1885: Special Delivery mail service began in the United States.
1904: Pianist Vladimir Horowitz born.
1908: Henry Ford introduced the Model T. It cost $825 in any color you wanted, as long as it was black.
1920: Actor Walter Matthau born.
1927: Actor George Peppard born.
1957: The motto, "In God We Trust" began to be used on US paper currency.
1962: Johnny Carson succeeded Jack Parr as host of the Tonight Show on NBC.
1971: Disney World opened in Orlando, Florida.
October 02:
1835: The first battle of the Texas Revolution took place near the Guadalupe River as Texas settlers defeated Mexican cavalry. In the early dawn of October 2, Texans attack the Mexicans under Lt. Castaneda by firing the cannon and their rifles. The Texans paint a black cannon barrel on a white flag and the words, "Come and Take It." Lt. Castaneda, who is under orders to avoid a fight, withdraws to Bexar. Thus, the Texans win the Battle of Gonzales.
1869: Gandhi born in Porbandor, India.
1890: Philosopher Groucho Marx born in New York.
1892: Schoolchildren across the US recited the Pledge of Allegiance.
1904: Graham Greene born.
1941: Wonder Woman made her comic debut in All-Star Comics issue No. 8.
1950: Comic strip Peanuts first published.
1950: First issue of The Freeman.
1959: Twilight Zone debuted on CBS.
1967: Thurgood Marshall sworn in as justice of the US Supreme Court.
1985: Rock Hudson died.
2021: At a NASCAR event at the Talladega Super Speedway in Lincoln, Alabama, spectators could be heard chanting something in the background, which NBC Sports Reporter Kelli Stavast reported during her interview with the race winner, Branden Brown, as "Let's Go Branden."
October 03:
1863: President Lincoln declared the last Thursday in November to be Thanksgiving Day. Congress later changed it to the fourth Thursday in November.
1900: Thomas Wolfe born.
1925: Gore Vidal born.
1941: the movie, The Maltese Falcon opened in New York.
1955: Captain Kangaroo premiered on television.
1955: The Mickey Mouse Club premiered on television.
1961: The Dick Van Dyke Show premiered on television.
1990: East and West Germany united.
1995: The jury returned a not guilty verdict in the OJ Simpson murder trial.
October 04:
1182: Saint Francis born.
1957: Leave It to Beaver premiered on CBS.
1957: The Soviet Union launched Sputnik, the first man-made satellite.
1923: Actor Charlton Heston born.
1931: Comic strip Dick Tracy first published.
1939: Anne Rice born.
2006: Domain name "Wikileask.org" was registered as a URL.
October 05:
1871: In a shootout in Abilene, Kansas, with Phil Coe, James Butler Hickok accidently shoots and kills his friend Mike Williams.
1892: The Dalton gang of bank robbers was almost wiped out when locals shot them up as the gang tried to rob two banks in Coffeyville, Kansas.
1947: First televised address from the White House. President Truman asked that people refrain from eating meat on Tuesdays and poultry on Thursdays in order to help supply grain for a Europe still devastated from WWII.
1953: Earl Warren sworn in as 14th Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court.
1962: The Beatles first hit single, Love Me Do was released in England.
October 06:
1863: First Turkish bath opened in the US.
1884: A naval war college was established in Newport, Rhode Island.
1889: The famous Moulin Rouge opened its doors in Paris.
1927: The Jazz Singer ushered in the era of the talkies.
1960: The movie, "Spartacus," starring Kirk Douglas, made its world premier in New York.
1973: Egypt and Syria attacked Israel in the Yom Kippur War.
1981: Egyptian President, Anwar Sadat, was assisinated by terroristic Moslem fundamentalists.
October 07:
1765: The Stamp Act Congress convened in New York to draw up the grievances of the colonists against England.
1849: Edgar Allan Poe died in Baltimore Maryland, at age 40.
1949: The Republic of East Germany was formed
1950: The United Nations authorized an advance north of the 38th parallel in Korea.
1968: The Motion Picture Association adopted the film rating system of G to X.
October 08:
1871: The famous Chicago fire killed 200.
1918: Sgt. Alvin York single-handedly killed 25 Germans & captured 132.
1940: David Carradine born.
1943: Chevy Chase was born.
1970: Alexander Solzhenitsyn awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.
October 09:
1635: Religious dissident Roger Williams was banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony.
1701: The Collegiate School of Connecticut (later Yale University) was chartered in New Haven.
1776: A group of Spanish missionaries settled in present-day San Francisco.
