fellow Mamluk leader, 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
- 1492 24 Jews are burned at the stake in Mecklenburg, Germany
- 1531 Bavaria joins Schmalkaldic League
- 1579 The first Englishman to voyage and settle in India, Jesuit missionary Thomas Stephens, arrives in Goa with a Portuguese fleet [1]
- 1593 Alleged teleportation of Spanish soldier Gil Perez from the Philippines to Mexico
- 1596 Battle of Kerestes: Ottoman beat Austria-Hungary and Germany (ends Oct 26)
Battle of Maloyaroslavets
1812 Napoleonic Wars: The Battle of Maloyaroslavets takes place near Moscow, and the French army is then forced to retreat through the snow towards Smolensk
Mendelssohn’s 1st Concert
1818 Felix Mendelssohn, aged 9, performs his first public concert in Berlin, Germany
- 1836 Earliest American patent for a phosphorus friction match by Alonzo Dwight Phillips of Springfield, Massachusetts
- 1851 William Lassell discovers Ariel and Umbriel, satellites of Uranus
- 1856 Constitution of South Australia is adopted
- 1857 Recognized by FIFA as the oldest existing club still playing football in the world, Sheffield FC is founded in Yorkshire, England, and is now based in Dronfield, Derbyshire
- 1861 First US transcontinental telegram is sent, from San Francisco to Washington, D.C.
- 1861 West Virginia secedes from Virginia
- 1871 Mob in Los Angeles, California, hangs 18 Chinese
- 1877 Russo-Turkish War: Russian and Romanian forces encircle Plevna, Ottoman Empire (now Pleven, Bulgaria), cutting off supplies
1881 Levi P. Morton, US ambassador to France, drives the first rivet in the Statue of Liberty
- 1885 Johann Strauss’ operetta “Zigeunerbaron (Gypsy Baron)” premieres in Vienna
- 1889 Softball rules adopted by Mid Winter Indoor Baseball League
- 1899 Battle of Rietfontein, South Africa: Boers vs. British army
- 1900 General Redvers Buller returns to England
- 1901 Annie Edson Taylor is the first woman to go over Niagara Falls in a barrel, surviving the plunge on her 63rd birthday
- 1902 Santa Maria volcano in Guatemala erupts, killing 6,000 people and becoming one of the largest eruptions of the 20th century
- 1903 First trotter to run a mile under 2 minutes (Lou Dillon 1:58.1)
- 1903 George Sutton, known as the handless billiard player, becomes a billiards champion without artificial devices, holding the cue between his two elbows
- 1908 Edward Meeker hits the charts with “Take Me Out to the Ball Game”; songwriters Edward Albert Von Tilzer and Jack Norworth had yet to attend a baseball game, the 1st recording is often misattributed to singer Billy Murray [1] [2]
- 1909 Italy and Russia sign the Racconigi Pact in which both nations promise to support the status quo in the Balkans
Wright’s Glider Record
1911 Orville Wright remains in the air for 9 minutes and 45 seconds in a glider at Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina, setting a new world record that stands for 10 years
- 1913 Joe Tinker fired as Cincinnati Reds manager
- 1916 Moroccan troops capture Fort Douaumont
- 1917 Battle of Caporetto: German and Austria defeat the Italian army
- 1922 German parliament mandates Ebert as president until July 1925
- 1922 Irish Parliament adopts a constitution for an Irish Free State
- 1923 General Otto von Lossow calls Reichswehr to Berlin to form a dictatorship
- 1924 Christian General Feng Joe Siang occupies Beijing
- 1924 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine is awarded to Dutchman Willem Einthoven “for his discovery of the mechanism of the electrocardiogram”
Houdini’s Last Performance
1926 Harry Houdini‘s last performance at the Garrick Theatre in Detroit, Michigan
- 1929 Belgian princess Marie-Jose and Italian crown prince Umberto get engaged, and an assassination attempt on Umberto fails
1929 On “Black Thursday,” the Dow Jones Industrial Average drops 12.8%, marking the start of the stock market crash of 1929
The Fleishmann’s Yeast Hour
1929 Rudy Vallee‘s “The Fleishmann’s Yeast Hour” begins broadcasting on NBC radio
Brazilian Coup d’état
1930 A bloodless coup d’état in Brazil ousts Washington Luís Pereira de Sousa, the last President of the First Republic, and Getúlio Vargas is then installed as “provisional president”
- 1931 George Washington Bridge linking New York City and New Jersey is dedicated and opens the next day
- 1932 British government signs trade treaty with USSR
Cole Porter Falls from Horse
