Events Pre-1600 539 BC – The army of Cyrus the Great of Persia conquer Babylon, ending the Babylonian empire. (Julian calendar) 166 AD – Roman emperors Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus celebrate a triumph in Rome for the successful completion of their war with the Partians. 633 – Battle of Hatfield Chase: King Edwin of Northumbria is defeated and killed by an alliance under Penda of Mercia and Cadwallon of Gwynedd. 1279 – The Nichiren Shōshū branch of Buddhism is founded in Japan. 1398 – In the Treaty of Salynas, Lithuania cedes Samogitia to the Teutonic Knights. 1406 – Chen Yanxiang, the only person from Indonesia known to have visited dynastic Korea, reaches Seoul after having set out from Java four months before. 1428 – The English and their Burgundian allies begin the Siege of Orleans, the most pivotal investiture of the Hundred Years' War. 1492 – Christopher Columbus's first expedition makes landfall on San Salvador Island in the Caribbean. (Julian calendar)
1601–1900 1654 – The Delft Explosion devastates the city in the Netherlands, killing more than 100 people. 1692 – The Salem witch trials are ended by a letter from Province of Massachusetts Bay Governor William Phips. 1748 – War of Jenkins' Ear: A British squadron wins a tactical victory over a Spanish squadron off Havana. 1773 – America's first insane asylum opens. 1792 – The first celebration of Columbus Day is held in New York City. 1793 – The cornerstone of Old East, the oldest state university building in the United States, is laid at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. 1798 – Flemish and Luxembourgish peasants launch the rebellion against French rule known as the Peasants' War. 1799 – Jeanne Geneviève Labrosse becomes the first woman to jump from a balloon with a parachute. 1810 – The citizens of Munich hold the first Oktoberfest in celebration of the marriage of Crown Prince Louis of Bavaria and Princess Therese of Saxe-Hildburghausen. 1822 – Pedro I of Brazil is proclaimed the emperor. 1849 – The city of Manizales, Colombia, is founded by 'The Expedition of the 20'. 1856 – An M 7.7–8.3 earthquake off the Greek island of Crete cause major damage as far as Egypt and Malta. 1871 – The British in India enact the Criminal Tribes Act, naming many local communities "Criminal Tribes". 1890 – Uddevalla Suffrage Association is formed. 1892 – The Pledge of Allegiance is first recited by students in many US public schools.
1901–present 1901 – President Theodore Roosevelt officially renames the "Executive Mansion" to the White House. 1909 – Foundation of Coritiba Foot Ball Club. 1915 – World War I: British nurse Edith Cavell is executed by a German firing squad for helping Allied soldiers escape from occupied Belgium. 1917 – World War I: The First Battle of Passchendaele takes place resulting in the largest single-day loss of life in New Zealand history. 1918 – A massive forest fire kills 453 people in Minnesota. 1928 – An iron lung respirator is used for the first time at Boston Children's Hospital. 1933 – The military Alcatraz Citadel becomes the civilian Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary. 1944 – World War II: The Axis occupation of Athens comes to an end. 1945 – World War II: Desmond Doss is the first conscientious objector to receive the U.S. Medal of Honor. 1945 – The Lao Issara took control of Laos' government and reaffirmed the country's independence.visit-laos.com 1959 – At the national congress of the American Popular Revolutionary Alliance in Peru, a group of leftist radicals are expelled from the party who later form APRA Rebelde. 1960 – Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev pounds his shoe on a desk at the United Nations to protest a Philippine assertion. 1962 – The Columbus Day Storm strikes the U.S. Pacific Northwest with record wind velocities. There was at least U.S. $230 million in damages and 46 people died. 1963 – After nearly 23 years of imprisonment, Reverend Walter Ciszek, a Jesuit missionary, was released from the Soviet Union. 