Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/October
Selected anniversaries / On this day archive
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| An archive of historical anniversaries that appeared on the Main Page 2026 day arrangement | ||||||
October 1: National Day in China (1949); Independence Day in Tuvalu (1978); Defenders Day in Ukraine (2015)
Flag of Tuvalu
- 1891 – Stanford University, founded by railroad magnate and politician Leland Stanford and his wife Jane in Palo Alto, California, admitted its first students.
- 1906 – A deputation of Muslim leaders led by the Aga Khan III met Indian viceroy Lord Minto to secure greater political representation, eventually leading to the founding of the All-India Muslim League.
- 1946 – Mensa, the largest and oldest high-IQ society in the world, was formed in the United Kingdom.
- 1978 – Tuvalu adopted its national flag (pictured) on the day that the country gained its independence.
- 2022 – After losing a league home match to their local rivals, Persebaya Surabaya, around 3,000 Arema supporters invaded the pitch at Kanjuruhan Stadium, prompting police to fire tear gas and causing a stampede that killed 135.
- Severus Alexander (b. 208)
- Yaqub Spata (d. 1416)
- Nasir al-Wuhayshi (b. 1976)
- Jane Goodall (d. 2025)
More anniversaries:
October 2: International Day of Non-Violence; Gandhi Jayanti in India
Shubert Theatre
- 1766 – As part of wider food riots, citizens in Nottingham, England, looted large quantities of cheese; one man was killed during attempts to restore order.
- 1879 – Qing China signed the Treaty of Livadia with the Russian Empire, but the terms were so unfavorable that the Chinese government refused to ratify the treaty.
- 1913 – The Shubert Theatre (pictured) opened on Broadway with a production of Hamlet.
- 1971 – Nguyễn Văn Thiệu was re-elected unopposed as President of South Vietnam.
- 2006 – A gunman killed five Amish girls before committing suicide in a one-room schoolhouse in Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania.
- Augustus Keppel (d. 1786)
- Michael Bambang Hartono (b. 1939)
- Sting (b. 1951)
- Sacheen Littlefeather (d. 2022)
October 3: Shemini Atzeret (Judaism, 2026)
Siegfried & Roy with a white lion
- 1792 – Spanish forces departed Valdivia to suppress the indigenous Huilliche uprising in southern Chile.
- 1953 – Vancouver's Holy Rosary Cathedral was dedicated by Archbishop William Mark Duke, fifty-three years after it first opened.
- 1963 – Oswaldo López Arellano replaced Honduran president Ramón Villeda Morales in a violent coup, initiating two decades of military rule.
- 1992 – Sinéad O'Connor tore up a photograph of Pope John Paul II on live television.
- 2003 – Roy Horn of the American entertainment duo Siegfried & Roy (both pictured) was mauled by a tiger during a performance at the Mirage on the Las Vegas Strip.
- Gabriel Lalemant (b. 1610)
- Caroline Brady (b. 1905)
- Carl Nielsen (d. 1931)
- Sean Duffy (b. 1971)
October 4: Cinnamon Roll Day in Sweden and Finland
Engraving of the Siege of Smolensk
- 1448 – Skanderbeg and Gjergj Arianiti signed a peace treaty to end the Albanian–Venetian War.
- 1633 – Smolensk War: Forces from the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth broke the Russian siege of Smolensk (depicted).
- 1862 – American Civil War: After a naval battle in Galveston Harbor, Texas, Confederate commanders negotiated the surrender of the city to Union forces.
- 1925 – Great Syrian Revolt: Rebels led by Fawzi al-Qawuqji captured the city of Hama from the French Mandate of Syria.
- 1927 – Gutzon Borglum and approximately 400 workers began sculpting Mount Rushmore.
- George Formby Sr (b. 1875)
- Mary Two-Axe Earley (b. 1911)
- Christoph Waltz (b. 1956)
- Pyotr Masherov (d. 1980)
October 5: Child Health Day in the United States (2026); World Teachers' Day
Samuel Griffith
- 1838 – A Cherokee band attacked settlers near Larissa, Texas, killing or abducting 18 people.
- 1903 – Samuel Griffith (pictured) became the first Chief Justice of Australia, while Edmund Barton and Richard O'Connor became the first Puisne Justices of the High Court of Australia.
