October 1, 1908 – Henry Ford‘s Model T, a “universal car” designed for the masses, went on sale for the first time.
October 1, 1949 – The People’s Republic of China was founded with Mao Zedong as Chairman.
Birthday 0ctober 2- Indian political and spiritual leader Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi (1869-1948) was born in Porbandar, India
October 2, 1935 – Mussolini’s Italian troops invaded Abyssinia, beginning an occupation lasting until 1941.
October 2, 1968 – California’s Redwood National Park was established. Redwoods are the tallest of all trees, growing up to 400 feet (120 meters) during a lifetime that can span 2,000 years
October 3
October 3, 1863 – President Abraham Lincoln issued a proclamation designating the last Thursday in November as Thanksgiving Day.
October 3, 1990 – After 45 years of Cold War division, East and West Germany were reunited as the Federal Republic of Germany.
October 4
October 4, 1582 – The Gregorian Calendar took effect in Catholic countries as Pope Gregory XIII issued a decree stating the day following Thursday, October 4, 1582, would be Friday, October 15, 1582, correcting a 10-day error accumulated by the Julian Calendar. Britain and the American colonies adopted the Gregorian Calendar in 1752.
October 4, 1830 – Belgium gained its independence, after having been a part of the Netherlands since 1815.
October 4, 1957 – The Space Age began as the Russians launched the first satellite into orbit. Sputnik I weighed just 184 lbs. and transmitted a beeping radio signal for 21 days.
October 5 Return to Top of Page
October 5, 1908 – Bulgaria proclaimed its independence from the Ottoman Empire.
October 5, 1910 – Portugal became a republic following a successful revolt against King Manuel II.
October 5, 1964 – The largest mass escape since the construction of the Berlin Wall occurred as 57 East German refugees escaped to West Berlin after tunneling beneath the wall.
October 6
October 6, 1927 – The first “talkie” opened in New York. The Jazz Singer starring Al Jolson was the first full-length feature film using spoken dialogue.
October 6, 1928 – Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek became president of the Republic of China upon the introduction of a new constitution.
October 6, 1981 – Egyptian President Anwar Sadat (1918-1981) was assassinated in Cairo by Muslim fundamentalists while watching a military parade. He had shared the 1978 Nobel Peace Prize with Menachem Begin of Israel.
Birthday – Engineer and inventor George Westinghouse (1846-1914) was born in Central Bridge, New York. He developed air brakes for trains and was later responsible for the adoption of alternating current (AC) systems for electric power transmission in the U.S. He was also the first employer to give his employees paid vacations.
October 7
October 7, 1940 – During World War II in Europe, German troops invaded Romania to take seize strategic oil fields.
October 7, 1949 – The German Democratic Republic came into existence in East Germany. Dominated by Soviet Russia, it lasted until German reunification in 1990.
October 8
October 8, 1993 – The U.N. General Assembly lifted economic sanctions against South Africa following the end of racial apartheid. The sanctions had been imposed since the 1960s.
October 8, 1998 – The U.S. House of Representatives voted 258-176 to approve a resolution launching an impeachment inquiry of President Bill Clinton. It was only the third time in U.S. history the House launched a formal impeachment inquiry of a sitting president. (The other two: Andrew Johnson and Richard Nixon).
October 9
October 9, 1962 – Uganda achieved independence after nearly 70 years of British rule.
October 9, 1970 – Cambodia declared itself the Khmer Republic following the abolishment of the monarchy by the legislature.
October 10
October 10, 1954 – Ho Chi Minh entered Hanoi, Vietnam, after the withdrawal of French troops, in accordance with armistice terms ending the seven-year struggle between Communist Vietnamese and the French.
October 10, 1973 – Spiro T. Agnew (1918-1996) resigned the office of Vice President of the United States amid charges of income tax evasion on illegal payments allegedly received while he was governor of Maryland and after he became Vice President.
October 11
October 11, 1939 – Albert Einstein warned President Franklin D. Roosevelt that his theories could lead to Nazi Germany’s development of an atomic bomb. Einstein suggested the U.S. develop its own bomb. This resulted in the top secret “Manhattan Project.”