1964 – The Soviet Union launches the Voskhod 1 into Earth orbit as the first spacecraft with a multi-person crew, and the first flight without pressure suits. 1967 – A bomb explodes on board Cyprus Airways Flight 284 while flying over the Mediterranean Sea, killing 66. 1968 – Equatorial Guinea becomes independent from Spain. 1970 – Vietnam War: Vietnamization continues as President Richard Nixon announces that the United States will withdraw 40,000 more troops before Christmas. 1971 – The 2,500 year celebration of the Persian Empire begins. 1973 – President Nixon nominates House Minority Leader Gerald R. Ford as the successor to Vice President Spiro T. Agnew. 1976 – Indian Airlines Flight 171 crashes at Santacruz Airport in Bombay, India, killing 95. 1977 – Hua Guofeng succeeds Mao Zedong as paramount leader of China. 1979 – Typhoon Tip becomes the largest and most intense tropical cyclone ever recorded. 1983 – Japan's former Prime Minister Tanaka Kakuei is found guilty of taking a $2 million bribe from the Lockheed Corporation, and is sentenced to four years in jail. 1984 – The Provisional Irish Republican Army fail to assassinate Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and her cabinet. The bomb kills five people and wounds at least 31 others. 1988 – Two officers of the Victoria Police are gunned down execution-style in the Walsh Street police shootings, Australia. 1992 – A 5.8 earthquake occurred in Cairo, Egypt. At least 510 died. 1994 – The Magellan spacecraft burns up in the atmosphere of Venus. 1994 – Iran Aseman Airlines Flight 746 crashes near Natanz, Iran, killing all 66 people on board. 1996 – New Zealand holds its first general election under the new mixed-member proportional representation system, which led to Jim Bolger's National Party forming a coalition government with Winston Peters's New Zealand First. 1997 – The Sidi Daoud massacre in Algeria kills 43 people at a fake roadblock. 1999 – Pervez Musharraf takes power in Pakistan from Nawaz Sharif through a bloodless coup. 1999 – The former Autonomous Soviet Republic of Abkhazia declares its independence from Georgia. 2000 – The USS Cole, a US Navy destroyer, is badly damaged by two al-Qaeda suicide bombers, killing 17 crew members and wounding at least 39. 2000 – Two Israeli reservists are lynched by a Palestinian mob at the police station of Ramallah. 2002 – Terrorists detonate bombs in two nightclubs in Kuta, Bali, Indonesia, killing 202 and wounding over 200. 2005 – The second Chinese human spaceflight, Shenzhou 6, is launched, carrying two cosmonauts in orbit for five days. 2010 – The Finnish Yle TV2 channel's Ajankohtainen kakkonen current affairs program airs controversial Homoilta episode (literally "gay night"), which leads to the resignation of almost 50,000 Finns from the Evangelical Lutheran Church. 2012 – The European Union wins the 2012 Nobel Peace Prize. 2013 – An apartment building collapse in Medellín, Colombia results in the deaths of twelve people. 2017 – The United States announces its decision to withdraw from UNESCO. Israel immediately follows. 2019 – Typhoon Hagibis makes landfall in Japan, killing 10 and forcing the evacuation of one million people. 2019 – Eliud Kipchoge from Kenya becomes the first person to run a marathon in less than two hours with a time of 1:59:40 in Vienna. 2019 – The Hard Rock Hotel in New Orleans, which is under construction, collapses, killing three workers and injuring 30 others. 2022 – 2022 Bratislava shooting, killing 3 (including the perpetrator) and injuring one. The shooting occurred outside of a gay bar in Bratislava known as Tepláreň. Two people (excluding the perpetrator) died as a result of the shooting: Juraj Vankulič, a non-binary person, and Matúš Horváth, a bisexual man. The perpetrator (Juraj Krajčík) was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot the morning after the attack.