- 1937 – Six days after retiring from the Queen's College, Oxford, Robert Howard Hodgkin was elected its provost due to the sudden death of B. H. Streeter.
- 1962 – Dr. No, the first James Bond film, was released.
- 2014 – Formula One racing driver Jules Bianchi crashed at the Japanese Grand Prix, sustaining fatal head injuries that would kill him the following year.
- Jacques Offenbach (d. 1880)
- Eduardo Duhalde (b. 1941)
- Kate Winslet (b. 1975)
- Pin Malakul (d. 1995)
October 6: German-American Day in the United States
Egyptian forces raising the Egyptian flag in a captured Israeli position in the Sinai
- 1762 – Seven Years' War: The Battle of Manila concluded with a British victory over Spain, leading to an eighteen-month occupation.
- 1777 – American Revolutionary War: Fort Clinton and Fort Montgomery were captured by British forces under Sir Henry Clinton, dismantling the Hudson River Chains.
- 1973 – The Egyptian Armed Forces crossed the Suez Canal (pictured) to attack occupying Israel Defense Forces at the Bar Lev Line in the Sinai Peninsula, beginning the Yom Kippur War.
- 1995 – Astronomers Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz reported the discovery of a planet orbiting 51 Pegasi as the first known exoplanet around a main-sequence star.
- 2000 – Denouncing corruption in Argentine president Fernando de la Rúa's administration and the Senate, Vice President Carlos Álvarez resigned.
- Sarah Crosby (b. 1729)
- Wang Huning (b. 1955)
- Hattie Jacques (d. 1980)
- Johan Neeskens (d. 2024)
In Memory of Theo Faiss
- 1513 – War of the League of Cambrai: A Venetian army under Bartolomeo d'Alviano was decisively defeated by the Spanish army commanded by Ramón de Cardona and Fernando d'Ávalos.
- 1780 – American Revolutionary War: Patriots and Loyalist militias engaged each other at the Battle of Kings Mountain in South Carolina.
- 1914 – Seven-year-old Theo Faiss, later memorialized in speeches by Rudolf Steiner and a sculpture (pictured) by Edith Maryon, was killed by an overturned wagon in Switzerland.
- 1985 – About 130 people died as a result of severe floods in Puerto Rico.
- 2023 – In the October 7 attacks, Hamas and other Palestinian militant groups killed nearly 1,200 people in southern Israel and took 251 hostages, starting the Gaza war.
- Marie Lloyd (d. 1922)
- Bernardo Arévalo (b. 1958)
- María Corina Machado (b. 1967)
- Austin Eubanks (b. 1981)
Wreckage from the Harrow and Wealdstone rail crash
- 1862 – American Civil War: The Battle of Perryville was fought west of Perryville, Kentucky.
- 1952 – Three trains collided (aftermath pictured) at Harrow & Wealdstone station in London, killing 112 people and injuring 340 others.
- 1969 – Demonstrations organized by the Weather Underground known as the Days of Rage began in Chicago, aimed at ending U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War.
- 1995 – The Croatian Army and Croatian Defence Council launched Operation Southern Move, their last offensive in the Bosnian War.
- 2019 – Anti-government protests calling for free and fair elections began in Baku, Azerbaijan.
- Mark Oliphant (b. 1901)
- Sadiq Khan (b. 1970)
- Zheng Qinwen (b. 2002)
- Pannir Selvam Pranthaman (d. 2025)
October 9: Leif Erikson Day in the United States and parts of Canada, Independence Day in Uganda (1962), Hangul Day in South Korea (1446)
Mortimer War Memorial
- 1708 – Great Northern War: Russia defeated Sweden at the Battle of Lesnaya on the Russian–Polish border, in present-day Belarus.
- 1740 – European soldiers and Javanese collaborators started massacring Chinese Indonesians in the port city of Batavia, modern-day Jakarta: at least 10,000 people were killed.
- 1793 – French Revolution: After a month-long siege, the leaders of Lyon surrendered, ending their revolt against the National Convention.
- 1921 – The Mortimer War Memorial (pictured), designed by Herbert Maryon in memory of local servicemen who died in the First World War, was dedicated.
- 1952 – A footman shot and killed two colleagues and wounded the lady of the house at Knowsley Hall, England.
- Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan (d. 705)
- Nadezhda Stasova (d. 1895)
- Yuri Tsunematsu (b. 1998)
- Paul Hunter (d. 2006)
More anniversaries:
Battle of Karbala
- 680 – Husayn ibn Ali, a grandson of Muhammad, was killed at the Battle of Karbala (depicted) by the forces of Yazid I, whom Husayn had refused to recognize as caliph.
- 1760 – In a treaty with Dutch colonial authorities, the Ndyuka people of Suriname gained territorial autonomy.
- 1911 – The Xinhai Revolution began with the Wuchang Uprising, marking the beginning of the collapse of the Qing dynasty and the establishment of the Republic of China.
- 1943 – World War II: The Kempeitai, the military police arm of the Imperial Japanese Army, arrested and tortured fifty-seven civilians and civilian internees on suspicion of their involvement in a raid on Singapore Harbour.
- 2004 – Eight-year-old Huang Na was abducted and murdered; her body was found three weeks later after a search across Singapore and Malaysia.
- Antoine Coysevox (d. 1720)
- Harold Pinter (b. 1930)
- Nicholas Tartaglione (b. 1967)
- Priaulx Rainier (d. 1986)
More anniversaries:
October 11: Feast day of Saint James the Deacon (Anglicanism); National Coming Out Day
Kathryn Sullivan
- 1311 – The peerage and clergy of the Kingdom of England published the Ordinances of 1311 to restrict King Edward II's powers.
- 1776 – American Revolutionary War: A British fleet defeated American ships at the Battle of Valcour Island on Lake Champlain, but gave American forces enough time to prepare their defenses for the Saratoga campaign.
- 1890 – In Washington, D.C., the Daughters of the American Revolution was founded.
- 1984 – Aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger, astronaut Kathryn D. Sullivan (pictured) became the first American woman to perform a space walk.
- 1987 – An estimated 750,000 people attended the "Great March" in Washington, D.C., to demand greater civil rights for the LGBT community.
- Huldrych Zwingli (d. 1531)
- Jean Alexander (b. 1926)
- Shin Tae-yong (b. 1970)
- Angela Lansbury (d. 2022)
More anniversaries:
October 12: Thanksgiving in Canada (2026); Columbus Day and Indigenous Peoples' Day in the United States (2026)
Inejirō Asanuma
- 1406 – Chen Yanxiang, the only person from Indonesia known to have visited dynastic Korea, reached Seoul after having set out from Java four months before.
- 1798 – The Peasants' War began in Overmere, Southern Netherlands, with peasants taking up arms against the French occupiers.
- 1917 – First World War: New Zealand troops suffered more than 2,000 casualties, including more than 800 deaths, in the First Battle of Passchendaele, making it the nation's largest loss of life in one day.
- 1960 – Japan Socialist Party leader Inejirō Asanuma (pictured) was assassinated during a live television recording by a far-right ultra-nationalist using a short sword.
- 1979 – Typhoon Tip, the largest and most intense tropical cyclone ever recorded, reached a worldwide record-low sea-level pressure of 870 mbar (25.69 inHg) in the western Pacific Ocean.
- Pope Honorius I (d. 638)
- Richard Molesworth, 3rd Viscount Molesworth (d. 1758)
- Kamini Roy (b. 1864)
- Gilbert Parkhouse (b. 1925)
More anniversaries:
Brigid Kosgei
- 1710 – Queen Anne's War: French and Wabanaki forces surrendered to end the Siege of Port Royal, giving the British permanent possession of Nova Scotia.
- 1812 – War of 1812: British troops and Mohawk warriors repelled an American invasion from across the Niagara River at the Battle of Queenston Heights near Queenston, Ontario.
- 1908 – British suffragette Margaret Travers Symons became the first woman to speak in the House of Commons when she escaped from her escort into the chamber and shouted at the assembly.
- 1994 – The Troubles: In a meeting at Fernhill House, Belfast, loyalist leader Gusty Spence announced that the Combined Loyalist Military Command would observe a ceasefire.
- 2019 – At the Chicago Marathon, Kenyan runner Brigid Kosgei (pictured) set the current marathon world record for women running in a mixed-sex race.
