The History Shack

  OTD October 31st is the three hundredth fourth day of the year, and there are 61 days remaining until the end of the year.   Events 683 – During the Siege of Mecca, the Kaaba catches fire and is burned down. 1517 – Protestant Reformation: Martin Luther posts his 95 Theses on the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg. 1837 – Approximately 300 Muscogee died in the steamboat Monmouth disaster on the Trail of Tears in the United States. 1864 – Nevada is admitted as the 36th U.S. state. 1907 – The Parliament of Finland approved the Prohibition Act, but the law was not implemented because Tsar Nicholas II of Russia did not ratify it. 1913 – Dedication of the Lincoln Highway, the first automobile highway across the United States. 1917 – World War I: Battle of Beersheba: The "last successful cavalry charge in history". 1923 – The first 160 days of 100° Fahrenheit at Marble Bar, Western Australia. 1940 – World War II: The Battle of Britain ends, causing Ger...

  OTD October 30th is the three hundredth third day of the year, and there are 62 days remaining until the end of the year.   Events 1340 – Reconquista: Portuguese and Castilian forces halt a Muslim invasion at the Battle of Río Salado. 1657 – Anglo-Spanish War: Spanish forces failed to retake Jamaica at the Battle of Ocho Rios. 1831 – Nat Turner is arrested for leading the bloodiest slave rebellion in United States history. 1888 – The Rudd Concession is granted by Matabeleland to agents of Cecil Rhodes. 1905 – Czar Nicholas II issues the October Manifesto, nominally giving the Russian people fundamental civil liberties and the right to form a duma. 1938 – Orson Welles broadcasts a radio adaptation of H. G. Wells's The War of the Worlds, causing a massive panic in some of the audience in the United States. 1941 – President Roosevelt approved $1 billion in Lend-Lease aid to the Allied nations. 1945 – Jackie Robinson of the Kansas City Monarchs signs a cont...

  OTD October 29th is the three hundredth second day of the year, and there are 63 days remaining until the end of the year.   Events 1390 – First trial for witchcraft in Paris, leading to the death of three people. 1618 – English adventurer, writer, and courtier Sir Walter Raleigh is beheaded for allegedly conspiring against James I of England. 1675 – Leibniz first uses the long s (∫) to symbolize the integral in calculus. 1787 – Mozart's opera Don Giovanni receives its first performance in Prague. 1863 – Eighteen countries met in Geneva and agreed to form the International Red Cross. 1888 – The Convention of Constantinople was signed, guaranteeing free maritime passage through the Suez Canal during war and peace. 1921 – The Harvard University football team loses to Centre College, ending a 25-game winning streak. This is considered one of the biggest upsets in college football. 1929 – Black Tuesday: The New York Stock Exchange crashes, ending the Great ...

  OTD October 28th is the three hundredth first day of the year, and there are 64 days remaining until the end of the year.   Events 1420 – Beijing was officially designated the capital of the Ming dynasty when the Forbidden City was completed. 1492 – Christopher Columbus lands in Cuba on his first voyage to the New World, surmising that it is Japan. 1520 – Ferdinand Magellan reaches the Pacific Ocean. 1664 – The Duke of York and Albany's Maritime Regiment of Foot, later known as the Royal Marines, is established. 1886 – US President Grover Cleveland dedicated the Statue of Liberty. 1919 – The U.S. Congress passes the Volstead Act over President Woodrow Wilson's veto, paving the way for Prohibition to begin the following January. 1942 – The Alaska Highway first connects Alaska to the North American railway network at Dawson Creek in Canada. 1962 – The Cuban Missile Crisis ends, and Premier Nikita Khrushchev orders the removal of Soviet missiles from Cuba....

  OTD October 27th is the three hundredth day of the year, and there are 67 days remaining until the end of the year.   Events  1275 – Traditional founding of the city of Amsterdam. 1682 – Philadelphia is founded in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. 1810 – The United States annexes the former Spanish colony of West Florida. 1904 – The first underground New York City Subway line opens, later designated as the IRT Broadway–Seventh Avenue Line. 1924 – The Uzbek SSR was founded in the Soviet Union. 1930 – Ratifications exchanged in London for the first London Naval Treaty go into effect immediately, limiting the expensive naval arms race among its five signatories. 1961 – NASA tests the first Saturn I rocket in Mission Saturn-Apollo 1. 1964—Ronald Reagan delivers a speech on behalf of Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater. The address launches his political career and becomes known as "A Time for Choosing." 1986—The British government sudde...

  OTD October 26th is the two hundred ninety-ninth day of the year, and there are 68 days remaining until the end of the year.   Events 1185 – The Uprising of Asen and Peter begins on the feast day of St. Demetrius of Thessaloniki and ends with the creation of the Second Bulgarian Empire. 1597 – Imjin War: Korean Admiral Yi Sun-sin routed the Japanese Navy of 300 ships with only 13 ships at the Battle of Myeongnyang. 1825 – The Erie Canal opens, allowing direct passage from the Hudson River to Lake Erie. 1863 – The Football Association was founded. 1881 – Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday participate in the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral in Tombstone, Arizona. 1936 – The first electric generator at Hoover Dam goes into entire operation. 1956 – Hungarian Revolution: In the towns of Mosonmagyaróvár and Esztergom, Hungarian secret police forces massacre civilians. As rebel strongholds in Budapest hold, fighting spreads throughout the country. 1958 – Pan American Airw...