Birthday – Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962) was born in New York City. She was the wife of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 32nd U.S. President. As First Lady, she led an unprecedented independent life, striving to improve the lives of people all over the world. In 1933, she became the first wife of a president to give her own news conference in the White House. She traveled extensively on her own and was affectionately called “First Lady of the world.” She served as a U.S. delegate to the United Nations for many years and helped write the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
October 12
October 12, 1492 – After a 33-day voyage, Christopher Columbus made his first landfall in the New World in the Bahamas. He named the first land sighted as El Salvador, claiming it in the name of the Spanish Crown. Columbus was seeking a western sea route from Europe to Asia and believed he had found an island of the Indies. He thus called the first island natives he met, ‘Indians.’
October 12, 1811 – Paraguay declared its independence from Spain and Argentina.
October 12, 1822 – Brazil became independent of Portugal.
October 12, 1960 – During a debate over colonialism in the United Nations, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev took off his shoe and pounded his desk repeatedly.
October 13
October 13, 54 A.D. – Roman Emperor Claudius died after eating mushrooms poisoned by his wife, the Empress Agrippina.
October 13, 1792 – The cornerstone of the White House was laid by George Washington. The building, located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, is three stories tall with over 100 rooms, and was designed by James Hoban.
October 13, 1884 – Greenwich was established as the universal time from which standard times throughout the world are calculated.
October 13, 1943 – Italy declared war on its former Axis partner Germany after the downfall of Mussolini and collapse of his Fascist government.
October 14
October 14, 1912 – Former President Theodore Roosevelt was shot by a fanatic while campaigning in Milwaukee. Roosevelt was saved by his thick overcoat, a glasses case and a folded speech in his breast pocket, all of which slowed the bullet. Although wounded, he insisted on making the speech with the bullet lodged in his chest and did not go to the hospital until the meeting ended. Roosevelt, a rugged outdoorsman, fully recovered in two weeks.
October 14, 1933 – Nazi Germany announced its withdrawal from the League of Nations and stated it would take no further part in the Geneva Disarmament Conference.
October 14, 1947 – U.S. Air Force Captain Chuck Yeager became the first man to break the sound barrier, flying in a rocket-powered research aircraft.
October 14, 1964 – Civil Rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., became the youngest recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. He donated the $54,000 in prize money to the Civil Rights movement.
October 15
October 15, 1815 – Napoleon Bonaparte arrived on the Island of St. Helena beginning a British-imposed exile following his defeat at the Battle of Waterloo.
October 15, 1964 – Soviet Russia’s leader Nikita Khrushchev was deposed as First Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party, and replaced by Leonid Brezhnev.
October 16
October 16, 1701 – Yale University was founded in Killingworth, Connecticut (as the Collegiate School of Connecticut).
October 16, 1793 – Queen Marie Antoinette was beheaded during the Reign of Terror following the French Revolution. She was the wife of King Louis XVI and had become the symbol of the people’s hatred for the old regime due to her extravagance and frivolity.
October 16, 1853 – The Crimean War began after the Turkish Ottoman Empire declared war on Russia, Britain, France and portions of Italy allied with the Turks against Russia. It became the first war observed up close by newspaper reporters and photographers. British nurse Florence Nightingale then pioneered modern-style sanitation methods, saving many lives.
October 16, 1916 – The first birth control clinic in America was opened in Brooklyn, New York, by Margaret Sanger, a nurse who worked among the poor on the Lower East Side of New York City.
October 16, 1964 – China detonated its first nuclear bomb at the Lop Nor test site in Sinkiang.
October 17
October 17, 1777 – During the American Revolutionary War, British General John Burgoyne and his entire army of 5,700 men surrendered to American General Horatio Gates after the Battle of Saratoga, the first big American victory.
October 17-25, 1944 – The Battle of Leyte Gulf, the largest naval battle in history, took place off the Philippine Islands, during World War II in the Pacific. The battle involved 216 U.S. warships and 64 Japanese ships and resulted in the destruction of the Japanese Navy including the Japanese Battleship Musashi, one of the largest ever built.
Birthday – Pope John Paul I (1912-1978) was born in Forno di Canale, Italy (as Albino Luciani). He was elected the 263rd Pope of the Roman Catholic Church on September 28, 1978, but died in Rome just 34 days later.
October 18
October 18, 1945 – The Nuremberg War Crimes Trial began with indictments against 24 former Nazi leaders including Hermann Göring and Albert Speer. The trial lasted 10 months, with delivery of the judgment completed on October 1, 1946. Twelve Nazis were sentenced to death by hanging, three to life imprisonment, four to lesser prison terms, and three were acquitted.
October 19
October 19, 1781 – As their band played The World Turned Upside Down, the British Army marched out in formation and surrendered to the Americans at Yorktown. More than 7,000 British and Hessian troops, led by British General Lord Cornwallis, surrendered to General George Washington. The war between Britain and its American colonies was effectively ended. The final peace treaty was signed in Paris on September 3, 1783.