- Iyasu I (d. 1706)
- Marie Osmond (b. 1959)
- Stephen Flynn (b. 1988)
- Clarence Lushbaugh (d. 2000)
More anniversaries:
Battle of Hastings, as depicted in the Bayeux Tapestry
- 1066 – Norman Conquest: William the Conqueror's forces defeated the English army at Hastings and killed Harold Godwinson (depicted), the last crowned Anglo-Saxon king of England.
- 1805 – War of the Third Coalition: French forces under Marshal Michel Ney defeated Austrian forces in Elchingen, present-day Germany.
- 1913 – The worst mining accident in the United Kingdom's history took place when an explosion resulted in 440 deaths at the Universal Colliery in Senghenydd, Wales.
- 1943 – The Second Philippine Republic, a Japanese puppet state, was established with Jose P. Laurel as its first president.
- 1964 – Members of the Politburo voted to remove Nikita Khrushchev as First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and replace him with Leonid Brezhnev.
- Benning Wentworth (d. 1770)
- Laura Askew Haygood (b. 1845)
- Charlie Joiner (b. 1947)
- Mathieu Kérékou (d. 2015)
More anniversaries:
October 15: White Cane Safety Day in the United States
Air India Boeing 747
- 1815 – Napoleon began his exile on Saint Helena in the South Atlantic Ocean, which would encompass his final six years.
- 1932 – Air India (modern aircraft pictured), the flag carrier airline of India, began operations under the name Tata Airlines.
- 1954 – Hurricane Hazel made landfall in the Carolinas in the United States before moving north to Toronto in Canada later the same day, killing 176 people in the two countries.
- 1996 – The Irish Criminal Assets Bureau was established following the gangland murders of Detective Garda Jerry McCabe and investigative journalist Veronica Guerin.
- 2006 – An earthquake registering 6.7 Mw occurred off the northwestern coast of the island of Hawaii.
- Tadeusz Kościuszko (d. 1817)
- Hiram Fong (b. 1906)
- Jamie Stuart (b. 1976)
- Jim Bolger (d. 2025)
More anniversaries:
Jadwiga of Poland
- 1384 – Jadwiga (pictured) was officially crowned as "King of Poland" instead of "Queen" to reflect the fact that she was a sovereign in her own right.
- 1875 – Brigham Young University was founded in Provo, Utah, United States.
- 1905 – Authorities of the British Raj partitioned the Bengal Presidency, separating the largely Muslim eastern areas from the largely Hindu western areas.
- 1950 – The first novel of the The Chronicles of Narnia series by C. S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, was published in the United Kingdom.
- 2017 – The Maltese journalist and anti-corruption activist Daphne Caruana Galizia was killed in a car bomb attack in Bidnija.
- Oscar Wilde (b. 1854)
- Tessa Munt (b. 1959)
- Mel Carnahan (d. 2000)
- Liam Payne (d. 2024)
More anniversaries:
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
- 1660 – A series of executions of the commissioners who signed the death warrant of King Charles I of England concluded; six were hanged, drawn and quartered for treason.
- 1771 – Ascanio in Alba, an opera composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (pictured) at the age of 15, premiered in Milan.
- 1860 – The Open Championship, the oldest of the four major championships in men's golf, was first played at Prestwick Golf Club in Scotland.
- 1992 – Having gone to the wrong house in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, for a Halloween party, Japanese exchange student Yoshihiro Hattori was shot and killed by the homeowner.
- 2001 – Rehavam Ze'evi, the Israeli minister of tourism, was assassinated in revenge for the killing of PFLP leader Abu Ali Mustafa.
- George Nicol (b. 1870)
- Raffaele Bendandi (b. 1893)
- Micheline Ostermeyer (d. 2001)
- Elijah Cummings (d. 2019)
More anniversaries:
October 18: Double Ninth Festival in China (2026); Alaska Day
Johannes Brahms
- 1356 – The most significant earthquake to have occurred in Central Europe in recorded history destroyed Basel, Switzerland.
- 1887 – Johannes Brahms (pictured) conducted the premiere of his Double Concerto, composed for violinist Joseph Joachim and cellist Robert Hausmann.
- 1943 – Pere Areny, convicted of the murder of his brother, became the last person to be executed by Andorra.
- 1963 – The first cat in space, later known as Félicette, launched aboard a French Véronique rocket.
