Events Pre-1600 2137 BC – A solar eclipse occurs over China, one of the earliest recorded in human history, reportedly resulting in the executions of two astronomers who failed to predict it. 451 – The Chalcedonian Creed, regarding the divine and human nature of Jesus, is adopted by the Council of Chalcedon, an ecumenical council. 794 – Japanese Emperor Kanmu relocates his empire's capital to Heian-kyō (now Kyoto). 906 – Abbasid general Ahmad ibn Kayghalagh leads a raid against the Byzantine Empire, taking 4,000–5,000 captives. 1383 – The male line of the Portuguese House of Burgundy becomes extinct with the death of King Fernando, leaving only his daughter Beatrice. Rival claimants begin a period of civil war and disorder.
1601–1900 1721 – The Russian Empire is proclaimed by Tsar Peter I after the Swedish defeat in the Great Northern War. 1724 – J. S. Bach leads the first performance of Schmücke dich, o liebe Seele (Adorn yourself, O dear soul) in Leipzig on the 20th Sunday after Trinity, based on the communion hymn of the same name. 1730 – Construction of the Ladoga Canal is completed in Russia.Нежиховский Р.А. Река Нева. 3-е изд. Leningrad: Гидрометеоиздат, 1973 (in Russian). p. 158. 1739 – The War of Jenkins' Ear begins with the first attack on La Guaira. 1746 – The College of New Jersey (later renamed Princeton University) receives its charter. 1777 – American Revolutionary War: American defenders of Fort Mercer on the Delaware River repulse repeated Hessian attacks in the Battle of Red Bank. 1790 – Northwest Indian War: Native American forces defeat the United States, ending the Harmar Campaign. 1797 – André-Jacques Garnerin makes the first recorded parachute jump, from above Paris. 1836 – Sam Houston is inaugurated as the first President of the Republic of Texas. 1844 – The Millerites (followers of Baptist preacher William Miller) anticipate the end of the world in conjunction with the Second Advent of Christ. The following day becomes known as the Great Disappointment. 1859 – Spain declares war on Morocco. 1866 – A plebiscite ratifies the annexation of Veneto and Mantua to Italy, which had occurred three days before on October 19. 1877 – The Blantyre mining disaster in Scotland kills 207 miners. 1879 – Using a filament of carbonized thread, Thomas Edison tests the first practical electric incandescent light bulb; the bulb lasted 13 hours before burning out. 1883 – The Metropolitan Opera House in New York City opens with a performance of Charles Gounod's Faust. 1884 – The International Meridian Conference designates the Royal Observatory, Greenwich as the world's prime meridian. 1895 – In Paris, an express train derails after overrunning the buffer stop, crossing almost of concourse before crashing through a wall and falling to the road below.
1901–present 1907 – A run on the stock of the Knickerbocker Trust Company sets events in motion that will spark the Panic of 1907. 1910 – Hawley Harvey Crippen (the first felon to be arrested with the help of radio) is convicted of poisoning his wife. 1923 – The royalist Leonardopoulos–Gargalidis coup d'état attempt fails in Greece, discrediting the monarchy and paving the way for the establishment of the Second Hellenic Republic. 1934 – In East Liverpool, Ohio, FBI agents shoot and kill the notorious bank robber Pretty Boy Floyd. 1936 – Dod Orsborne, captain of the Girl Pat is convicted of its theft and imprisoned, having caused a media sensation when it went missing. 1941 – World War II: French resistance member Guy Môquet and 29 other hostages are executed by the Germans in retaliation for the death of a German officer. 1943 – World War II: In the second firestorm raid on Germany, the British Royal Air Force conducts an air raid on the town of Kassel, killing 10,000 and rendering 150,000 homeless. 1946 – Over twenty-two hundred engineers and technicians from eastern Germany are forced to relocate to the Soviet Union, along with their families and equipment. 