1994 – More than 350 Republican congressional candidates signed the Contract with America. It was a 10-point platform they pledged to enact if voters sent a GOP majority to the House
0070 – Walls of upper city of Jerusalem battered down by Roman army
1066 – William the Conqueror’s troops set sail from Normandy for conquest of England
1540 – Pope Paul III officially recognizes the Society of Jesus (Jesuit) co-founded by Ignatius of Loyola as a religious order of the Catholic church
1590 – Pope Urban VII dies 13 days after being chosen as the Pope, making his reign the shortest papacy in history
1779 – John Adams was elected to negotiate with the British over the American Revolutionary War peace terms.
1810 – Battle of Bussaco: Arthur Wellesley’s Anglo-Portuguese Army defeats a larger French force led by Marshal André Masséna with the French suffering 4,500 dead and wounded
1821 – Mexican revolutionary forces led by Agustín de Iturbide occupy Mexico City as Spanish withdraw, bringing an end to the Mexican War of Independence
1864 – Centralia Massacre (Missouri): 24 unarmed Union soldiers captured and executed by “Bloody Bill” Anderson/Frank
1864 – Jesse James’ gang surprise attack train: 150 killed
1905 – The physics journal Annalen der Physik publishes Albert Einstein’s paper “Does the Inertia of a Body Depend Upon Its Energy Content?”, introducing the equation E=mc².
1908 – Henry Ford’s first Ford Model T automobile leaves the Piquette Plant in Detroit, Michigan
1909 – US President William Howard Taft sets aside some 3 million acres of oil-rich public land (including Teapot Dome, Wyoming) for conservation purposes
1916 – 1st Native American Day celebrated, honoring American Indians
1919 – Democratic National Committee votes to allow female members
1922 – Constantine I of Greece abdicates, Constantine I of Greece abdicated in favor of his son, George II, after a military revolt.
1928 – The U.S. announced that it would recognize the Nationalist Chinese Government.
1937 – 1st Santa Claus Training School opens (Albion NY)
1937 – The Bali Tiger Goes Extinct, Native to the Indonesian island of Bali, the Bali Tiger was made extinct due to human activities and hunting. On this day, the last known adult Balinese tiger was shot dead.
1938 – The League of Nations branded the Japanese as aggressors in China.
1939 – After 19 days of resistance, Warsaw, Poland, surrendered to the Germans after being invaded by the Nazis and the Soviet Union during World War II.
1940 – The Berlin-Rome-Tokyo Axis was set up. The military and economic pact was for 10 years between Germany, Italy and Japan.
1940 – Black leaders protest discrimination in US armed forces
1945 – US General and head of the Allied occupation of Japan, Douglas MacArthur, meets Emperor Hirohito in Tokyo for the first time
1954 – “The Tonight Show” 1st premieres on NBC hosted by Steve Allen
1962 – Rachel Carson publishes ‘Silent Spring’ about the deleterious impacts of pesticide use in the US on the environment
1964 – Findings of the Warren Commission into the assassination of President John F. Kennedy released, finds Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone
1968 – The U.K.’s entry into the European Common Market was barred by France.
1971 – Tripartite talks involving the prime ministers of Northern Ireland, Britain, and the Taoiseach (Irish Prime Minister) of the Republic of Ireland take place at Chequers, England
1973 – U.S. Vice President Spiro Agnew said he would not resign after he pled “no contest” to a charge of tax evasion. He did resign on October 10th.
1979 – The Department of Education became the 13th Cabinet in U.S. history after the final approval from Congress.
1982 – Italian and French soldiers entered the Sabra and Chatilla refugee camps in Beirut. The move was made by the members of a multinational force due to hundreds of Palestinians being massacred by Christian militiamen.
1983 – South African worker’s union leader Curnick Ndlovu freed from prison after 19 years
1986 – The U.S. Senate approved federal tax code changes that were the most sweeping since World War II.
1988 – Senate votes for major federal tax code changes
1990 – Gunman holds 33 people (killing 1) hostage in Berkeley Calif
1990 – The deposed emir of Kuwait addressed the U.N. General Assembly and denounced the “rape, destruction and terror” that Iraq had inflicted upon his country.
1991 – U.S. President George H.W. Bush eliminated all land-based tactical nuclear arms and removed all short-range nuclear arms from ships and submarines around the world. Bush then called on the Soviet Union to do the same.
1994 – More than 350 Republican congressional candidates signed the Contract with America. It was a 10-point platform they pledged to enact if voters sent a GOP majority to the House.
1996 – Taliban take over Kabul, Following the take-over, the Islamic fundamentalist group established the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.
1998 – In Germany, Social Democrat Gerhard Schroeder was elected chancellor. The election ended 16 years of conservative rule.
2001 – At its two-day meeting in Vienna, OPEC decides to keep its production quotas unchanged at 23.2 million barrels per day, despite crude oil being at its lowest price levels since 1999
2004 – North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Choe Su Hon announced that North Korea had turned plutonium from 8,000 spent nuclear fuel rods into nuclear weapons. He also said that the weapons were to serve as a deterrent against increasing U.S. nuclear threats and to prevent nuclear war in northeast Asia. The U.S. State Department noted that the U.S. has repeatedly said that the U.S. has no plans to attack North Korea.
2012 – The Mars Curiosity rover discovers what evidence of a fast-moving streambed-in Mars
2015 – The space probe Dawn was launched by NASA. Dawn entered orbit around protoplanet Vesta on July 16, 2011 and entered orbit around Ceres on March 6, 2015.
2015 – A “Supermoon” coincides with a lunar eclipse creating a “Blood Moon” over much of the earth
2018 – India’s Supreme Court rules overturns 158-year old rule, section 497, decriminalizing adultery because it was discriminatory against women
2018 – US Securities and Exchange Commission files lawsuit accusing Elon Musk of securities fraud
2019 – US Democrats issue their first subpoena to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, in impeachment inquiry
2020 – Details of President Donald Trump’s tax returns released by the New York Times showing he paid $750 in income tax (2016 & 2017) revealing “chronic losses and years of tax avoidance”
2020 – Houston officials confirm water supply around Lake Jackson, Texas, contaminated with brain-eating amoeba after death of six-year-old boy
REFERENCE: history.net, onthisday.com, thepeopleshistory.com, timeanddate.com, scopesys.com, on-this-day.com