- 2019 – Protests in Santiago that started 11 days prior escalated into open battle against the Chilean national police, forcing President Sebastián Piñera to declare a state of emergency.
- Isaac Jogues (d. 1646)
- Marshall McDonald (b. 1835)
- Chuck Berry (b. 1926)
- Zarina Diyas (b. 1993)
More anniversaries:
Hurricane Wilma northeast of Honduras
- 1864 – American Civil War: Despite incurring nearly twice as many casualties as the Confederates, the Union army emerged victorious at the Battle of Cedar Creek.
- 1943 – World War II: Allied aircraft sank the German cargo ship Sinfra, killing mostly Italian POWs.
- 1955 – At a meeting of its general assembly, the European Broadcasting Union approved the staging of the first Eurovision Song Contest.
- 1965 – Vietnam War: The Siege of Plei Me began with the first major confrontation between soldiers of the North Vietnamese Army and the U.S. Army.
- 2005 – Hurricane Wilma (pictured) became the most intense Atlantic hurricane on record with a minimum atmospheric pressure of 882 mbar (26.05 inHg).
- Annie Smith Peck (b. 1850)
- Edna St. Vincent Millay (d. 1950)
- Yayan Ruhian (b. 1968)
- Fred Keenor (d. 1972)
More anniversaries:
Mahamat Déby
- 1936 – British woman Mabel Freer was refused entry to Australia after failing a dictation test given in Italian, leading to a debate over Australia's immigration policy.
- 1944 – World War II: Fulfilling a promise he made two years previously, General Douglas MacArthur landed on Leyte to begin the recapture of the Philippines.
- 1973 – Watergate scandal: Attorney General Elliot Richardson and his deputy William Ruckelshaus resigned after refusing to obey President Richard Nixon's order to have Archibald Cox fired.
- 1986 – Soviet Aeroflot Flight 6502 crashed after overrunning the runway at Kuibyshev Airport, killing 70 people on board.
- 2022 – Protests broke out across Chad after President Mahamat Déby (pictured) declared his intentions to extend his rule by another two years.
- Ralph d'Escures (d. 1122)
- Janet Jagan (b. 1920)
- Jerry Orbach (b. 1935)
- Michael Newman (d. 2024)
More anniversaries:
Aftermath of the Seongsu Bridge disaster
- 1096 – First Crusade: At the Battle of Civetot, the Seljuk forces of Kilij Arslan destroyed the army of the People's Crusade as it marched toward Nicaea.
- 1854 – Florence Nightingale and a staff of 38 nurses and 15 nuns were sent to the Ottoman Empire to help treat wounded British soldiers fighting in the Crimean War.
- 1944 – World War II: The three-week-long Battle of Aachen concluded, making the city the first on German soil to be captured by the Allies.
- 1966 – A coal tip fell on the village of Aberfan, Wales, killing 144 people, mostly schoolchildren.
- 1994 – In Seoul, South Korea, 32 people were killed and 17 others injured when a span of the Seongsu Bridge collapsed (pictured).
- Birger Jarl (d. 1266)
- Henry Lawes (d. 1662)
- Ursula K. Le Guin (b. 1929)
- Nemanja Vidić (b. 1981)
More anniversaries:
Scilly naval disaster
- 1707 – In one of the worst maritime disasters in the history of the British Isles, at least 1,400 sailors on four Royal Navy ships were lost in stormy weather (pictured) off the Isles of Scilly.
- 1940 – After evading Vichy French and Francoist Spanish authorities, Belgian prime minister Hubert Pierlot arrived in London, marking the beginning of the Belgian government in exile.
- 1945 – Workers at the Cigar Factory in Charleston, South Carolina, began a labor strike against the American Tobacco Company that lasted more than five months.
- 1964 – The first volume of Ian Fleming's children's novel Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang was published posthumously.
- 1989 - TAN-SAHSA Flight 414 crashed in approach to Toncontín International Airport, killing 131 out of 146 people onboard.
- 2005 – Bellview Airlines Flight 210 crashed in Ogun State, Nigeria, killing all 117 people on board.
