October 12th
 

1492 ~ Christopher Columbus's first expedition makes landfall in the Caribbean. But where?

1609 ~ Three Blind Mice published by Thomas Ravenscroft.

1870 ~ Death of Gen. Robert E. Lee, Leader.

1935 ~ Birthday of Luciano Pavarotti, Italian tenor.

1968 ~ Summer Olympics open in Mexico City.

1977 ~ Four Palestinians hijacked a Lufthansa Airlines flight to Somalia and demanded release of 11 members of the Red Army Faction.

1986 ~ Presidents Reagan and Gorbachev fail to agree on Star Wars at a disarmament summit in Reykjavik.

1997 ~ Death of John Denver, American singer.

2000 ~ Suicide bombers attack the USS Cole in the Yemeni port of Aden.

2002 ~ A car bomb at a Bali nightclub killed 202 people, mainly Australians.

October 13th
 

54 ~ Death of Claudius, Roman Emperor

1307 ~ All Knights Templar in France were simultaneously arrested by agents of the French king, to be later tortured into admitting heresy.

1792 ~ The cornerstone of the White House was laid

1812 ~ Death of Sir Isaac Brock, British general (killed in the Battle of Queenston Heights)

1925 ~ Birthday of Margaret Thatcher, Prime Minister of the UK.

1941 ~ Birthday of Paul Simon, Singer & Songwriter.

1945 ~ Death of Milton S. Hershey, founder of Hershey Chocolate Company.

1954 ~ Birthday of Mordechai Vanunu, Israeli nuclear technician.

1959 ~ Birthday of Marie Osmond, Singer & Actress.

1974 ~ Death of Ed Sullivan, Television Personality.

October 14th
 

1066 ~ Battle of Hastings - William the Conqueror’s Normans defeated the Saxon army and kill King Harold II of England.

1882 ~ Birthday of Eamon de Valera, Irish politician and patriot.

1894 ~ Birthday of E. E. Cummings, American poet.

1926 ~ Winnie-the-Pooh, by A.A. Milne, was published.

1940 ~ Birthday of Cliff Richard, British rock singer.

1944 ~ World War II: Given the choice between a public treason trial and a certain death by firing squad or suicide with honor, German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel chose the latter.

1947 ~ Chuck Yeager flew a Bell X-1 faster than the speed of sound, the first man to do so in level flight.

1962 ~ Cuban Missile Crisis began: A U-2 flight over Cuba took photos of Soviet nuclear weapons being installed.

1964 ~ Civil Rights movement leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr became the youngest recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize.

1994 ~ PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat, Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin shared the Nobel Peace Prize.

October 15th
 

70 BC ~ Birthday of Virgil, Roman poet.

1844 ~ Birthday of Friedrich Nietzsche, Philosopher.

1881 ~ Birthday of P. G. Wodehouse, British comic novelist.

1908 ~ Birthday of John Kenneth Galbraith, Economist.

1917 ~ Mata Hari was executed by firing squad for spying for Germany.

1951 ~ I Love Lucy premiered starring comedian Lucille Ball and her real-life husband, Desi Arnaz.

1964 ~ Death of Cole Porter, Composer.

1964 ~ Nikita Khrushchev retires as head of USSR.

1970 ~ 35 construction workers died when a section of the new West Gate Bridge in Melbourne collapsed.

2003 ~ China launched its first manned spacecraft into orbit, becoming the third country to do so.

October 16th
 

1793 ~ Marie Antoinette was guillotined at the height of the French Revolution.

1854 ~ Birthday of Oscar Wilde, Irish writer.

1859 ~ John Brown led a raid of the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia.

1886 ~ Birthday of David Ben-Gurion, first Prime Minister of Israel.

1925 ~ Birthday of Angela Lansbury, actress

1964 ~ China detonated its first atomic bomb.

1970 ~ Anwar Sadat elected President of Egypt.

1978 ~ Karol Józef Wojtyła became Pope John Paul II. He was the first non Italian to be elevated to the position since 1522.

1981 ~ Death of Moshe Dayan, Israeli general.

1983 ~ The Baltimore Orioles beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 4 games to 3 in the 80th World Series.