1937 American songwriter Cole Porter (46) and his horse fall during a ride at the Piping Rock Club in Locust Valley, New York; Porter’s pelvis and legs are crushed, crippling him for the rest of his life [1]
- 1938 The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), prohibiting child labor in factories, comes into effect in the US
- 1939 Benny Goodman records jazz single “Let’s Dance”
- 1939 Joe DiMaggio wins American League MVP, with Jimmie Foxx finishing as runner-up
- 1939 Nylon stockings go on sale for first time (Wilmington, Delaware)
- 1940 Japan eliminates US terms (strike, play ball) from baseball, replacing them with Japanese words
- 1940 Protestant churches in France protest against the dismissal of Jewish civil servants
- 1940 US Fair Labor Standards of 1938 comes into effect, with a 44-hour workweek and a minimum wage set at $0.25 per hour
- 1942 British infantry advances on the second day of the Battle of El Alamein
- 1944 In the Leeuwarden Prison Escape, a group of Dutch resistance fighters successfully free 39 prisoners from a Nazi prison in Leeuwarden
- 1944 US air raid on Japanese battleships and cruisers in Sibuya Sea: Musashi sinks
- 1944 US aircraft carrier Princeton sinks in the Philippines
Flying Ace David McCampbell
1944 US naval pilot David McCampbell sets a combat mission record by shooting down 9 Japanese planes during Battle of Leyte Gulf in the Philippines
1945 Charter of United Nations comes into effect
- 1946 A camera on board the V-2 No. 13 rocket launched from White Sands, USA, takes the first photograph of Earth from outer space
- 1947 Series of forest fires burn over $30 million of timber across the New England States
- 1948 Francis Poulenc‘s “Sinfonietta” premieres
- 1948 WJBK TV channel 2 in Detroit, MI (CBS) begins broadcasting
- 1949 Construction of the United Nations headquarters begins in New York
- 1951 Jan de Hartog’s “Four Poster” premieres in New York City
- 1951 United Nations publishes its first postage stamps
- 1952 Arab Liberation Movement becomes the only political party in Syria
- 1953 KOOL (now KTSP) TV channel 10 in Phoenix, AZ (CBS) begins broadcasting
1954 Britain’s Mike Hawthorn wins the season-ending Spanish Grand Prix at Pedralbes; Argentine Maserati driver Juan Manuel Fangio wins his second Formula 1 World Drivers’ Championship by 17 points from countryman José Froilán González
- 1956 Margaret Towner becomes the first woman to be ordained into the Presbyterian Church in the US (PCUSA)
- 1956 The Associated Press names Cincinnati manager Birdie Tebbetts the National League Manager of the Year
- 1957 Cincinnati Redlegs decline to move to Roosevelt Stadium in Jersey City
- 1957 The United States Air Force (USAF) starts the X-20 Dyna-Soar program
- 1958 USSR lends Egypt 400 million rubles to build the Aswan High Dam across the Nile river
- 1960 Catastrophe at Baikonur Cosmodrome: Prototype missile explodes on launch pad, killing Chief Marshal of Artillery Mitrofan Nedelin and over 100 personnel; USSR claims victims died in plane crash, suppressing true details until 1989
The Manchurian Candidate
1962 “The Manchurian Candidate,” directed by John Frankenheimer and starring Frank Sinatra and Laurence Harvey, is released
1962 Soviet ships approach but stop short of the US blockade of Cuba during the Cuban Missile Crisis
- 1963 Dutch KRO-TV shows the first episode of the American western series “Bonanza”
- 1963 Sandy Koufax is the unanimous winner of the Cy Young Award
- 1964 Belgian paratroopers, with American Air Force support, liberate hundreds of hostages held by rebels in Stanleyville, Democratic Republic of the Congo
- 1964 Test cricket debut of Pakistani standouts Asif Iqbal, Majid Khan, and Khalid Ibadulla in drawn first Test against Australia in Karachi; Khalid “Billy” Ibadulla scores 166
- 1964 XVIII Summer Olympic Games close at the National Stadium, Tokyo, Japan
- 1964 Zambia (formerly Northern Rhodesia) gains independence from Britain (National Day) with Kenneth Kaunda becoming President
Voices for Today
1965 Benjamin Britten‘s choral work “Voices for Today,” commissioned by UN Secretary-General U Thant, premieres
- 1968 16-year old American swimmer Debbie Meyer wins the inaugural women’s 800 m gold medal in 9:24.0 at the Mexico City Olympics, becoming the first swimmer to win three individual gold medals at a Games (200 and 400 m)
- 1968 Australian swimmer Michael Wendon wraps up the Mexico City Games sprint double when he wins the men’s 200 m freestyle gold medal in an Olympic record of 1:55.2