1835: Texans under the command of Captain Collinsworth capture Goliad and its two cannon.
1888: Washington Monument first opened to the public.
1930: Laura Ingalls became the first woman to fly solo across the US>
1936: The first generator at Boulder Dam (now Hoover Dam) began transmitting electricity to Los Angeles.
1940: John Lennon born.
1967: Che Guevara was executed in Bolivia.
October 10:
1813: Composer Givseppe Verdi was born in Le Rancole, Italy.
1845: US Naval Academy opened in Anapolis, Maryland.
1886: The Tuxedo made its debut at an autumn ball in, of all places, Tuxedo Park, New York.
1913: The waters of the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean mixed together in the Panama Canal as engineers blew up the Gamboa Dam.
1957: Atlas Shrugged, by Ayn Rand, published.
1973: Spiro Agnew resigned as Vice President.
1973: Ludwig von Mises, leading Austrian economist, dies.
1978: President Jimmy Carter signed the bill authorizing the Susan B. Anthony dollar.
October 11:
1884: Eleanor Roosevelt born in New York City.
1890: The Daughters of the American Republic (D.A.R.) founded in Washington, D.C.
1968: Apollo 7 launched as America's first manned Apollo mission.
1984: Kathy Sullivan became the first woman to walk in space.
1975: Saturday Night Live debuted with George Carlin as the first host.
October 12:
1492: Christopher Columbus discovered the New World as his ships arrived in the present-day Bahamas.
1870: Robert E Lee died at age 63 in Lexington, Virginia.
1892: The original version of the Pledge of Allegiance (without the "under God" phrase) was first recited in public schools.
1940: Tom Mix died in a single-car crash on Highway 89, near Florence, Arizona.
1960: Khrushchev displayed his manners at a United Nations General Assembly meeting by beating his desk with his shoe.
1997: John Denver died in a crash of an experimental airplane he had built. He was 53 years old.
October 13:
54: Roman Emporer Claudiius I died after being poisoned by his wife, Agrippina.
1775: The Continental Congress ordered the construction of a fleet of ships, giving rise to the US Navy.
1792: The cornerstone of the executive mansion later known as the White House, was laid during a ceremony in Washington DC.
1835: Texans under the command of Stephen Austin head from Gonzales to San Antonio to throw General Cos out of Texas.
1843: B'nai Brith founded in New York.
1845: Texas ratified a state constitution.
1870: Albert Jay Nock born.
1919: France ratified the Treaty of Versailles, ending WWI.
1941: Singer Paul Simon born.
1943: Italy declars war on Germany.
1982: The International Olympic Committee announced it would restore the two gold medals taken from Jim Thorpe.
1998: 3:55 am CST: Art Bell announces he is ending his radio career.
October 14:
1066: Normans, lead by William the Conqueror, defeated the English at the Battle of Hastings.
1586: Mary, Queen of Scots, went on trial in England for conspiracy against Queen Elizabeth I. Mary was beheaded the following February.
1890: Dwight D. Eisenhower born in Denison, Texas.
1894: ee cummings born
1927: Actor Roger Moore born.
1947: Chuck Yeager became the first person to fly faster than the speed of sound.
1952: Actor/Magician Harry Anderson born.
1960: Candidate John Kennedy first expressed the idea of a Peace Corp during a campaing speech to students.
1964: Martin Luther King, Jr. awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
1981: Al Kalmbach, model railroader and publisher, died at age 71.
October 15:
70 BC: Virgil born.
1844: Friedrich Nietzsche born.
1908: John Kenneth Galbraith born.
1917: Mata Hari, the Dutch dancer and spy for the Germans, was executed by firing squad near Paris.
1946: Convicted Nazi war criminal Hermann Goering poisoned himself the day before he was to be executed.
1951: I Love Lucy premiered on CBS.
1969: Mortorium Day, where hundreds of thousands turned out across the USA to protest the War in Vietnam.
1991: The Senate confirmed the nomination of Clarence Thomas to the US Supreme Court by a 52 to 48 vote.
October 16:
1793: Queen Marie Antoinette of France was beheaded.
1846: Dentist William T. Morton demonstrated the effectiveness of ether during a jaw surgery.
1854: Oscar Wilde born.
1859: Abolitionist John Brown and a group of 22 men raided Harper's Ferry.
1888: Eugene O' Neill born.
1916: In New York, Margaret Sanger opened the first birth control clinic.
