1810 – Bavarian Crown Prince Ludwig married Princess Therese of Saxony-Hildburghausen. The royalty invited the public to attend the event which became an annual celebration that later became known as Oktoberfest.
0539 BC – The army of Cyrus the Great of Persia takes Babylon
1165 – Jewish rabbi and philosopher Moses ben Maimon (aka Maimonides or the Rambam) reaches Jerusalem
1216 – King John of England loses his crown jewels in The Wash as the flood tide swamps his wagons, probably near Fosdyke, perhaps near Sutton Bridge
1285 – 180 Jews refuse baptism in Munich Germany, they are set on fire
1366 – King Frederick III of Siciliy forbids decorations on synagogues
1492 – Christopher Columbus, an Italian explorer, sighted Watling Island in the Bahamas. He believed that he had found Asia while attempting to find a Western ocean route to India. The same day he claimed the land for Isabella and Ferdinand of Spain.
1504 – Queen Isabella I of Spain signs her testament
1518 – Pontifical ambassador interrogates Martin Luther
1692 – The Salem Witch Trials were ended by a letter from Massachusetts Governor William Phips.
1773 – America’s first insane asylum opens for ‘Persons of Insane and Disordered Minds’ in Virginia
1789 – French Revolution: King Louis XVI writes secretly to the King of Spain about complaining of harsh treatment; the Count of Artois writes to the Austrian king requesting military intervention in France
1792 – The first monument honoring Christopher Columbus was dedicated in Baltimore, MD.
1810 – Bavarian Crown Prince Ludwig married Princess Therese of Saxony-Hildburghausen. The royalty invited the public to attend the event which became an annual celebration that later became known as Oktoberfest.
1823 – Charles Macintosh of Scotland begins selling raincoats (Macs)
1859 – Self-proclaimed Emperor of the USA, Emperor Norton issues edict abolishing the US Congress
1871 – US President Grant condemns Ku Klux Klan
1892 – In celebration of the 400th anniversary of the Columbus landing the original version of the Pledge of Allegiance was first recited in public schools.
1901 – Theodore Roosevelt renames the “Executive Mansion” as “The White House”
1915 – Despite international protest, Edith Cavell an English nurse in Belgium, is executed by the Germans for aiding the escape of Allied prisoners
1920 – Construction of the Holland Tunnel began. It opened on November 13, 1927. The tunnel links Jersey City, NJ and New York City, NY.
1928 – An iron lung respirator is used for the first time at Children’s Hospital, Boston
1931 – Christ the Redeemer statue opens standing 30 meters high (98 ft) on top of Mount Corcovado overlooking Rio de Janeiro, built by engineer Heitor da Silva Costa
1933 – The U.S. Department of Justice acquired Alcatraz Island from the U.S. Army.
1941 – This and the next day, German Nazis kill 11,000 Jews in Dnipropetrovsk, Ukraine. Einsatzkommando 6 massacres most of the remaining Jews of the city, marching them to a ravine where they were killed.
1942 – During World War II, Attorney General Francis Biddle announced that Italian nationals in the United States would no longer be considered enemy aliens.
1944 – 700 Riot Police are called in to restore order at Frank Sinatra Columbus Day appearance in New York City’s Paramount Theater.
1959 – At the national congress of APRA in Peru a group of leftist radicals are expelled from the party. They will later form APRA Rebelde.
1960 – Cold War: Nikita Khrushchev pounds his shoe on a desk at United Nations General Assembly meeting to protest a Philippine assertion of Soviet Union colonialist policy being conducted in Eastern Europe
1961 – The first video memoirs by a U.S. president were made. Walter Cronkite interviewed Dwight D. Eisenhower.
1964 – The Soviet Union launched Voskhod 1 into orbit around the Earth. It was the first space flight to have a multi-person crew and the first flight to be performed without space suits.
1967 – Vietnam War: US Secretary of State Dean Rusk states during a news conference that proposals by the U.S. Congress for peace initiatives were futile because of North Vietnam’s opposition
1968 – Equatorial Guinea Gains Independence
1972 – During the Vietnam War, a racial brawl broke out aboard the U.S. aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk. Nearly 50 sailors were injured.
1976 – China announced that Hua Guo-feng was named to succeed the late Mao Tse-tung as chairman of the Communist Party.
1977 – US Supreme Court heard arguments in “”reverse discrimination”” case of Allan Bakke, white student denied admission to U of Calif Med School
1979 – Douglas Adam’s Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy Hits the Bookstores
1983 – Japan’s former Prime Minister Tanaka Kakuei is found guilty of taking a $2 million bribe from Lockheed and is sentenced to 4 years in jail.
1984 – Brighton hotel bombing: Margaret Thatcher survives an IRA bomb, which shredded her bathroom barely two minutes after she had left it.
1988 – Federal prosecutors announced that the Sundstrand Corp. would pay $115 million dollars to settle with the Pentagon for overbilling airplane parts over a five-year period.
1989 – The U.S. House of Representatives approved a statutory federal ban on the destruction of the American flag.
1991 – Askar Akayev, previously chosen President of Kyrgyzstan by republic’s Supreme Soviet, is confirmed president in an uncontested poll.
1994 – Haitian military leader Raoul Cedras was granted political asylum by Panama.
1998 – The U.S. House of Representatives passed the Online Copyright Bill.
1999 – In Pakistan, Pervez Musharraf seized power in a bloodless coup that toppled Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. The Supreme Court ruled that the coup was legal but insisted that a civilian government be restored within three years.
2000 – The USS Cole is badly damaged in Aden, Yemen, by two suicide bombers, killing 17 crew members and wounding at least 39
2001 – A special episode of America’s Most Wanted was aired that focused on 22 wanted terrorists. The show was specifically requested by U.S. President George W. Bush.
2002 – Terrorists detonate bombs in Paddy’s Pub and the Sari Club in Kuta, Bali, killing 202 and wounding over 300
2012 – The United Nations Security Council unanimously approves of an African-led force to oust Islamist militants in northern Mali
2017 – Plague outbreak in Madagascar kills 57, with 684 cases so far reported by WHO
2018 – US air strike in central Somalia kills about 60 al-Shabab militants
2022 – American conspiracy theorist, radio host, and provocateur Alex Jones ordered by a Connecticut defamation trial jury to pay $965 million to families of those killed in 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School for falsely and repeatedly claiming on his broadcasts that none of the 20 children and six adults killed had actually died and that their relatives were crisis actors
REFERENCE: history.net, onthisday.com, thepeopleshistory.com, timeanddate.com, scopesys.com, on-this-day.com