- Charles Kingston (b. 1850)
- Edith Kawelohea McKinzie (b. 1925)
- James K. Baxter (d. 1972)
- Betty Binns Fletcher (d. 2012)
More anniversaries:
Marco Simoncelli in 2011
- 1157 – The Battle of Grathe Heath ended the Danish Civil War.
- 1906 – Alberto Santos-Dumont flew his biplane 14-bis for 50 metres (160 ft) at an altitude of about four metres (13 ft).
- 1942 – World War II: Japanese troops began an unsuccessful attempt to recapture Henderson Field on Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands from American forces.
- 1956 – The Hungarian Revolution began as a peaceful student demonstration that attracted thousands while marching through central Budapest to the parliament building.
- 2011 – During the Malaysian motorcycle Grand Prix, Marco Simoncelli (pictured) collided with two other riders, resulting in his death due to serious trauma to the head, neck, and chest.
- Stefano Franscini (b. 1796)
- Emilia Clarke (b. 1986)
- Bill Nicholson (d. 2004)
- Otto Barch (d. 2025)
More anniversaries:
Dracula by Bram Stoker
- 1885 – The Russian ship Dmitry ran aground in Whitby, an incident that inspired the arrival of Count Dracula to England in Bram Stoker's 1897 novel (cover pictured).
- 1929 – On "Black Thursday", the New York Stock Exchange lost 11 percent of its value at the opening bell on very heavy trading, marking the beginning of the Great Depression.
- 1930 – The Pacification Junta deposed Brazillian president Washington Luís, ending the Brazilian Revolution of 1930.
- 2004 – English football club Manchester United defeated rivals Arsenal 2–0 in the Battle of the Buffet, ending the latter's record-breaking unbeaten run.
- 2015 – Lam Wing-kee, the owner of Causeway Bay Books in Hong Kong, known for publishing political books banned in mainland China, was abducted by Chinese authorities.
- Marianne North (b. 1830)
- Désiré Charnay (d. 1915)
- Luciano Berio (b. 1925)
- Richard Hofstadter (d. 1970)
More anniversaries:
Students dancing around Statue of Industry after tarring and feathering it
- 1147 – Reconquista: Forces under Afonso I of Portugal captured Lisbon from the Moors after a four-month siege in one of the few Christian victories during the Second Crusade.
- 1920 – Irish playwright and politician Terence MacSwiney died after a hunger strike in Brixton Prison, bringing the Irish struggle for independence to international attention.
- 1929 – Following a series of similar actions against other sculptures, hundreds of students at Armstrong College in Newcastle tarred and feathered Statue of Industry (pictured), created by the college's master of sculpture Herbert Maryon.
- 1944 – USS Tang, the U.S. Navy submarine credited with sinking more ships than any other American submarine, sank when it was struck by its own torpedo.
- 2010 – Mount Merapi in Central Java, Indonesia, began an increasingly violent series of eruptions that lasted over a month.
- Johann Strauss II (b. 1825)
- Elsa Reger (b. 1870)
- Alexander of Greece (d. 1920)
- Matthew McCauley (d. 1930)
More anniversaries:
Chicago Theatre
- 1520 – Charles V was crowned as Holy Roman Emperor.
- 1863 – The Football Association, world's first governing body of association football, was founded in London.
- 1906 – The Illinois Memorial, honoring Union army soldiers from Illinois who fought at the Siege of Vicksburg, was dedicated at Vicksburg National Military Park.
- 1921 – The Chicago Theatre (pictured), the oldest surviving grand movie palace, opened.
- 2001 – President George W. Bush signed the Patriot Act into law, significantly expanding the authority of United States law enforcement agencies.
- Michael Maestlin (d. 1631)
- Mohammad Reza Pahlavi (b. 1919)
- Rebecca Tunney (b. 1996)
- Walter Smith (d. 2021)
More anniversaries:
Michael D. Higgins
- 1775 – King George III expanded on his Proclamation of Rebellion in the Thirteen Colonies in his speech from the throne at the opening of Parliament.
- 1942 – The Empire of Japan achieved a pyrrhic victory against the United States at the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands.
- 1980 – The Chun Doo-hwan government arrested 153 people related to the Jogye Order, which is considered an abuse of state power.
- 1992 – U.S. Navy Petty Officer Allen R. Schindler Jr. was killed in Sasebo, Japan, for being gay, which led to the U.S. Armed Forces' "don't ask, don't tell" policy.
