23 – Rebels capture and sack the Chinese capital Chang’an during a peasant rebellion. They kill and decapitate the emperor, Wang Mang, two days later.
1302 – A peace treaty between the Byzantine Empire and the Republic of Venice ends the Byzantine-Venetian War (1296-1302).
1511 – Formation of the Holy League of Ferdinand II of Aragon, the Papal States and the Republic of Venice against France.
1582 – Pope Gregory XIII implements the Gregorian calendar. In Italy, Poland, Portugal, and Spain, October 4 of this year is followed directly by October 15.
1777 – Troops under George Washington are repelled by British troops under Sir William Howe.
1795 – Napoleon Bonaparte first rises to national prominence by suppressing armed counter-revolutionary rioters threatening the National Convention.
1853 – The Ottoman Empire declares war on the Russian Empire.
1927 – Gutzon Borglum begins sculpting Mount Rushmore.
1957 – Space Race: Launch of Sputnik 1, the first artificial satellite to orbit the Earth.
1963 – Hurricane Flora kills 6,000 in Cuba and Haiti.
1965 – Pope Paul VI arrives in New York City, the first Pope to visit the Americas.
1983 – Richard Noble sets a new land speed record of 633.468 miles per hour (1,019.468 km/h), driving Thrust2 at the Black Rock Desert in Nevada.
Click to picture to watch.
1993 – Russian Constitutional Crisis: In Moscow, tanks bombard the White House, a government building that housed the Russian parliament, while demonstrators against President Boris Yeltsin rally outside.
2006 – Wikileaks is launched by Julian Assange.
Births
1289 – Louis X of France (d. 1316)
1550 – Charles IX of Sweden (d. 1611)
1625 – Jacqueline Pascal, French nun and composer (d. 1661)She was a prodigy, like her brother and composing verses when only eight years old, and a five-act comedy at the age of 11. In 1646, she converted to Jansenism which was a Catholic theological movement that emphasized original sin, human depravity, the necessity of divine grace, and predestination. Then in 1652, she took the veil, and entered Port-Royal Abbey, Paris, despite the strong opposition of her brother, and subsequently was largely instrumental in his own final conversion. She vehemently opposed the attempt to compel the assent of the nuns to the Papal bulls condemning Jansenism, but was at last compelled to yield. This blow, however, hastened her death, which occurred at Paris on her birthday in 1661, as she turned 36.
1822 – Rutherford B. Hayes, American general, lawyer, and politician, 19th President of the United States (d. 1893)
1861 – Frederic Remington, American painter, sculptor, and illustrator
1880 – Damon Runyon, American author and playwright (d. 1946)
1895 – Buster Keaton, American film actor, director, and producer (d. 1966)
1914 – Brendan Gill, American journalist and essayist (d. 1997)
1941 – Roy Blount, Jr., American journalist and author
1946 – Susan Sarandon, American actress and activist
Deaths
1052 – Vladimir of Novgorod (b. 1020)
1669 – Rembrandt, Dutch painter and illustrator (b. 1606)
1859 – Karl Baedeker, German publisher, founded Baedeker (b. 1801)
1946 – Barney Oldfield, American race car driver and actor (b. 1878)
1947 – Max Planck, physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1858)
1970 – Janis Joplin, American singer-songwriter (b. 1943)
1982 – Glenn Gould, Canadian pianist and conductor (b. 1932)
1992 – Denny Hulme, New Zealand race car driver (b. 1936)
1999 – Art Farmer, American trumpet player and composer (b. 1928)
2004 – Gordon Cooper, American colonel, engineer, and astronaut (b. 1927)