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.
October 1, 1979 – After 70 years of American control, the Panama Canal Zone was formally handed over to Panama.
October 2, 1935 – Mussolini’s Italian troops invaded Abyssinia, beginning an occupation lasting until 1941.
October 2, 1967 – Thurgood Marshall (1908-1993) was sworn in as the first African American associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. He served until 1991 and was known for opposing discrimination and the death penalty, and for championing free speech and civil liberties.
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 2, 1975 – Japanese Emperor Hirohito made his first-ever visit to the White house
Birthday – Indian political and spiritual leader Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi (1869-1948) was born in Porbandar, India.
October 3, 1863 – President Abraham Lincoln issued a proclamation designating the last Thursday in November as Thanksgiving Day.
October 3, 1929 – Yugoslavia became the official name of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes.
October 3, 1932 – Iraq gained independence from Britain and joined the League of Nations.
October 3, 1974 – Frank Robinson was hired by the Cleveland Indians as baseball’s first African American major league manager.
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, 1830 – Belgium gained its independence, after having been a part of the Netherlands since 1815.
October 4, 1943 – The Island of Corsica became the first French territory in Europe freed from Nazi control as Free French troops liberated the city of Bastia.
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 4, 1965 – Pope Paul VI became the first Pope to visit the U.S. and the first to address the United Nations.
Birthday – St. Francis Assisi (1181-1226) was born in Assisi, Umbria, Italy (as Giovanni Francesco Bernardone).
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, 1938 – Czech President Dr. Eduard Benes resigned and fled abroad amid threats from Adolf Hitler.
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 5, 1986 – Former U.S. Marine Eugene Hasenfus was captured by Nicaraguan Sandinistas after a plane carrying arms for the Nicaraguan rebels (Contras) was shot down over Nicaragua.
Birthday – Czech playwright and political leader Vaclav Havel was born in Prague, October 5, 1936. He spent over 5 years in prison for speaking out against government abuses. He went on to lead the peaceful “velvet revolution” which ended Soviet-style Communism in Czechoslovakia in 1989.
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, 1973 – The Yom Kippur War started as Egypt and Syria launched attacks on Israeli positions on the East Bank of the Suez and the Golan Heights.
October 6, 1978 – Iranian religious leader Ayatollah Khomeini was granted asylum in France after being expelled from Iran for his opposition to the Shah.
October 7
October 7, 1765 – The Stamp Act Congress convened in New York City with representatives from nine colonies meeting in protest to the British Stamp Act which imposed the first direct tax by the British Crown upon the American colonies.
October 7, 1940 – During World war 2, 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 7, 1985 – Palestinian terrorists seized the Italian passenger ship Achille Lauro carrying about 440 persons, threatening to blow it up if Israel did not free 50 Palestinian prisoners. Leon Klinghoffer, an elderly wheelchair-bound American, was murdered.
October 8
October 8, 1871 – The Great Fire of Chicago erupted
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, 1996 – Palestinian President Yasser Arafat made his first public visit to Israel for talks with Israeli President Ezer Weizman at his private residence.
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, 1954 – Ho Chi Minh entered Hanoi, after the withdrawal of French troops, in accordance with armistice terms ending the seven-year struggle between Communist Vietnamese and the French.
Birthday – Italian opera composer Giuseppi Verdi (1813-1901) was born in Le Roncole, Italy. His 26 operas include; Rigoletto, Il Trovatore, La Traviata and Aida, and are among the most popular of all classical music performed today.
October 11
October 11, 1521 – King Henry VIII of England was given the title “Defender of the Faith” by Pope Leo X following the publication of the King’s book against Martin Luther.
October 11, 1899 – The Boer War began in South African between the British Empire and Boers of the Transvaal and Orange Free State.
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.”
October 12
October 12, 1492 – After a 33-day voyage, Christopher Columbus made his first landfall in the New World in the Bahamas.
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, 1775 – The United States Navy was born after the Second Continental Congress authorized the acquisition of a fleet of ships.
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 13, 1990 – The first Russian Orthodox service in over 70 years was held in St. Basil’s Cathedral, next to the Kremlin, in Red Square, Moscow.
October 14, 1066 – The Norman Conquest began with the Battle of Hastings in which King Harold II of England, the last of the Saxon kings, was defeated and killed by William of Normandy’s troops.
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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.
Birthday – Pennsylvania founder William Penn (1644-1718) was born in London. In 1681, he received a Royal charter with a large land grant in America from King Charles II. Penn, a Quaker, welcomed members of all religious faiths and established a democratic form of government in his province which measured over 50,000 square miles.
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, 1917 – World War I spy Mata Hari was executed by a French firing squad at Vincennes Barracks, outside Paris.