October 17th
 

1469 ~ Ferdinand II of Aragon married Isabella of Castile. This marriage lead to the unification of Aragon and Castile in a single country, Spain.

1888 ~ Thomas Edison filed a patent for the Optical Phonograph.

1915 ~ Birthday of Arthur Miller, Playwright.

1931 ~ Al Capone convicted of income tax evasion.

1956 ~ Queen Elizabeth opened the first commercial nuclear power station, at Calder Hall.

1967 ~ The musical Hair opened.

1970 ~ Anwar Sadat became president of Egypt.

1972 ~ Birthday of Eminem, rap music performer.

1980 ~ Queen Elizabeth became the first British monarch to make a state visit to the Vatican.

1989 ~ Loma Prieta earthquake hit the San Francisco Bay Area.

October 18th
 

1545 ~ Death of John Taverner, Composer.

1851 ~ Moby-Dick, a novel by Herman Melville, was first published as The Whale.

1871 ~ Death of Charles Babbage, mathematician and inventor of computing machines.

1908 ~ Death of Charles Gounod, composer.

1919 ~ Birthday of Pierre Trudeau, fifteenth PM of Canada.

1922 ~ The British Broadcasting Company, Ltd. was incorporated. It was reincorporated as the BBC.

1926 ~ Birthday of Chuck Berry, Musician.

1931 ~ Death of Thomas Edison, inventor.

1939 ~ Birthday of Lee Harvey Oswald, Assassin.

1989 ~ [I]Erich Honecker is forced to step down as leader of East Germany./I]

October 19th
 

1216 ~ Death of King John, younger brother of King Richard the Lionheart.

1745 ~ Death of Jonathan Swift, Author.

1781 ~ Lord Cornwallis surrendered at Yorktown, effectively ending the American War of Independence.

1912 ~ Italy took possession of Tripoli, Libya from the Ottoman Empire.

1931 ~ Birthday of John Le Carré, Novelist.

1933 ~ Germany withdrew from the League of Nations.

1943 ~ Streptomycin was isolated; the first antibiotic remedy for tuberculosis.

1950 ~ Death of Edna St. Vincent Millay, Poet.

2003 ~ Mother Teresa beatified by Pope John Paul II.

2005 ~ Trial of Saddam Hussein began.

October 20th
 

1632 ~ Birthday of Sir Christopher Wren, Architect.

1740 ~ Maria Theresa took the throne of Austria.

1803 ~ The U.S. Senate ratified the Louisiana Purchase.

1882 ~ Birthday of Bela Lugosi, Actor.

1893 ~ Birthday of Jomo Kenyatta, President of Kenya.

1931 ~ Birthday of Mickey Mantle, athlete.

1947 ~ The House Un-American Activities Committee began its investigation into Communist infiltration of Hollywood.

1968 ~ Jackie Kennedy married Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis.

1973 ~ The Sydney Opera House opened.

1984 ~ Death of Paul Dirac, winner Nobel Prize in Physics 1933.

October 21st
 

1772 ~ Birthday of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Poet.

1805 ~ Battle of Trafalgar - British fleet led by Admiral Lord Nelson defeated a combined French and Spanish fleet off the coast of Spain.

1833 ~ Birthday of Alfred Nobel, Swedish inventor and benefactor of the Nobel Prize.

1854 ~ Florence Nightingale and a staff of 38 nurses were sent to the Crimean War.

1912 ~ Birthday of Sir Georg Solti, Conductor.

1917 ~ Birthday of Dizzy Gillespie, Jazz Musician.

1929 ~ Birthday of Ursula K. Le Guin, Science Fiction Author.

1944 ~ The first kamikaze attack: HMAS Australia was hit by a Japanese plane carrying a 200 kg bomb.

1945 ~ Women's suffrage: Women are allowed to vote in France for the first time.

1966 ~ A coal tip fell on the village of Aberfan, killing 144 people, mostly schoolchildren.

October 22nd
 

1797 ~ Andre-Jacques Garnerin made the first recorded parachute jump over Paris.

1811 ~ Birthday of Franz Liszt, Composer.

