1957 – The Soviet Union launched Sputnik I into orbit around the Earth. Sputnik was the first manmade satellite to enter space. Sputnik I fell out of orbit on January 4, 1958.
1363 – End of the Battle of Lake Poyang; the Chinese rebel forces of Zhu Yuanzhang defeat that of his rival, Chen Youliang, one of the largest naval battles in history with 850,000 taking part (approx.)
1535 – The Coverdale Bible, the first complete Bible to be published in English, is printed in Antwerp with translations by William Tyndale and Miles Coverdale
1582 – Last Julian calendar day in Spain, Portugal and pontifical states. To sync to the Gregorian calendar, 10 days are skipped and the next date is Oct 15.
1648 – The first volunteer fire department was established in New York by Peter Stuyvesant.
1675 – Dutch mathematician Christiaan Huygens patents the pocket watch
1712 – Utrecht banishes poor Jews
1777 – At Germantown, PA, Patriot forces and British forces both suffer heavy losses in battle. The battle was seen as British victory, which actually served as a moral boost to the Americans.
1824 – Mexico becomes a republic
1830 – Provisional government declares secession of Belgium from Netherlands
1853 – Ottoman Empire declares war on the Russian Empire starting the Crimean War after various disagreements including Russian occupation of the Ottoman controlled Danubian Principalities
1883 – The Orient Express departs on its first official journey from Paris to Istanbul
1887 – The Paris Herald Tribune was published for the first time. It was later known as the International Herald Tribune.
1900 – In a final confrontation, around 4,000 Ashantis are defeated by the British in the Gold Coast (Ghana)
1915 – The Dinosaur National Monument was established. The area covered part of Utah and Colorado.
1921 – League of Nations refuses to assist starving Russians
1927 – Gutzon Borglum begins sculpting Mt. Rushmore (works on till 1941)
1931 – The comic strip “Dick Tracy” made its debut in the Detroit Daily Mirror. The strip was created by Chester Gould.
1933 – “Esquire” magazine was published for the first time.
1940 – Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini met in the Alps at Brenner Pass. Hitler was seeking help from Italy to fight the British.
1940 – French Vichy regime proclaims end of “Statute of the Jews”
1957 – The Soviet Union launched Sputnik I into orbit around the Earth. Sputnik was the first manmade satellite to enter space. Sputnik I fell out of orbit on January 4, 1958.
1965 – Pope Paul VI addressed the U.N. General Assembly and became the first reigning pontiff to visit the Western Hemisphere.
1965 – USSR launches Luna 7; crash lands on Moon
1975 – A Cessna 310Q airplane crashes over Wilmington, North Carolina, killing the pilot and severely injuring several pro wrestlers affiliated with the NWA’s Mid-Atlantic promotion. One of the survivors is the legendary Ric Flair.
1976 – Supreme Court lifts 1972 ban on death penalty for convicted murderers
1976 – US Agriculture Secretary Earl Butz resigns after telling a racial joke
1980 – ABC premiere of Saturday futuristic fantasy cartoon “Thundarr the Barbarian”
1985 – Shi’ite Muslims claim to have killed hostage William Buckley
1987 – NFL owners used replacement personnel to play games despite the player’s strike.
1990 – The German parliament had its first meeting since reunification.
1992 – End of the Mozambican Civil War, The 15-year long civil war was fought between the Mozambique Resistance Movement and the Mozambican government. The conflict, which began in 1977, just a couple of years after the War of Independence against the Portuguese, resulted in massive losses of human life and property. The civil war ended with the signing of the Rome General Peace Accords by both of the warring parties.
1993 – Russian Vice-President Alexander Rutskoi and Chairman Ruslan Khasbulatov surrendered to Boris Yeltsin after a ten-hour tank assault on the Russian White House. The two men had barricaded themselves in after Yeltsin called for general elections and dissolved the legislative body.
1997 – Hundreds of thousands of men attended a Promise Keepers rally on the Mall in Washington, DC.
1997 – Second largest cash robbery in U.S. history occurs at the Charlotte, North Carolina office of Loomis, Fargo and Company with $17.3 million in cash taken
2001 – NATO granted the United States open access to their airfields and seaports and agreed to deploy ships and early-warning radar planes in the war on terrorism.
2001 – Siberia Airlines Flight 1812: a Sibir Airlines Tupolev TU-154 crashes into the Black Sea after being struck by an errant Ukrainian S-200 missile. 78 people are killed.
2003 – Maxim restaurant suicide bombing in Haifa, Israel: 21 Israelis, Jews and Arabs, are killed, and 51 others wounded.
2011 – US State Department lists Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi (ISIL) as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist with a $10 million reward for information leading to his capture
2019 – Fuel subsidies end in Ecuador after four decades, prompting nationwide protests and President Lenín Moreno to declare 60-day state of emergency
2021 – Global outage of Facebook and its apps, including Instagram and WhatsApp, for six hours
REFERENCE: history.net, onthisday.com, thepeopleshistory.com, timeanddate.com, scopesys.com, on-this-day.com