October 15, 1945 – Pierre Laval, the former premier of Vichy France, was executed for collaborating with Nazi Germany during World War II.
October 15, 1946 – Nazi leader Hermann Goering committed suicide by swallowing poison in his Nuremberg prison cell just hours before his scheduled hanging for war crimes.
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). The school moved to New Haven in 1716. Two years later, the name was changed to Yale College to honor Elihu Yale, a philanthropist. In 1886, it became Yale University.
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, 1946 – Ten former Nazi leaders were hanged by the Allies following their conviction for war crimes at Nuremberg, Germany.
October 16, 1964 – China detonated its first nuclear bomb at the Lop Nor test site in Sinkiang.
October 16, 1978 – Cardinal Karol Wojtyla of Poland was elected Pope. He was the first non-Italian Pope chosen in 456 years and took the name John Paul II.
October 16, 1995 – The Million Man March took place in Washington, D.C., under the direction of Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, who delivered the main address to the gathering of African American males.
Birthday – American teacher and journalist Noah Webster (1758-1843) was born in West Hartford, Connecticut. His name became synonymous with “dictionary” after he compiled the first American dictionaries of the English language.
October 17, 1777 – During the American 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 19
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, 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, 1944 – During World War II in the Pacific, General Douglas MacArthur set foot on Philippine soil for the first time since his escape in 1942, fulfilling his promise, “I shall return.”
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.
Birthday – Jazz great Dizzy Gillespie (1917-1993) was born in Cheraw, South Carolina (as John Birks Gillespie). He was a trumpet player, composer, band leader and one of the founding fathers of modern jazz, known for his trademark puffed cheeks and bent trumpet.
October 22
Birthday – Hungarian composer Franz Liszt (1811-1886) was born in Raiding, Hungary. He was a brilliant pianist best known for Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2, Liebestraum No. 3, and his Faust and Dante symphonies.
October 23, 1956 – A Hungarian uprising against Communist rule began with students and workers demonstrating in Budapest. Soviet Russians responded by sending in tanks and put down the revolt after several days of bitter fighting.
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, 1931 – Chicago gangster “Scarface” Al Capone was sentenced to 11 years in jail for Federal income tax evasion. In 1934, he was transferred to Alcatraz prison near San Francisco. He was paroled in 1939, suffering from syphilis. He retired to his mansion in Miami Beach where he died in 1947.
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 24, 1994 – For the first time in 25 years, British troops were absent from the streets of Londonderry, Northern Ireland, following cease-fires by Irish Republican Army (IRA) and pro-British forces.
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, 1881 – The shoot-out at the O.K. Corral in Tombstone, Arizona, occurred between the feuding Clanton and Earp families. Wyatt Earp, two of his brothers and “Doc” Holliday gunned down two Clantons and two others.
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.
October 27, 1787 – The first of 85 Federalist Papers appeared in print in a New York City newspaper. The essays argued for the adoption of the new U.S. Constitution. They were written by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay.
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 -T.Rooservelt (1858-1919) the 26th U.S. President was born in New York City.
October 28
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, 1918 – In the waning days of World War 1 mutiny broke out in the German fleet at Kiel. Ships in port ran up the red flag of revolution. The uprising spread to Hamburg, Bremen and Lubeck, resulting in a general strike in Berlin which brought the government of Kaiser Wilhelm to a halt.
October 28, 1919 – Prohibition began in the U.S. with the passage of the National Prohibition (Volstead) Act by Congress. Sales of drinks containing more than one half of one percent of alcohol became illegal. Called a “noble experiment” by Herbert Hoover, prohibition last nearly 14 years and became highly profitable for organized crime which manufactured and sold liquor in saloons called speakeasies.
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, 1949 – Helen Anderson became the first woman ambassador, appointed by President Harry Truman to be Ambassador to Denmark.
October 28, 1958 – Cardinal Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli, Patriarch of Venice, was elected Pope, taking the title John XXIII. Best known for undertaking the 21st Ecumenical Council (Vatican II).
October 28, 1971 – The British House of Commons voted 356-244 in favor of joining the European Economic Community.
October 29
October 29, 1618 – British explorer Sir Walter Raleigh was executed in London for treason on orders from King James I.
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.
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.
October 31st – Halloween or All Hallow’s Eve, an ancient celebration combining the Christian festival of All Saints with Pagan autumn festivals.
October 31, 1517 – Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the door of Wittenberg’s palace church, denouncing the selling of papal indulgences and questioning various ecclesiastical practices. This marked the beginning of the Protestant Reformation in Germany.
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. British pilots in Spitfires and Hurricanes shot down over 1,700 German aircraft while losing 915 fighters. “Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few,” declared Prime Minister Winston Churchill.
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.
