October 1, 2019 | SuzyQ
October 1, 1908. The Model T Ford went on sale for the first time.
October 1, 1938. Hitler's troops occupied the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia.
October 1,1949. The People's Republic of China was founded.
October 3, 1863. Abraham Lincoln issued a proclamation which designated the last Thursday in November as Thanksgiving Day.
October 8, 1871. The Great Chicago Fire started. When it was over, 90,000 people were left homeless, and over 300 were killed.
October 10, 1973. Spiro T. Agnew resigned the office of Vice President of the United States amid charges of income tax evasion.
October 11, 1899. The Boer War began in South Africa between the British Empire and the Boers of the Transvaal and Orange Free State. The war did not end until 1902.
October 11, 1962. The Second Vatican Council of the Roman Catholic Church was convened in St. Peter's Basilica in Rome by Pope John XXIII.
October 12, 1492. Christopher Columbus made his first landfall in the New World in the Bahamas.
October 13, 1775. The creation of the The United States Navy was authorized by the Second Continental Congress.
October 13, 1792. The cornerstone of the White House was laid by George Washington.
October 15, 1815. Napoleon Bonaparte began his exile on the island of St. Helena, following his defeat at the Battle of Waterloo.
October 15, 1917. World War I spy Mata Hari was executed by a French firing squad.
October 16, 1859. Abolitionist John Brown and his followeres seized the Federal Arsenal at Harpers Ferry.
October 17, 1777. American forces claimed their first victory of the Revolutionary War at the Battle of Saratoga.
October 19, 1781. The British Army surrendered to George Washington at Yorktown, effectively ending the Revolutionary War.
October 20, 1973. During the Watergate scandal, The Saturday Night Massacre occurred as President Richard M. Nixon fired Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox and Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus, and Attorney General Elliot Richardson resigned in protest.
October 21, 1805. During the Napoleonic Wars, the Battle of Trafalgar was fought between the British navy and the combined French and Spanish fleets
October 22, 1962. The Cuban Missile Crisis began.
October 24, 1945. The United Nations was founded.
October 25, 1854. The Charge of the Light Brigade occurred during the Crimean War.
October 26, 1881. In Tombstone, Arizona, the shoot-out at the O.K. Corral took place between the feuding Clanton and Earp families.
October 26, 1825. The Erie Canal opened, linking Lake Erie with the Hudson River. Construction took eight years to complete.
October 28, 1886. The Statue of Liberty was dedicated on Bedloe's Island in New York Harbor.
October 29, 1929. The stock market crashed, precipitating the Great Depression.
October 30, 1938. The War of the Worlds radio broadcast panicked millions of Americans, as the Mercury Players dramatized the story by H.G. Wells which depicted a Martian invasion of New Jersey.
October 31, 1517. Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the door of Wittenberg's castle church.
