History by month
October
31 days of history. Every date is an entry point to the events, births, and moments that shaped our world.
October 1
1908 Henry Ford's Model T rolled off the Piquette Plant line and put the automobile w
October 2
1967 President Lyndon B. Johnson nominated Thurgood Marshall to the Supreme Court, sh
October 3
1990 East Germans flooded through Hungary's newly opened border fence, toppling the G
October 4
1957 The Soviet Union hurled a polished metal sphere into orbit, and its steady radio
October 5
1905 The Wrights grounded their aircraft after a crash bruised Wilbur and wrecked the
October 6
1981 Islamic extremists assassinate Egyptian President Anwar al-Sadat during a milita
October 7
1913 Engineers rigged a rope-and-winch system to ferry a new Ford Model T past 140 wo
October 8
1871 A mistaken alarm sent firefighters to the wrong location while exhausted crews b
October 9
1936 Generators at Boulder Dam began pumping electricity from the Colorado River, bea
October 10
680 Forces under Caliph Yazid I decapitate Husayn ibn Ali, the grandson of the Proph
October 11
1975 NBC launches Saturday Night Live with George Carlin hosting and Andy Kaufman, Ja
October 12
1492 Rodrigo de Triana's shout on the Pinta triggered a chain of events that launched
October 13
1307 Philip IV of France ordered the arrest of every Templar knight in the country at
October 14
1066 William the Conqueror's Norman forces crush the English army at Senlac Hill, kil
October 15
1917 French authorities executed Mata Hari by firing squad after a trial where she fa
October 16
1793 The execution of Marie Antoinette by guillotine on October 16, 1793, extinguishe
October 17
1931 Federal prosecutors pinned Al Capone to the wall with tax evasion charges rather
October 18
1867 Russia sold Alaska to the United States to prevent British seizure during potent
October 19
1781 British General Charles Cornwallis surrenders his army at Yorktown to a combined
October 20
1973 President Richard Nixon orders the firing of Attorney General Elliot Richardson
October 21
1805 Vice Admiral Lord Nelson leads a British fleet to crush a combined French and Sp
October 22
1962 President Kennedy activated a naval quarantine and placed global forces on DEFCO
October 23
1983 A truck bomb detonates against the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut, slaughtering
October 24
1929 Panic selling on the New York Stock Exchange erased billions in wealth as invest
October 25
1917 Bolshevik Red Guards stormed the Winter Palace on November 7 to topple the provi
October 26
1977 The World Health Organization confirmed the final natural case of smallpox in So
October 27
1904 New York City's first underground subway line opened to 150,000 riders on its in
October 28
1636 The Great and General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony voted to establish a
October 29
1929 Speculative mania fueled by massive margin loans drove stock prices to unsustain
October 30
1938 Orson Welles transformed H.G. Wells's novel into a simulated news broadcast that
October 31
1517 Martin Luther nailed his ninety-five theses to the Castle Church door in Wittenb