- 1968 Mick Jagger and Marianne Faithful are busted for pot and released on £50 bail
- 1968 The last high-altitude X-15 flight, piloted by William Dana, reaches an altitude of 77.7 km
- 1968 The People’s Democracy (PD) stage a protest demonstration at Stormont Parliament buildings, Belfast, Northern Ireland
- 1969 Pakistani cricketing brothers Hanif, Mushtaq, and Sadiq Mohammad play their only Test together in the drawn first Test against New Zealand in Karachi
Allende Elected President
1970 Marxist Salvador Allende elected President of Chile by the Chilean Congress
- 1970 Nancy Walker creates Ida Morgenstein role on “The Mary Tyler Moore Show”
- 1971 A member of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) is shot dead by undercover Royal Ulster Constabulary officers during a bomb attack in Belfast
- 1971 Harry Drake breaks the world record for the longest shot with a footbow at 1 mile 268 yards (1,854 meters)
- 1971 President of Sinn Féin, Ruairi O’Brady, addresses a party conference in Dublin and proclaims that the North of Ireland must be made ungovernable as a first step to achieve a united Ireland
- 1971 The Texas Stadium opens, and the Dallas Cowboys beat the New England Patriots 44-21
- 1972 Pitchfork murders: two Catholic civilians, Michael Naan and Andrew Joseph Murray, are stabbed to death by two British Army soldiers in a field near Newtownbutler, County Fermanagh
Lennon Sues US Government
1973 John Lennon sues US government to admit FBI is tapping his phone; they deny doing so
- 1973 Poor visibility caused by bog fire smoke and sudden heavy fog results in a series of collisions on the New Jersey Turnpike, involving 65 vehicles, killing 11 people, and injuring 40
- 1974 Billy Martin of the Texas Rangers is named AL Manager of the Year
- 1975 A Turkish diplomat is shot dead in Paris
1976 English McLaren driver James Hunt finishes fourth in the season-ending Japanese Grand Prix at Fuji Speedway to win his first Formula 1 World Drivers’ Championship by one point from Niki Lauda
- 1976 First Jewish film and TV festival
- 1978 Keith Richards is convicted of heroin possession in Toronto
- 1979 Billy Martin punches a marshmallow salesman, resulting in him being fired by the New York Yankees
- 1979 Guinness Book of Records presents Paul McCartney with a rhodium disc as the all-time best-selling singer-songwriter
- 1980 Great Britain performs a nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
- 1980 Iraqi troops occupy Khorramshar
- 1980 John Lennon releases his single “(Just Like) Starting Over” in the UK
- 1980 Polish government legalizes the independent labor union Solidarity
Guernica
1981 Pablo Picasso‘s 1937 painting Guernica goes on display in Madrid, Spain, to celebrate the centenary of the artist’s birth
- 1982 Steffi Graf plays her first professional tennis match
- 1984 Eleven members of the Colombo crime family are arrested
- 1984 Intelsat 5 re-enters Earth’s atmosphere five months after failing
- 1986 Great Britain cuts diplomatic relations with Syria
- 1986 MLB Los Angeles Dodgers’ infielder Bill Russell (38) announces his retirement
- 1987 NBC technicians accept a pact and end their 118-day strike
- 1988 New York Islanders and NHL high scorer Mike Bossy (31) retires
- 1988 Typhoon Ruby sinks the Philippine ferry; hundreds drown
Bakker Sentenced to Prison
1989 American televangelist Jim Bakker is sentenced to 45 years in prison for fraud, but the sentence is later reduced to eight years on appeal
- 1989 France performs a nuclear test at Mururoa Atoll
- 1990 USSR performs a nuclear test at Novaya Zemlya, USSR
- 1991 Larry Ryckman purchases CFL Calgary Stampeders
- 1994 A bomb attack on the opposition in Sri Lanka kills 55+ people
- 1995 Total solar eclipse in Southwest and South Asia (2 minutes and 9 seconds)
- 1996 At the last game at Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium, the Yankees win a record 8th consecutive road post-season game (with no losses)
- 1996 Hasan Raza makes his Test cricket debut for Pakistan at the age of 14 years and 238 days
- 1997 American sportscaster Marv Albert receives a 12-month suspended sentence after pleading guilty to misdemeanor, assault, and battery charges
- 1998 Launch of Deep Space 1 on comet and asteroid mission
- 2002 Police arrest spree killers John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo, ending the Beltway sniper attacks in the area around Washington, D.C.