  OTD October 23rd is the two hundred ninety-sixth day of the year, and there are 69 days remaining until the end of the year.   Events 42 BC – Liberators' Civil War: Mark Antony and Octavian decisively defeat an army under Brutus in the second part of the Battle of Philippi, with Brutus committing suicide and ending the civil war. 1295 – The first treaty forming the Auld Alliance between Scotland and France against England was signed in Paris. 1666 – The most intense tornado on record in English history, an F4 storm on the Fujita scale or T8 on the TORRO scale, strikes the county of Lincolnshire with winds of more than 213 miles per hour (343 km/h). 1707 – The First Parliament of the Kingdom of Great Britain convenes. 1812 – General Claude François de Malet begins a conspiracy to overthrow Napoleon, claiming that the Emperor died in the Russian campaign. 1927 – The Imatra Cinema was destroyed in a fire in Tampere, Finland, during the 1924 film Wages of Virtu...

  OTD October 24th is the two hundred ninety-seventh day of the year, and there are 68 days remaining until the end of the year.   Events 1590 – John White, the governor of the second Roanoke Colony, returns to England after an unsuccessful search for the "lost" colonists. 1795 – Russia, Prussia, and Austria entirely consume Poland. 1857 – Sheffield F.C., the world's oldest association football club still in operation, is founded in England. 1861 – The first transcontinental telegraph line across the United States is completed. 1911 – Orville Wright remains in the air for nine minutes and 45 seconds in a glider at Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina. 1926 – Harry Houdini's last performance takes place at the Garrick Theatre in Detroit. 1931 – The George Washington Bridge opens to public traffic over the Hudson River. 1957 – The United States Air Force started the X-20 Dyna-Soar crewed space program. 1980 – The government of Poland legalizes the So...

  OTD October 21st is the two hundred ninety-fourth day of the year, and there are 71 days remaining until the end of the year.   Events 1097 – First Crusade: Crusaders led by Godfrey of Bouillon, Bohemund of Taranto, and Raymond IV, Count of Toulouse, begin the Siege of Antioch. 1520 – João Álvares Fagundes discovers the islands of Saint Pierre and Miquelon, bestowing on them their original name of "Islands of the 11,000 Virgins". 1774 – The Taunton, Massachusetts flag is the first to include the word "Liberty." 1797 – In Boston Harbor, the 44-gun United States Navy frigate USS Constitution is launched. 1824 – Portland cement is patented. 1854 – Florence Nightingale and a staff of 38 nurses are sent to the Crimean War. 1879 – Thomas Edison applied for a patent for his design for an incandescent light bulb. 1921 – President Warren G. Harding delivers the first speech by a sitting U.S. president against lynching in the Deep South. 1940 – The f...

   OTD October 20th is the two hundred ninety-third day of the year, and there are 72 days remaining until the end of the year.   Events 1740 – France, Prussia, Bavaria, and Saxony refuse to honor the Pragmatic Sanction, and the War of the Austrian Succession begins. 1781 – The Patent of Toleration, providing limited freedom of worship, is approved in Austria. 1803 – The United States Senate ratified the Louisiana Purchase. 1883 – Peru and Chile signed the Treaty of Ancón, in which the Tarapacá province was ceded to the latter, ending Peru's involvement in the War of the Pacific. 1944 – Liquefied natural gas leaks from storage tanks in Cleveland and then explodes, leveling 30 blocks and killing 130 people. 1961 – The Soviet Navy performs the first armed test of a submarine-launched ballistic missile, launching an R-13 from a Golf-class submarine. 1973 – Elizabeth II opens the Sydney Opera House after 14 years of construction. 1982 – During the UEFA C...

  OTD October 19th is the two hundred ninety-second day of the year, and there are 73 days remaining until the end of the year.   Events 439 – The Vandals, led by King Gaiseric, take Carthage in North Africa. 1512 – Martin Luther became a Doctor of Theology. 1789 – John Jay is sworn in as the first Chief Justice of the United States. 1812 – The French invasion of Russia fails when Napoleon begins his retreat from Moscow. 1866 – By the Treaty of Vienna, Austria cedes Veneto and Mantua to France, which immediately awards them to Italy in exchange for the earlier Italian acquiescence to the French annexation of Savoy and Nice. 1935 – The League of Nations places economic sanctions on Italy for its invasion of Ethiopia. 1943 – Streptomycin, the first antibiotic remedy for tuberculosis, is isolated by researchers at Rutgers University. 1960 – The United States imposes a near-total trade embargo against Cuba. 1987 – Black Monday: The Dow Jones Industrial Aver...