1962 – Cuban Missile Crisis: President Kennedy, after internal counsel from Dwight D. Eisenhower, announces that American reconnaissance planes have discovered Soviet nuclear weapons in Cuba, and that he has ordered a naval "quarantine" of the Communist nation. 1963 – A BAC One-Eleven prototype airliner crashes in UK with the loss of all on board. 1964 – Jean-Paul Sartre is awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, though he does not accept the prize. 1975 – The Soviet uncrewed space mission Venera 9 lands on Venus. 1981 – The US Federal Labor Relations Authority votes to decertify the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization (PATCO) for its strike the previous August. 1983 – Two correctional officers are killed by inmates at the United States Penitentiary in Marion, Illinois. The incident inspires the Supermax model of prisons. 1987 – John Adams' opera Nixon in China premiered at the Houston Grand Opera. 1992 – Space Shuttle Columbia launches on STS-52 to deploy the LAGEOS-2 satellite and microgravity experiments. 1997 – Danish fugitive Steen Christensen kills two police officers, Chief Constable Eero Holsti and Senior Constable Antero Palo, in Ullanlinna, Helsinki, Finland during his prison escape. 1999 – Maurice Papon, an official in the Vichy government during World War II, is jailed for crimes against humanity. 2005 – Tropical Storm Alpha forms in the Atlantic Basin, making the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season the most active Atlantic hurricane season until surpassed by the 2020 season. 2005 – Bellview Airlines Flight 210 crashes in Nigeria, killing all 117 people on board. 2006 – A Panama Canal expansion proposal is approved by 77.8% of voters in a national referendum. 2007 – A raid on Anuradhapura Air Force Base is carried out by 21 Tamil Tiger commandos, with all except one dying in this attack. Eight Sri Lanka Air Force planes are destroyed and ten damaged. 2008 – India launches its first uncrewed lunar probe mission Chandrayaan-1. 2012 – Cyclist Lance Armstrong is formally stripped of his seven Tour de France titles after being charged for doping. 2013 – The Australian Capital Territory becomes the first Australian jurisdiction to legalize same-sex marriage with the Marriage Equality (Same Sex) Act 2013. 2014 – Michael Zehaf-Bibeau attacks the Parliament of Canada, killing a soldier and injuring three other people. 2019 – Same-sex marriage is legalised, and abortion is decriminalised in Northern Ireland as a result of the Northern Ireland Assembly not being restored.
Births Pre-1600 955 – Qian Weijun, king of Wuyue (died 991)Spring and Autumn Annals of the Ten Kingdoms, vol. 81.Academia Sinica Chinese Western-Calendar Converter. 1071 – William IX, Duke of Aquitaine (died 1126) 1197 – Juntoku, Japanese emperor (died 1242) 1511 – Erasmus Reinhold, German astronomer and mathematician (died 1553) 1587 – Joachim Jungius, German mathematician and philosopher (died 1657) 1592 – Gustav Horn, Count of Pori (died 1657)
1601–1900 1659 – Georg Ernst Stahl, German chemist and physician (died 1734)Stahl's date of birth is often given erroneously as 1660. The correct date is recorded in the parish register of St. John's church, Ansbach. See 1689 – John V, Portuguese king (died 1750) 1701 – Maria Amalia, Holy Roman Empress (died 1756) 1729 – Johann Reinhold Forster, German pastor and botanist (died 1798) 1749 – Cornelis van der Aa, Dutch historian and bookseller (died 1816) 1778 – Javier de Burgos, Spanish jurist and politician (died 1848) 1781 – Louis Joseph, Dauphin of France (died 1789) 1783 – Constantine Samuel Rafinesque, Ottoman-French polymath and naturalist (died 1840) 1809 – Volney Howard, American lawyer, jurist, and statesman, Texas Attorney General (died 1889) 1811 – Franz Liszt, Hungarian pianist and composer (died 1886) 1818 – Leconte de Lisle, French poet and author (died 1894) 1821 – Collis Potter Huntington, American businessman (died 1900) 