1962: The Cuban Missile Crisis began as President Kennedy was informed that reconnaissance photos revealed the presence of missile bases in Cuba.
1964: China detonated its first atomic bomb, becoming the world's 5th nuclear power.
1991: A madman opened fire on diners at a Luby's restaurant in Killeen, Texas, killing 23 people. Many consider this incident to have lead to concealed carry laws in Texas.
1997: Author James Michener died at age 90.
October 17:
1777: General John Burgoyne's British forces surrendered to American troops in Saratoga, New York.
1915: Playwright Arthur Miller born.
193l: Al Capone was convicted of income tax evasion and sentenced to 11 years in prison.
1933: Albert Einstein arrived in the United States, as a refugee from the Nazis.
1973: Arab oil-producing nations announced an embargo on oil. It lasted until March 1974.
October 18:
1767: The Mason-Dixon Line, establishing the boundary between Maryland and Penn. was established.
1867: US took formal possession of the Alaska Territory from Russia.
1873: The first set of rules for intercollegiate football were adopted by representatives of Collumbia, Princeton, Rutgers and Yale Universities.
1927: George C Scott born.
1931: Thomas Alva Edison died in West Orange, New Jersey, at age 84:
1933: Albert Einstein arrived in the US as a refugee from Germany.
1967: The first issue of Rolling Stone magazine was published.
1969: The United States banned the use of cyclamates.
October 19:
1781: British troops under Lord Cornwallis surrendered at Yorktown, Virginia.
1812: French troops under Napoleon began their retreat from Moscow.
1922: Jack Anderson born.
1931: John LeCarre born.
1987: Stock Market crashed by 508 points.
October 20:
1803: US Senate ratified the Louisiana Purchase.
1859: John Dewey born.
1925: Art Buchwald born.
1944: General Douglas MacArthur steps ashore at Lcyle, Phillipines and said, "I have returned." This was 2- 1/2 years after he said, "I shall return."
1947: The House Unamerican Activities Committee (HUAA) opened hearings on communists in the film industry.
1964: Herbert Hoover, the 31st President, died in New York at age 90.
1968: Jacqueline Kennedy married Aristotle Onassis.
1973: Watergate's Saturday Night Massacre occurred as special prosecutor Archibald Cox was dismissed and Attorney General Elliot Richardson and Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus resigned.
1990: Quigley Down Under premieres, starring Tom Selleck as Matthew Quigley. This is a must see for all fans of Westerns.
2003: Jack Elam, character actor (villain) in many westerns, dies at age 84 (86 according to records-but Elam said he lied about his age to get work when young). He died at his home in Ashland, Oregon.
October 21:
1772: Samuel Taylor Coleridge born.
1797: US Frigate Constitution (Old Ironsides) was launched in Boston.
1805: The Battle of Trafalgar took place off the coast of Spain. The British fleet, under the command of Admiral Horatio Nelson, defeated the French and Spainish fleets. Unfortunately, Admiral Nelson was killed.
1833: Alfred Nobel born.
1879: Thomas Edison invented a workable electric light.
1917: The First Division of the US Army, training in Luneville, France, became the first Americans to see action in WWI>
October 22:
4004 BCE: According to calculations by Archbishop James Ussher in 1650, Earth was created at 6 pm on this day. Ussher used the Julian calendar. Although he spent large portions of his life in London and Ireland, it is not clear which time zone he was using.
1746: Princeton University founded as the College of New Jersey.
1811: Hungarian composer Franz Litz was born.
1836: Sam Houston inaugurated as the first elected President of the Republic of Texas.
1844: Actress Sarah Bernhardt was born in Paris.
1926: The Sun Also Rises, by Ernest Hemingway, was published. It was Hemmingway's first novel.
1962: President Kennedy announced a blockade of Cuba.
October 23:
4004 BCE: 9:00 am. The Earth was created, according to Irish Archbishop James Ussher (1551-1656), as per the Julian Calendar, according to his book published in 1650, Annales veteris testamenti, a prima mundi origine deducti (Annals of the Old Testament, deduced from the earliest beginning of the world).
1925: Johnny Carson born.
1941: The Walt Disney film, "Dumbo," premiered.
1942: Michael Crichton born.
1946: The United Nations General Assembly convened for the first time.
1958: Soviet novelist Boris Pasternak, author of Doctor Zhivago, won the Nobel Prize in leterature. Kremlin officials pressured him into returning the award.
1987: US Senate rejected the nomination of Robert Bork to the US Supreme Court by 58 to 42 vote.
