Events
of the day
1096
– People's Crusade: The Turkish army annihilates
the People's Army of the West.
1097 – First Crusade: Crusaders led by Godfrey
of Bouillon, Bohemund of Taranto, and Raymond
IV of Toulouse, begin the Siege of Antioch.
1209 – Otto IV is crowned emperor of the
Holy Roman Empire by Pope Innocent III.
1392 – Nanboku-chō: Emperor Go-Kameyama
abdicates in favor of rival claimant Go-Komatsu.
1512 – Martin Luther joins the theological
faculty of the University of Wittenberg.
1520 – Ferdinand Magellan discovers a strait
now known as Strait of Magellan.
1520 – João Álvares Fagundes discovers the
islands of Saint-Pierre and Miquelon, bestowing
them their original name of "Islands
of the 11,000 Virgins".
1600 – Tokugawa Ieyasu defeats the leaders
of rival Japanese clans in the Battle of
Sekigahara, which marks the beginning of
the Tokugawa shogunate that in effect rules
Japan until the mid-nineteenth century.
1774 – First display of the word "Liberty"
on a flag, raised by colonists in Taunton,
Massachusetts in defiance of British rule
in Colonial America.
1797 – In Boston Harbor, the 44-gun United
States Navy frigate USS Constitution is
launched.
1805 – Napoleonic Wars: Battle of Trafalgar:
A British fleet led by Vice Admiral Lord
Nelson defeats a combined French and Spanish
fleet off the coast of Spain under Admiral
Villeneuve. It signals almost the end of
French maritime power and leaves Britain's
navy unchallenged until the 20th century.
1816 – The Penang Free School is founded
in George Town, Penang, Malaysia, by the
Rev Hutchings. It is the oldest English-language
school in Southeast Asia.
1824 – Joseph Aspdin patents Portland cement.
1854 – Florence Nightingale and a staff
of 38 nurses are sent to the Crimean War.
1861 – American Civil War: Battle of Ball's
Bluff – Union forces under Colonel Edward
Baker are defeated by Confederate troops
in the second major battle of the war. Baker,
a close friend of Abraham Lincoln, is killed
in the fighting.
1867 – Manifest Destiny: Medicine Lodge
Treaty – Near Medicine Lodge, Kansas a landmark
treaty is signed by southern Great Plains
Indian leaders. The treaty requires Native
American Plains tribes to relocate a reservation
in western Oklahoma.
1892 – Opening ceremonies for the World's
Columbian Exposition are held in Chicago,
though because construction was behind schedule,
the exposition did not open until May 1,
1893.
1895 – The Republic of Formosa collapses
as Japanese forces invade.
1902 – In the United States, a five month
strike by United Mine Workers ends.
1912 – During the First Balkan War, Kardzhali
is liberated by Bulgarian forces
1921 – President Warren G. Harding delivers
the first speech by a sitting President
against lynching in the deep south.
1921 – George Melford's silent film, The
Sheik, starring Rudolph Valentino, premiers.
1931 – The Sakurakai, a secret society in
the Imperial Japanese Army, launches an
abortive coup d'état attempt.
1944 – World War II: The first kamikaze
attack: A Japanese plane carrying a 200-kilogram
(440 lb) bomb attacks HMAS Australia off
Leyte Island, as the Battle of Leyte Gulf
began.
1944 – World War II: Battle of Aachen: The
city of Aachen falls to American forces
after three weeks of fighting, making it
the first German city to fall to the Allies.
1945 – Women's suffrage: Women are allowed
to vote in France for the first time.
1950 – Korean War: heavy fighting begins
between British and Australian forces from
the 27th British Commonwealth Brigade and
the North Korean 239th Regiment during the
Battle of Yongju.
1956 – Kenyan rebel leader Dedan Kimathi
is captured by the British Army, signalling
the ultimate defeat of the Mau Mau Uprising,
and essentially ending the British military
campaign.
1959 – In New York City, the Solomon R.
Guggenheim Museum, designed by Frank Lloyd
Wright, opens to the public.
1959 – President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs
an executive order transferring Wernher
von Braun and other German scientists from
the United States Army to NASA.
1965 – Comet Ikeya-Seki approaches perihelion,
passing 450,000 kilometers from the sun.
1966 – Aberfan disaster: A slag heap collapses
on the village of Aberfan in Wales, killing
144 people, mostly schoolchildren.
1967 – Vietnam War: More than 100,000 war
protesters gather in Washington, D.C.. A
peaceful rally at the Lincoln Memorial is
followed by a march to The Pentagon and
clashes with soldiers and United States
Marshals protecting the facility. Similar
demonstrations occurred simultaneously in
Japan and Western Europe.
1969 – A coup d'état in Somalia brings Siad
Barre to power.
1971 – A gas explosion kills 22 people at
a shopping centre in Clarkston, East Renfrewshire,
near Glasgow, Scotland.
1973 – John Paul Getty III's ear is cut
off by his kidnappers and sent to a newspaper
in Rome; it doesn't arrive until November
8.
1973 – Fred Dryer of the then Los Angeles
Rams becomes the first player in NFL history
to score two safeties in the same game.
1977 – The European Patent Institute is
founded.
1978 – Australian civilian pilot Frederick
Valentich vanishes in a Cessna 182 over
the Bass Strait south of Melbourne, after
reporting contact with an unidentified aircraft.
1979 – Moshe Dayan resigns from the Israeli
government because of strong disagreements
with Prime Minister Menachem Begin over
policy towards the Arabs.
1983 – The metre is defined at the seventeenth
General Conference on Weights and Measures
as the distance light travels in a vacuum
in 1/299,792,458 of a second.
1986 – In Lebanon, pro-Iranian kidnappers
claim to have abducted American writer Edward
Tracy (he is released in August 1991).
1987 – Jaffna hospital massacre is carried
out by Indian Peace Keeping Force in Sri
Lanka killing 70 ethnic Tamil patients,
doctors and nurses.
1994 – North Korea nuclear weapons program:
North Korea and the United States sign an
agreement that requires North Korea to stop
its nuclear weapons program and agree to
inspections.
1994 – In Seoul, 32 people are killed when
the Seongsu Bridge collapses.
2003 – Images of the dwarf planet Eris are
taken and subsequently used in documenting
its discovery by the team of Michael E.
Brown, Chad Trujillo, and David L. Rabinowitz.
Holidays
and observances
Apple
Day (United Kingdom)
Christian Feast Day:
Hilarion
John of Bridlington
Leticia
Ursula
International Day of the Nacho (Mexico and
USA)
National Nurses' Day (Thailand)
Overseas Chinese Day (Republic of China)
Trafalgar Day (the British Empire in the
19th and early 20th century)
For details, contact Datacentre