2004 German Ferrari driver Michael Schumacher finishes 8th at season-ending Brazilian F1 Grand Prix at Autódromo José Carlos Pace; his 5th consecutive World Drivers’ Championship, record 7th career world title; Ferrari’s 6th straight Constructors title
- 2004 Manchester United beats Arsenal 2-0 at Old Trafford, ending Arsenal’s English Premier League record 49-game unbeaten streak
- 2006 Justice Rutherford of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice strikes down the “motive clause,” an important part of the Canadian Anti-Terrorism Act
- 2006 MESSENGER spacecraft performs a Venus flyby
- 2008 Iceland receives a £1.3 billion bailout package from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the first European country to require an emergency loan as a result of the financial crisis
- 2008 On “Bloody Friday,” many of the world’s stock exchanges experience the worst decline in their history, with drops of around 10% in most indices
- 2009 First International Day of Climate Action, organized with 350.org, a global campaign to address a claimed global warming crisis
- 2012 Hurricane Sandy makes landfall in Jamaica, killing one person and causing over $50 million in damage
- 2012 Libyan militias capture Bani Walid, resulting in 130 civilian deaths
- 2012 Three people are shot dead and two are critically wounded after being shot by an unknown gunman in Downey, California
- 2015 Even results in Argentine Presidential Election between Daniel Scioli and Mauricio Macrieven trigger the first-ever presidential run-off on November 22
- 2016 Suicide bomb kills 61 and injures 117 at a police training academy in Quetta, Pakistan; ISIS claims responsibility
Theory of Happiness
2017 Albert Einstein‘s “Theory of Happiness,” written as a note for a bellboy instead of a tip in Tokyo in 1922, sells for $1.56 million
Moderate Islam for Saudi Arabia
2017 Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman vows to return Saudi Arabia to moderate Islam after announcing a $500 billion independent economic zone
- 2017 Officials of the Iditarod, an Alaskan dog sled race, confirm a dog doping scandal after dogs test positive for a banned substance
- 2018 EU directive bans single-use plastics by 2021
- 2018 Joel Embiid becomes the first NBA player to reach 30 points and 19 rebounds in the same game since Charles Barkley in 1991
UN Person of the Year
2018 Kenyan marathon runner Eliud Kipchoge is named UN Person of the Year for setting a new marathon world record and for his work with AIDS/HIV in Kenya
- 2018 Largest jackpot in US history at $1.6 billion is won by one person in South Carolina
Mail Bombing Attempt
2018 Pipe bombs sent to prominent US Democrats, including the Obamas, Clintons, John Brennan, and CNN, are safely defused
- 2018 Scientists confirm East Island in Hawaii, half a mile long, has been wiped out after contact with Hurricane Walaka
- 2019 Bangladesh sentences 16 men to death for the murder of Nusrat Jahan Rafi, who was set on fire after accusing a teacher of inappropriate behavior
Franco Exhumation
2019 Remains of Spanish dictator Francisco Franco are removed from mausoleum in Valley of the Fallen and reburied in private family vault in Madrid
- 2020 Colombia records more than 1 million cases of COVID-19, the 8th globally and 3rd in Latin America
- 2020 Deadliest shipwreck of the year claims 140 lives on a ship that sank with 200 migrants on board off the coast of Senegal [1]
- 2021 COVID-19 cases in Eastern Europe surpass 20 million, with Russia, Ukraine, and Romania among the top five countries reporting deaths globally [1]
Air Jordans Sneaker Record
2021 Michael Jordan‘s 1984 Nike Air Ships sell for $1.472 million at Sotheby’s, setting a new record for sneakers at auction [1]
- 2021 Strongest storm to ever hit the West Coast of the US, with California recording a barometric pressure of 945.2 mb and San Francisco experiencing its wettest October day [1]
- 2022 A five-month-old bar-tailed godwit becomes a world record holder by flying 8,425 miles (13,559 km) non-stop from Yukon Kuskokwim Delta in Alaska, US, to Ansons Bay in Tasmania, Australia, in 11 days
- 2022 China continues its COVID-zero policy with 28 cities and 207 million people affected by some form of lockdown, including Wuhan [1]
Sunak Replaces Truss
2022 UK’s ruling Conservative party appoints Rishi Sunak as their next leader and Prime Minister, replacing Liz Truss after six weeks; Sunak is the first prime minister of color in the country’s history [1]
- 2022 US Mint issues first US currency featuring the Asian-American, silent film actress Anna May Wong; coin is part of American Women Quarters Program celebrating female trailblazers [1] [2]
- 2023 Aid Agency Save the Children says 2,000 children have been killed in Gaza by Israeli bombing amid calls for a ceasefire at the UN [1]
Trump’s Lawyer Pleads Guilty
2023 Former lawyer to Donald Trump Jenna Ellis is the fourth person to plead guilty and accept a plea deal in the Georgia election interference case [1]
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