1836 ~ Sam Houston was inaugurated as the first President of the Republic of Texas.

1844 ~ Birthday of Sarah Bernhardt, Actress.

1906 ~ Death of Paul Cezanne, Painter.

1920 ~ Birthday of Timothy Leary, writer, drug guru.

1943 ~ Birthday of Catherine Deneuve, Actress.

1943 ~ The RAF air raid on Kassel, a city of 236,000 people, killed 10,000, and left 150,000 homeless.

1962 ~ Cuban Missile Crisis: US President Kennedy announced that American spy planes had discovered Soviet nuclear weapons in Cuba, and that he had ordered a naval "quarantine" of the island nation.

1968 ~ Led Zeppelin released the classic album Led Zeppelin II, featuring the hit single "Whole Lotta Love".

October 23rd
 

4004 BC ~ The start of the universe, according to the Ussher-Lightfoot Calendar.

1892 ~ Birthday of Gummo Marx, actor, comedian (Marx Brothers).

1915 ~ Approximately 33,000 women marched up Fifth Avenue in New York City to demand the right to vote.

1935 ~ Birthday of Chi Chi Rodriguez, golf champion.

1940 ~ Birthday of Pelé, soccer player Extraordinaire.

1942 ~ Second Battle of El Alamein started - In Egypt, British forces begin a major offensive against Axis forces.

1956 ~ Hungarians took to the streets in to demand an end to Soviet rule. Thousands died.

1958 ~ Belgian cartoonist Peyo introduced a new set of comic strip characters The Smurfs.

1983 ~ A suicide truck-bombing in Lebanon killed 241 U.S. soldiers.

1998 ~ Death of Dr. Barnett Slepian, physician.

October 24th
 

1632 ~ Birthday of Anton van Leeuwenhoek, microbiologist.

1799 ~ Death of Karl Ditters von Dittersdorf, Composer.

1929 ~ "Black Thursday" crash of the New York Stock Exchange.

1945 ~ Founding of the United Nations.

1947 ~ The expression Cold War was first used by Bernard Baruch to the U.S. Senate War Investigation Committee.

1948 ~ Death of Franz Lehár, Composer.

1980 ~ The government of Poland legalized Solidarity trade union.

1991 ~ Death of Gene Roddenberry, creator of the Star Trek series.

1992 ~ In the first real "World" Series, the Toronto Blue Jays became the first non-US team to win the World Series.

2003 ~ The Concorde completed its last commercial flight, bringing the first era of civil supersonic transport to a close.

October 25th
 

1400 ~ Death of Geoffrey Chaucer, Poet.

1825 ~ Birthday of Johann Strauss II, Composer.

1838 ~ Birthday of Georges Bizet, Composer.

1854 ~ Battle of Balaklava during the Crimean War (Charge of the Light Brigade). You can listen and follow along to Lord Tennyson as he reads his poem, “The Charge of the Light Brigade”.

1881 ~ Birthday of Pablo Picasso, Painter & Sculptor.

1924 ~ First appearance of "Little Orphan Annie”.

1936 ~ Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini created the Rome-Berlin Axis.

1971 ~ The UN seated the People's Republic of China and expelled the Republic of China.

1993 ~ Jean Chrétien became prime minister of Canada.

1993 ~ Death of Vincent Price, Actor.

October 26th
 

1685 ~ Birthday of Domenico Scarlatti, Composer.

1881 ~ The Gunfight at the O.K. Corral took place at Tombstone, Arizona.

1905 ~ Norway became independent from Sweden.

1918 ~ Erich von Ludendorff is dismissed by Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany for refusing to cooperate in peace negotiations.

1947 ~ The Maharaja of Kashmir agreed to allow his kingdom to join India.

1965 ~ The Beatles are appointed Members of the Order of the British Empire (MBEs).

1972 ~ Death of Igor Sikorsky, helicopter pioneer.

1994 ~ Announcement of Andrew Wiles’ correct proof of Fermat's Last Theorem.

1999 ~ Britain's House of Lords voted to end the right of hereditary peers to vote in Britain's upper chamber of Parliament.

2001 ~ The USA Patriot Act passed into law.