- 2011 – Michael D. Higgins (pictured) was elected President of Ireland with far more votes than any politician in the country's history.
- Lope de Aguirre (d. 1561)
- Rex Shelley (b. 1930)
- Jan Duursema (b. 1954)
- Prunella Scales (d. 2025)
More anniversaries:
Statue of Liberty
- 312 – Civil wars of the Tetrarchy: Constantine the Great defeated Maxentius at the Battle of the Milvian Bridge in Rome.
- 1453 – Ladislaus the Posthumous was crowned King of Bohemia, although George of Poděbrady remained in control of the government.
- 1664 – The Duke of York and Albany's Maritime Regiment of Foot, the forerunner to the Royal Marines, was established at the grounds of the Honourable Artillery Company in London.
- 1886 – In New York Harbor, U.S. president Grover Cleveland dedicated the Statue of Liberty (pictured), a gift from France commemorating the Declaration of Independence.
- 2013 – The first terrorist attack in Beijing's recent history took place when members of the Turkistan Islamic Party drove a vehicle into a crowd, killing five people and injuring thirty-eight others.
- Charlotte Turner Smith (d. 1806)
- Rosalie Slaughter Morton (b. 1876)
- Aki Toyosaki (b. 1986)
- Matthew Perry (d. 2023)
More anniversaries:
October 29: Republic Day in Turkey (1923)
Kalākaua dime
- 1883 – The San Francisco Mint signed a contract to produce the Kalākaua coinage (coin pictured) for the Hawaiian Kingdom.
- 1948 – Arab–Israeli War: The Israel Defense Forces massacred at least 52 villagers while capturing the Palestinian Arab village of Safsaf.
- 1955 – An explosion, likely caused by a World War II–era naval mine, capsized the Soviet ship Novorossiysk in the harbor of Sevastopol, with the loss of 608 men.
- 1999 – About 10,000 people died when the most intense tropical cyclone ever recorded in the North Indian Ocean made landfall in the Indian state of Odisha near Bhubaneswar.
- 2007 – Somali pirates hijacked a North Korean ship in the Indian Ocean northeast of Mogadishu.
- Marie of Romania (b. 1875)
- Frances Hodgson Burnett (d. 1924)
- Phan Bội Châu (d. 1940)
- Primož Roglič (b. 1989)
More anniversaries:
Rudd Concession
- 1888 – Lobengula, King of Matabeleland, granted the Rudd Concession (pictured) to agents of Cecil Rhodes, leading to the creation of the British South Africa Company.
- 1960 – At the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh, Michael Woodruff performed the first successful kidney transplantation in the United Kingdom.
- 1965 – English model Jean Shrimpton wore a controversially short minidress to Derby Day at Flemington Racecourse in Melbourne, Australia – a pivotal moment of the introduction of the miniskirt to women's fashion.
- 2010 – American comedians Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert hosted the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear in Washington, D.C.
- 2020 – A magnitude-7.0 earthquake occurred in the Aegean Sea between Greece and Turkey, triggering a tsunami and causing 119 deaths.
- John Adams (b. 1735)
- Adelaide Anne Procter (b. 1825)
- Charles Tupper (d. 1915)
- Matt Peacock (d. 2024)
More anniversaries:
Martin Luther
- 475 – Romulus Augustulus took the throne as the last emperor of the Western Roman Empire.
- 1517 – Martin Luther (pictured) posted his Ninety-five Theses onto the door of All Saints' Church in Wittenberg, marking the beginning of the Protestant Reformation.
- 1999 – Australian sailor Jesse Martin arrived in Melbourne, becoming the youngest person to circumnavigate the globe solo, non-stop, and unassisted.
- 2000 – Singapore Airlines Flight 006 collided with construction equipment while attempting to take off from Chiang Kai-shek International Airport in Taiwan during heavy rain, killing 83 people aboard.
- 2017 – An Uzbek immigrant drove a rented truck into cyclists and runners in Lower Manhattan, New York City, killing eight people.
- John Keats (b. 1795)
- Juliette Gordon Low (b. 1860)
- Bill Kibby (d. 1942)
- Chris Chase (d. 2013)
More anniversaries:
Selected anniversaries / On this day archive
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