Births
Pre-1600 1008 – Go-Ichijō, emperor of Japan (died 1036) 1240 – Trần Thánh Tông, emperor of Vietnam (then Đại Việt) (died 1290) 1350 – Dmitri Donskoi, Grand Duke of Moscow (died 1389) 1490 – Bernardo Pisano, Italian composer and priest (died 1548) 1533 – Asakura Yoshikage, Japanese ruler (died 1573) 1537 – Edward VI, king of England (died 1553) 1555 – Peregrine Bertie, 13th Baron Willoughby de Eresby, English diplomat (died 1601) 1558 – Maximilian III, Archduke of Austria (died 1618) 1559 – Jacques Sirmond, French scholar and Jesuit (died 1651) 1576 – Thomas Dudley, English-American soldier and politician, 3rd Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony (died 1653)
1601–1900 1602 – William Chillingworth, English scholar and theologian (died 1644) 1614 – Henry More, English philosopher (died 1687) 1687 – Sylvius Leopold Weiss, German lute player and composer (died 1750) 1710 – Jonathan Trumbull, American colonel and politician, 16th Governor of Connecticut (died 1785) 1725 – Étienne Louis Geoffroy, French pharmacist and entomologist (died 1810) 1792 – Christian Gmelin, German chemist and pharmacist (died 1860) 1798 – Pedro I, emperor of Brazil (died 1834) 1801 – Friedrich Frey-Herosé, Swiss lawyer and politician, 5th President of the Swiss Confederation (died 1873) 1815 – William J. Hardee, American general (died 1873) 1826 – Kathinka Kraft, Norwegian memoirist (died 1895) 1838 – George Thorn, Australian politician, 6th Premier of Queensland (died 1905) 1840 – Helena Modjeska, Polish-American actress (died 1909) 1855 – Arthur Nikisch, Hungarian conductor and academic (died 1922) 1860 – Elmer Ambrose Sperry, American engineer and businessman, co-invented the gyrocompass (died 1930) 1864 – Kamini Roy, British India's first female graduate, Bengali poet, social activist, and feminist writer (died 1933) 1865 – Arthur Harden, English biochemist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1940) 1866 – Ramsay MacDonald, Scottish journalist and politician, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (died 1937) 1868 – August Horch, German engineer and businessman, founded Audi (died 1951) 1868 – Mariano Trías, Filipino general and politician, 1st Vice President of the Philippines (died 1914) 1872 – Ralph Vaughan Williams, English composer and educator (died 1958) 1874 – Jimmy Burke, American baseball player and manager (died 1942) 1875 – Aleister Crowley, English magician and author (died 1947) 1878 – Truxtun Hare, American football player and hammer thrower (died 1956) 1880 – Louis Hémon, French-Canadian author (died 1913) 1880 – Kullervo Manner, Finnish Speaker of the Parliament, the Prime Minister of the FSWR and the Supreme Commander of the Red Guards (died 1939) 1882 – Pete Hill, American baseball player 1889 – Dietrich von Hildebrand, German Catholic philosopher and author (died 1977) 1891 – Edith Stein, Polish nun and martyr; later canonized (died 1942) 1891 – Fumimaro Konoe, Japanese soldier and politician, 39th Prime Minister of Japan (died 1945) 1892 – Gilda dalla Rizza, Italian soprano and actress (died 1975) 1893 – Velvalee Dickinson, American spy (died 1980) 1894 – Elisabeth of Romania, queen consort of Greece (died 1956) 1896 – Eugenio Montale, Italian poet and translator, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1981)
1901–present 1903 – Josephine Hutchinson, American actress (died 1998) 1904 – Lester Dent, American journalist and author (died 1959) 1904 – Anthony F. DePalma, American orthopedic surgeon and professor (died 2005) 1904 – Ding Ling, Chinese author and educator (died 1986) 1905 – Rick Ferrell, American baseball player (died 1995) 1906 – Joe Cronin, American baseball player and manager (died 1984) 1906 – John Murray, American playwright and producer (died 1984) 1906 – Piero Taruffi, Italian race car driver and motorcycle racer (died 1988) 1908 – Paul Engle, American novelist, poet, playwright, and critic (died 1991) 1908 – Ann Petry, American novelist (died 1997) 1909 – Dorothy Livesay, Canadian poet (died 1996) 1910 – Robert Fitzgerald, American poet, critic, and translator (died 1985)