1832 – August Labitzky, Czech composer and conductor (died 1903) 1843 – James Strachan-Davidson, English classical scholar, academic administrator, translator, and author (died 1916) 1844 – Sarah Bernhardt, French actress and manager (died 1923) 1844 – Louis Riel, Canadian Métis scholar and politician (died 1885) 1847 – Koos de la Rey, South African Boer general (died 1914) 1850 – Charles Kingston, Australian politician, 20th Premier of South Australia (died 1908) 1858 – Augusta Victoria of Schleswig-Holstein (died 1921) 1859 – Prince Ludwig Ferdinand of Bavaria (died 1949) 1865 – Borghild Holmsen, Norwegian pianist, composer and music critic (died 1938) 1865 – Kristjan Raud, Estonian painter and illustrator (died 1943) 1870 – Ivan Bunin, Russian author and poet, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1953) 1870 – Lord Alfred Douglas, English author and poet (died 1945) 1873 – Gustaf John Ramstedt, Finnish linguist and diplomat (died 1950) 1873 – Rama Tirtha, Indian philosopher and educator (died 1906) 1875 – Théodore Monbeig, French Catholic missionary and botanist (died 1914) 1875 – David van Embden, Dutch economist and politician (died 1962) 1881 – Clinton Davisson, American physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1958) 1881 – Karl Bernhard Zoeppritz, German geophysicist and seismologist (died 1908) 1882 – Edmund Dulac, French-English illustrator (died 1953) 1882 – N. C. Wyeth, American painter and illustrator (died 1945) 1885 – Giovanni Martinelli, Italian tenor and actor (died 1969) 1886 – Erik Bergman, Swedish minister (died 1970) 1887 – John Reed, American journalist and poet (died 1920) 1893 – Ernst Öpik, Estonian astronomer and astrophysicist (died 1985) 1893 – Luis Otero, Spanish footballer (died 1955) 1894 – Mei Lanfang, Chinese actor and singer (died 1961) 1895 – Johnny Morrison, professional baseball player (died 1966) 1896 – Charles Glen King, American biochemist and academic (died 1988) 1896 – José Leitão de Barros, Portuguese film director and playwright (died 1967) 1897 – Marjorie Flack, American author and illustrator (died 1958) 1898 – Dámaso Alonso, Spanish poet and philologist (died 1990) 1899 – Salarrué, Salvadoran writer and painter (died 1975)
1901–present 1903 – George Wells Beadle, American geneticist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1989) 1903 – Curly Howard, American comedian and vaudevillian (died 1952) 1904 – Constance Bennett, American actress, singer, and producer (died 1965) 1904 – Saúl Calandra, Argentine football player (died 1973) 1904 – Karl Guthe Jansky, American physicist and radio engineer (died 1950) 1905 – Joseph Kosma, Hungarian-French pianist and composer (died 1969) 1906 – Kees van Baaren, Dutch composer and educator (died 1970) 1906 – Aurelio Baldor, Cuban mathematician and lawyer (died 1978) 1907 – Jimmie Foxx, American baseball player (died 1967) 1907 – Günther Treptow, German tenor (died 1981) 1908 – John Gould, American journalist and author (died 2003) 1908 – José Escobar Saliente, Spanish cartoonist (died 1994) 1913 – Robert Capa, Hungarian-American photographer and journalist (died 1954) 1913 – Bảo Đại, Vietnamese emperor (died 1997) 1913 – Hans-Peter Tschudi, Swiss lawyer and politician, 63rd President of the Swiss Confederation (died 2002) 1915 – Yitzhak Shamir, Belarusian-Israeli civil servant and politician, 7th Prime Minister of Israel (died 2012) 1917 – Joan Fontaine, English-American actress (died 2013) 1918 – Lou Klein, American baseball player, coach, and manager (died 1976) 1919 – Doris Lessing, British novelist, poet, playwright, Nobel Prize laureate (died 2013) 1920 – Timothy Leary, American psychologist and author (died 1996) 1921 – Georges Brassens, French singer-songwriter and guitarist (died 1981) 1921 – Aleksandr Kronrod, Russian mathematician and computer scientist (died 1986) 1921 – Harald Nugiseks, Estonian sergeant (died 2014) 1923 – Bert Trautmann, German footballer and coach (died 2013)