2020: Jerry Jeff Walker, singer, songwriter and writer of Mr. Bojangles," died at age 78.
October 24:
1648: The Pece Treaty of Westphalia ended the Thirty Years War and effectively ended the Holy Roman Empire.
1820: Spain ceded Florida to the US.
1901: Anna Edson Taylor, age 43, became the first person to go over the Niagra Falls in a barrel and live to tell about it.
1939: Nylon stockings went on sale for the first time.
1940: The 40 hour work week went into effect under the Fair Labor Standards Act.
1945: The United Nations Charter went into effect.
1962: The US Blockade of Cuba began.
1991: Gene Roddenberry died at age 70.
October 25:
1400: Geoffrey Chaucer, author of October 26:
1774: The First Continental Congress adjourned in Philadelphia. October 27:
1787: The first of the Federalist Papers was published in a New York newspaper. October 28:
1636: Harvard College founded in Mass. October 29:
1618: Sir Walter Raleigh, the English military adventurer and poet, was executed. October 30:
1735: John Adams, the second President of the United States, was born in Braintree, Mass. October 31:
1517: Martin Luther posted the 95 Theses on the door of the Wittenberg Palace church, marking the start of the Protestant Reformation in Germany. JANUARY FEBRUARY MARCH APRIL MAY JUNE JULY AUGUST SEPTEMBER NOVEMBER DECEMBER
1800: Thomas Macaulay born.
1825: Johann Strauss born.
1854: The Charge of the Light Brigade took place during the Crimean War as 600 English attacked the Russian army, but suffered heavy losses.
1971: United Nations General Assembly woted to seat China and expel Taiwan.
1983: US troops land on Grenada.
1825: The Erie Canal opened, connecting Lake Erie and the Hudson River.
2001: President George Bush signed the Patriot Act, significantly eroding liberties for US Citizens.
2008: Author Tony Hillerman died at age 83. He was the creator of Navajo characters Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee, who were introduced in the 1070 novel The Blessing Way.
1858: Theodore Roosevelt born in New York City.
1872: Emily Post born.
1904: The first rapid transit subway, the IRT, opened in New York City.
1914: Author-poet Dylan Thomas born in Swansea, Wales.
1938: DuPont announced its new synthetic yarn: Nylon. It went on sale on October 24, 1939.
1776: The Battle of White Plains was fought.
1835: Troops under General Cos attack Jim Bowie at the Mission Purisima Concepcion. Bowie is ready and the Mexicans suffer heavy casualties and are forced to withdraw. William Barret Travis, in command of a volunteer mounted company, gives chase.
1886: The Statue of Liberty was dedicated by President Grover Cleveland in the presence of its sculptor, Auguste Bartholdi.
1903: Evelyn Waugh born.
1903: John Chamberlain, author and book reviewer extraordinaire, born.
1914: Dr. Jonas Salk born.
1919: Congress enacted the Volstead Act, which provided for enforcement of Prohibition, over President Wilson's veto.
1922: Benito Mussolini took control of Italy.
1940: Italy invaded Greece.
1948: Actress Kate Jackson born.
1965: Pope Paul VI issued a decree absolving Jews of collective guilt for the crucifixion of Jesus.
1996: Actor Morey Amsterdam, most famous for playing Buddy Sorrell on the Dick Van Dyke Show, died at age 87.
1682: The founder of Pennsylvania (William Penn) landed at what is not Chester, Penn.
1740: James Boswell was born.
1901: President McKinley's assassin, Leon Czolgosz, was electrocuted.
1929: "Black Tuesday" descended upon the New York Stock Exchange as prices collapsed and panic selling ensued.
1956: The Huntley-Brinkley Report premiered on NBC>
1966: The National Organization for Women was founded.
1980: ABC became the first network to use 900 telephone service to conduct instant polls of viewers, after the Reagan-Carter debate.
1885: Erza Pound born.
1938: Orson Welles' radio play, War of the Worlds aired on CBS.
1795: John Keats, poet, born in London.
1835: David Crockett writes his brother-in-law that the next day Crockett will head for Texas.
1864: Nevada became the 36th State.
1887: Chiang Kai-shek born in Chekiang Province, China.
1912: Dale Evans born.
1920: Dick Francis born.
1926: Harry Houdini died at 1:26 pm at the age of 52 of peritonitis and gangrene.
1929: Dan Rather, CBS news anchor, born.
1941: Work is completed on Mount Rushmore.
1959: Movie director Peter Jackson born.