1517 Martin Luther sends his Ninety-five Theses to Albert of Brandenburg, Archbishop of Mainz, precipitating the Protestant Reformation
The Last Judgement
1541 Michelangelo finishes painting “The Last Judgment” on the altar wall of the Sistine Chape in Vatican City [1]
- 1552 Forces of Holy Roman Emperor Charles V begin a siege of the French-held city of Metz; siege eventually fails and is called off in January 1553
- 1587 Leiden University Library opens its doors after its founding in 1575
- 1596 English, French, and Dutch delegates sign anti-Spanish “Triple Covenant”
- 1617 Laurens Reael resigns as governor-general of the Dutch East Indies
John Wallis
1649 Parliamentary cryptographer John Wallis gives his inaugural lecture as newly appointed Savilian Professor of Geometry at Oxford University
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 and Philosophical Society is titled “Extraordinary facts relating to the vision of colours,” describing his own color blindness, which later becomes known as Daltonism
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 fight a battle near Durango, Spain
- 1815 Cornishman Sir Humphry Davy patents miner’s safety lamp
- 1828 Edinburgh-based body snatchers William Burke and William Hare are exposed for murdering 16 people and selling the corpses to medical schools [1]
- 1837 Collision between the river boat Monmouth and the steamer called Warren on the Mississippi kills 300 people
- 1846 Donner party, unable to cross the Donner Pass, construct a winter camp
- 1863 The Maori Wars resume as British forces in New Zealand, led by General Duncan Cameron, begin their invasion of the Waikato
- 1864 Nevada is admitted as the 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
- 1876 Great Backerganj Cyclone of 1876 ravages British India (modern-day Bangladesh), killing over 200,000
- 1881 Metropolitan club plays its last game of its non-league season, having won 80 of 151 games (18-43 vs. National League 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 National League President Nick Young, seeking peace
- 1905 Great revolutionary demonstration for amnesty in St. Petersburg
- 1907 Calgary City Rugby Football Club defeats Strathcona Rugby Football Club 15-0 in Calgary in their first game
- 1908 IV Summer Olympic Games close at White City Stadium in London, England
- 1913 Lincoln Highway, the first paved coast-to-coast highway in the US, is dedicated
- 1914 Great Britain and France declare war on Turkey
- 1916 Clare Kummer’s play “Good Gracious Annabelle” premieres in New York City
- 1917 Battle of Beersheba: In southern Palestine, the “last successful cavalry charge in history” is performed by the 4th Australian Light Horse during World War I
Balfour Declaration
1917 British War Cabinet gives final approval to issue the Balfour Declaration to support a “national home for the Jewish people” in what is then Ottoman-controlled Palestine
- 1918 Short-lived Banat Republic founded in territory where Romania, Hungary, and Serbia meet
1918 The 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 and Josef Čapek’s play “World We Live In” premieres in New York City
- 1923 160 consecutive days of 100°F begin in Marble Bar, Australia
- 1924 World Savings Day is established during the first International Savings Bank Congress (World Society of Savings Banks) in Milan, Italy, to promote the importance of saving
- 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
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 A clothing factory fire in Huddersfield, England, kills 49
- 1941 Mount Rushmore Monument, designed by Gutzon Borglum, is completed in South Dakota
- 1941 Prior to the 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. Brooklyn Dodgers (48-10)
- 1943 WWII: F4U Corsair accomplishes the first successful radar-guided interception
- 1944 Chief of Staff Kruls names De Quay chairman of the Universal Commission
- 1949 Dutch Nazi Henri “Hakkie” Holdert, director of Amsterdam paper De Telegraaf (The Telegraph) and member of the SS, is sentenced to 12 years imprisonment
- 1949 WOC (now KWQC) TV channel 6 in Davenport, IA (NBC) begins broadcasting
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 The first thermonuclear bomb is detonated at Marshall Islands
- 1953 TV broadcasting begins in Belgium
- 1954 Algerian Revolution against the French begins
- 1954 KREM TV channel 2 in Spokane, WA (CBS/ABC) begins broadcasting
- 1955 Bernardus Johannes Alfrink is installed as Archbishop of Utrecht
- 1956 American Navy pilot Conrad “Gus” Shinn is the first person to land a plane at the South Pole
- 1956 Britain and France join Israeli forces in Egypt and begin to bomb Egypt to reopen Suez Canal
- 1956 Brooklyn, New York, ends its streetcar service
- 1956 Rear Admiral G. J. Dufek becomes the first American to set foot on the South Pole
What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?