October 19, 1960 – The U.S. embargo of Cuba began as the State Department prohibited shipment of all goods except medicine and food.
October 19, 1987 – “Black Monday” occurred on Wall Street as stocks plunged a record 508 points or 22.6 per cent, the largest one-day drop in stock market history.
October 19, 1990 – Beset by a seriously eroding economy, Soviet Russia’s President Mikhail Gorbachev won parliamentary approval to switch to a market economy.
October 20
October 20, 1818 – The U.S. and Britain agreed to set the U.S.- Canadian border at the 49th parallel.
October 20, 1935 – Mao Zedong’s 6,000 mile “Long March” ended as his Communist forces arrived at Yanan, in northwest China, almost a year after fleeing Chiang Kai-shek’s armies in the south.
October 20, 1968 – Jacqueline Kennedy married multi-millionaire Greek businessman Aristotle Onassis, ending nearly five years of widowhood following the assassination of her first husband, President John F. Kennedy.
October 21
October 21, 1805 – The Battle of Trafalgar took place between the British Royal Navy and the combined French and Spanish fleets. The victorious British ended the threat of Napoleon’s invasion of England. British naval hero Admiral Horatio Nelson was mortally wounded aboard his ship Victory.
October 21, 1879 – Thomas Edison successfully tested an electric incandescent lamp with a carbonized filament at his laboratory in Menlo Park, New Jersey, keeping it lit for over 13 hours.
October 21, 1915 – The first transatlantic radio voice message was made by the American Telephone and Telegraph Company from Virginia to Paris.
October 21, 1967 – Thousands of anti-war protesters stormed the Pentagon during a rally against the Vietnam War in Washington, D.C. About 250 were arrested. No shots were fired, but demonstrators were struck with nightsticks and rifle butts.
October 22
October 22, 1962 – President John F. Kennedy appeared on television to inform Americans of the existence of Russian missiles in Cuba. The President demanded their removal and announced a naval “quarantine” of Cuba. Six days later, the Russians announced they would remove the weapons. In return, the U.S. later removed missiles from Turkey.
October 23
October 23, 1942 – British General Bernard Montgomery launched a major offensive against German forces under Erwin Rommel at El Alamein, Egypt.
October 23, 1983 – Terrorists drove a truck loaded with TNT into the U.S. and French headquarters in Beirut, Lebanon, exploding it and killing 241 U.S. Marines and 58 French paratroopers.
October 23, 1989 – Hungary declared itself a republic 33 years after Soviet Russian troops crushed a popular revolt against Communist rule.
October 23, 1990 – Ukrainian Prime Minister Vitaly Masol resigned after mass protests by students, becoming the first Soviet official of that rank to quit under public pressure.
October 24
October 24, 1861 – The first transcontinental telegram in America was sent from San Francisco to Washington, addressed to President Abraham Lincoln from the Chief Justice of California.
October 24, 1922 – The Irish Parliament voted to adopt a constitution for an Irish Free State, which formally came into existence in December.
October 24, 1929 – “Black Thursday” occurred in the New York Stock Exchange as nearly 13 million shares were sold in panic selling. Five days later “Black Tuesday” saw 16 million shares sold.
October 24, 1945 – The United Nations was founded.
October 24, 1980 – Communist authorities in Poland granted recognition to the trade union “Solidarity.” It was subsequently outlawed in 1981 after the government imposed martial law. In 1989, it was re-legalized.
October 25
October 25, 1955 – Austria reassumed its sovereignty with the departure of the last Allied forces. The country had been occupied by the Nazis from 1938-45. After World War II, it was divided into four occupation zones by the U.S., Russia, Britain and France.
October 25-30, 1983 – The Caribbean island of Grenada was invaded by the U.S. to restore “order and democracy.” Over 2,000 Marines and Army Rangers seized control after a political coup the previous week had made the island a “Soviet-Cuban colony,” according to President Ronald Reagan.
Birthday – Artist Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) was born in Malaga, Spain. He was an experimental painter and also became a fine sculptor, engraver and ceramist.
October 26
October 26, 1825 – The Erie Canal opened as the first major man-made waterway in America, linking Lake Erie with the Hudson River, bypassing the British-controlled lower St. Lawrence. The canal cost over $7 million and took eight years to complete.
October 26, 1951 – Winston Churchill became Britain’s prime minister for a second time, following his Conservative Party’s narrow victory in general elections. In his first term from 1940-45 he had guided Britain through its struggle against Nazi Germany.
October 26, 1955 – Ngo Dinh Diem proclaimed South Vietnam a republic and declared himself president.
Birthday – Hillary Rodham Clinton was born in Park Ridge, Illinois, October 26, 1947. She was First Lady from 1993-2001 during the presidency of her husband Bill Clinton.
October 27
October 27, 1904 – The New York City subway began operating, running from City Hall to West 145th Street, the first underground and underwater rail system in the world.
October 27, 1978 – The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded jointly to Menachem Begin of Israel and Anwar Sadat of Egypt.
Birthday – British navigator James Cook (1728-1779) was born in Yorkshire, England. He explored New Zealand, Australia, and the Hawaiian Islands.
Birthday – Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919) the 26th U.S. President was born in New York City. He succeeded to the presidency following the assassination of President William McKinley. Roosevelt served from September 14, 1901 to March 3, 1909. Best remembered for stating, “Speak softly and carry a big stick.”
October 28
October 28, 1636 – Harvard University, the oldest institution of higher learning in America, was founded in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It was named after John Harvard, a Puritan who donated his library and half of his estate.
October 28, 1886 – The Statue of Liberty was dedicated on Bedloe’s Island in New York Harbor. The statue was a gift from the people of France commemorating the French-American alliance during the American Revolutionary War. Designed by Frederic Auguste Bartholdi, the entire structure stands 300 feet (92.9 meters) tall. The pedestal contains the words: “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
October 28, 1918 – The Republic of Czechoslovakia was founded, assembled from three provinces – Bohemia, Moravia, and Slovakia – which had been part of the former Austro-Hungarian empire.
October 28, 1922 – Fascist blackshirts began their “March on Rome” from Naples which resulted in the formation of a dictatorship under Benito Mussolini.
October 28, 1971 – The British House of Commons voted 356-244 in favor of joining the European Economic Community.
Birthday – Microsoft founder Bill Gates was born in Seattle, Washington, October 28, 1955. In 1975, he co-founded Microsoft with Paul Allen, designing software for IBM computers. By 1980, Microsoft became the leading software company for IBM compatible computers. Gates became a billionaire by age 31 and remains one of the world’s wealthiest individuals.
October 29
October 29, 1929 – The stock market crashed as over 16 million shares were dumped amid tumbling prices. The Great Depression followed in America, lasting until the outbreak of World War II.
Birthday – Nazi propaganda minister Paul Joseph Goebbels (1897-1945) was born in Rheydt, near Dusseldorf, Germany. Considered a master propagandist, he controlled all Nazi newspapers, radio and film production.
October 30
October 30, 1905 – To counter the spread of revolutionary movements in Russia, Czar Nicholas II took a step toward constitutional government by allowing for an elected parliament (Duma) with legislative powers and guaranteeing civil liberties.
October 30, 1990 – For the first time since the Ice Age, Great Britain was connected with the European continent, via a new rail tunnel under the English Channel.
Birthday – John Adams (1735-1826) the 2nd U.S. President was born in Braintree, Massachusetts. He served from March 4, 1797 to March 3, 1801
Birthday – Emily Post (1872-1960) was born in Baltimore, Maryland. She wrote influential books on etiquette and a syndicated newspaper column giving advice on manners in specific situations.
October 31
October 31st – Halloween or All Hallow’s Eve, an ancient celebration combining the Christian festival of All Saints with Pagan autumn festivals.
October 31, 1940 – The Battle of Britain concluded. Beginning on July 10, 1940, German bombers and fighters had attacked coastal targets, airfields, London and other cities, as a prelude to a Nazi invasion of England.
October 31, 1950 – Earl Lloyd became the first African American to play in a National Basketball Association (NBA) game when he took the floor for the Washington Capitols in Rochester, New York.
October 31, 1952 – The U.S. detonated its first hydrogen bomb at the Elugelab Atoll in the Eniwetok Proving Grounds in the Pacific Marshall Islands.
October 31, 1961 – The body of Joseph Stalin was removed from the mausoleum in Red Square and reburied within the Kremlin walls among the graves of lesser Soviet heroes. October 31, 1968 – During the Vietnam War, President Lyndon Johnson ordered a halt of American bombing of North Vietnam.
October 31, 1984 – Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated by three Sikh members of her bodyguard while walking in the garden of her New Delhi home.