1962 The horror film “What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?,” based on the novel by Henry Farrell, directed by Robert Aldrich, and starring Bette Davis and Joan Crawford, is released
1963 Ed Sullivan witnesses Beatlemania firsthand at London’s Heathrow Airport as the Beatles are greeted by their fans upon the group returning from Sweden
- 1963 Leaking propane gas explodes, killing 64 at “Holiday on Ice” in Indiana
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 first President of the Second Republic of South Vietnam
- 1967 San Francisco Giants pitcher Mike McCormick wins the National League Cy Young Award
- 1968 Milwaukee Bucks win their first game, beating Detroit 138-118 (6th game)
- 1968 US performs a nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
- 1969 Eastside race riot in Jacksonville, Florida
Something
1969 George Harrison‘s “Something” is released as a single by the Beatles in the 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
- 1971 The Irish Republican Army (IRA) explodes a bomb at the Post Office Tower in London
Sports History
1972 Cleveland Indians pitcher Gaylord Perry wins the American League Cy Young award
- 1972 Two Catholic children (6 and 4) playing in the street are killed in an Ulster Freedom Fighters (UFF) car bomb attack on a bar in Ship Street, Belfast, Northern Ireland
- 1973 Three Provisional Irish Republican Army volunteers escape from Mountjoy Prison in Dublin using a hijacked helicopter
- 1974 Dutch Marines end a hostage crisis in Scheveningen prison
Music History
1975 Irish singer-songwriter Bob Geldof‘s first appearance with The Boomtown Rats
- 1978 Iranian oil workers go on strike
- 1978 People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen (South Yemen) adopts a constitution
- 1979 Baltimore Orioles pitcher Mike Flanagan wins the American League Cy Young Award
- 1979 Western Airlines Flight 2605, a DC-10, crashes at Mexico City International Airport, killing 72
- 1980 Julian Nott sets a world hot air balloon altitude record of 16,806 m
- 1980 Polish government recognizes the Solidarity trade union
- 1980 Senegal routes troops to Gambia due to a Libyan threat
- 1981 “The War of the Worlds,” the first live American radio drama in 25 years, is broadcast on NBC on Halloween
- 1983 Ron Grant completes a run around Australia in 217 days, covering 8,316 miles (13,383 km)
- 1984 Howard Goodall and 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
Assassination
1984 Rajiv Gandhi takes office as India’s 6th Prime Minister, succeeding his mother Indira Gandhi, who was assassinated
- 1984 The Puerto Rican tanker “San Francisco” explodes, spilling 2 million gallons of oil as the ship catches fire
- 1985 New Zealand author Keri Hulme is the first debut novelist to win the Booker Prize for “The Bone People”
- 1987 American jockey Chris Antley becomes the first rider to win nine races in a day (four at Aqueduct and five at The Meadowlands)
- 1988 19°F is the 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 France performs a nuclear test at Mururoa Atoll
- 1989 Turgat Ozal is elected president of Turkey
- 1989 US performs a nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
- 1990 Pakistan beats New Zealand 3-0, with Waqar Younis taking 29 series wickets
- 1991 Palestinians attend the US Middle East peace talks in Madrid, Spain
- 1992 Don Keller makes his 18,000th sky dive
Catholic Church Apologizes
1992 Roman Catholic church apologizes for its treatment of Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei after 359 years, acknowledging he had been right about the Earth revolving around the Sun
- 1993 25 people are killed during a Ghana-Ivory Coast soccer match
- 1993 German unemployment hits a national record of 3.5 million
- 1994 American Eagle ATR-72 crashes at Gary, Indiana, killing 68
- 1994 American jam band Phish performs The Beatles’ “The 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
- 1994 The single “Creep” is released by TLC, their first No.1 in the US (Billboard Song of the Year 1995)
- 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 New Jersey Devils agree to stay in New Jersey
- 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 two on the ground
Event of Interest
1997 British au pair Louise Woodward, 19, is sentenced to life in prison for the death of 8-month-old Matthew Eappen; her conviction is later changed to involuntary manslaughter, leading to her release after serving 279 days
- 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 will 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 the season-ending Japanese Grand Prix at Suzuka by 2 points from Irishman Eddie Irvine to clinch his second consecutive F1 World Drivers’ Championship
- 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 indicts 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 White Paper “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.
- 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,” starring Andrew Lincoln, Jon Bernthal, and Lauren Cohan, premieres on AMC
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 In Russia’s worst air disaster to date, an airliner crashes in Sinai Peninsula, Egypt, killing all 224 on board
- 2016 Lebanon parliament elects Michel Aoun as president after 2 1/2 years without a leader
- 2016 MIT Engineers announce they have engineered spinach plants to detect explosive materials in groundwater and send an email alert via a connected system [1]
- 2017 A judge on Maui, Hawaii, orders a man to write 144 compliments to his ex-girlfriend after violating a protection order by sending her 144 malicious text messages and calls
- 2017 John Kelly, White House Chief of Staff’s comments in a TV interview that “the lack of an ability to compromise led to the Civil War” draws criticism
- 2017 Takahiro Shiraishi is arrested in Zama, Japan, a day after nine dismembered bodies are found in his apartment
- 2017 Terrorist attack in New York as a truck strikes people on a cycle lane, killing 8 and injuring 10
- 2017 Two men are convicted of raping and impregnating their 10-year-old niece in Chandigarh, India
- 2018 In a landmark verdict, the Pakistani Supreme Court acquits a Christian woman of blasphemy against the prophet Mohammed after eight years on death row
2018 The Statue of Unity, the world’s tallest statue at 182 meters, is unveiled in Gujarat state as a tribute to Indian independence leader Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel
- 2018 The US and Great Britain call for a ceasefire in the Saudi-led war in Yemen, a 3-year conflict that has claimed over 10,000 lives and created famine conditions
- 2019 A fire destroys most of historic Shuri Castle, once the seat of the Ryukyu Kingdom, on the island of Okinawa, Japan
- 2019 A gas canister explodes on a train in Rahim Yar Khan, Pakistan, 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, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi
Sports History
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 the Bledisloe Cup (2-1) for the 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 with 10 tracks from her album “Midnights” [1]
Charles Express Regret
2023 Kenyan President William Ruto holds a state banquet for King Charles III in Nairobi, whose speech acknowledges that “the wrongdoings of the past are a cause of the greatest sorrow and the deepest regret” [1]
- 2024 American rapper Young Thug (33) pleads guilty to street gang racketeering charges and no contest to related weapons and drug charges, ending a prolonged trial in Atlanta, Georgia; judge sentences him to time served plus 15 years of probation [1]
- 2024 Russian legal claims against Google in Russia reach two undecillion roubles ($20 decillion), largely symbolic for blocking Russian channels on YouTube [1]
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