On this day in history…
November 01
1512 – Michelangelo’s paintings on ceiling of Sistine Chapel in the Vatican first exhibited
1604 – William Shakespeare’s tragedy “Othello” first presented
1800 – John Adams becomes the first US president to live in White House
1848 – First US women’s medical school opens (Boston)
1876 – New Zealand’s provincial government system is dissolved.
1894 – Vaccine for diphtheria announced by Dr Roux of Paris
1950 – Pope Pius XII witnesses “The Miracle of the Sun” while at the Vatican
1979 – Andrew Lloyd Webber & Tim Rice’s musical “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat” premieres
1990 – Last of Margaret Thatcher’s original government resigns, Deputy PM Howe
2012 – Scientists detect evidence of light from the universe’s first stars, predicted to have formed 500 million years after the big bang
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October 31
1541 – Michelangelo Buonarroti finishes painting The Last Judgement in the Sistine Chapel, Vatican
1863 – The Maori Wars resumed as British forces in New Zealand led by General Duncan Cameron began their Invasion of the Waikato.
1864 – Nevada admitted as 36th state of the Union
1888 – Scottish vet John Boyd Dunlop patents pneumatic bicycle tyre
1908 – 4th Olympic games ends in London
1923 – 160 consecutive days of 100 degrees F begin at Marble Bar, Australia
1941 – Mount Rushmore Monument is completed
1984 – Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi is assassinated by her bodyguards, Satwant Singh and Beant Singh at her home in New Delhi
1999 – Yachtsman Jesse Martin returns to Melbourne after 11 months of circumnavigating the world, solo, non-stop and unassisted.
2003 – Bethany Hamilton, aged 13, while surfing has her arm bitten of by a shark in Hawaii1485 – Henry VII of England crowned at Westminster Abbey
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October 30
1534 – English Parliament passes Act of Supremacy, making King Henry VIII head of the Church in England – a role formerly held by the Pope
1772 – Captain Cook arrives with ship Resolution in Capetown
1922 – Benito Mussolini forms government in Italy
1944 – Anne Frank is deported from Auschwitz to Belsen
1973 – The Bosporus Bridge in Istanbul, Turkey is completed, connecting the continents of Europe and Asia over the Bosporus for the first time.
1974 – Muhammad Ali KOs George Foreman in 8th round in Kinshasa Zaire (‘The Rumble in the Jungle’)
1994 – Thomas Nicely reports bug in Intel’s Pentium-processor on Internet2003 – “Wicked” premieres on Broadway at the Gershwin Theatre starring Idina Menzel and Kristin Chenoweth,
2012 – Walt Disney purchases Lucasfilm Ltd and its rights for Star Wars and Indiana Jones for $4.05 billion
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October 29
529 BC – The international day of Cyrus the Great, king of Persia, who declared the first charter of human rights in the world also known as Cyrus Cylinder.
1390 – First trial for witchcraft in Paris.
1929 – “Black Tuesday” Stock Market crashes triggers “Great Depression”
1945 – First ball point pen goes on sale, 57 years after it is patented
1960 – Muhammad Ali’s (Cassius Clay) 1st professional fight, beats Tunney Hunsaker in 6
1969 – US Supreme Court orders end to all school desegregation “at once”
1998 – Space Shuttle Discovery blasts off on STS-95 with 77-year old John Glenn on board, making him the oldest person to go into space.
2007 – Argentina elects its first female president, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner.
2012 – Publishing companies Penguin and Random House merge to form the world’s largest publisher
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October 28
1492 – Christopher Columbus discovers Cuba and claims it for Spain
1538 – The first university in the New World, the Universidad Santo Tomás de Aquino, is established.
1636 – Harvard University (Cambridge, Massachusetts) founded
1793 – Eli Whitney applies for a patent on cotton gin
1922 – First US coast-to-coast radio broadcast of a football game
1954 – Nobel Prize for Literature is awarded to Ernest Hemingway
1971 – John & Yoko record “Happy Xmas (War is Over)” in NYC
1986 – The centennial of the Statue of Liberty’s dedication is celebrated in New York Harbour.
1988 – Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen gives $10 million to University of Washington library
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October 27
312 – Constantine the Great is said to have received his famous Vision of the Cross.
1275 – Traditional founding of the city of Amsterdam.
1780 – Samuel Williams and the first U.S. astronomical expedition to record an eclipse of the sun observes the event at Penobscot Bay
1901 – 1st complete performance of Debussy’s “Nocturnes”
1915 – Andrew Fisher is replaced as Labour Prime Minister by William ‘Billy’ Hughes, who will advocate a more active role for Australians in the war
1925 – Water skis patented by Fred Waller
1938 – DuPont announces its new synthetic fiber will be called “nylon”
1971 – Gerard Newe becomes the first Catholic to serve in any Northern Ireland government since 1920; Newe was appointed to try to improve community relations
1984 – France performs nuclear test at Muruora Island
1992 – Great Britain issues postage stamp on 100th anniversary of Tolkien
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October 26
1492 – Lead pencils first used
1858 – Hamilton Smith patents rotary washing machine
1861 – Pony Express ends
1863 – Football Association forms in England, standardizing soccer, splitting with rugby
1950 – Mother Teresa founds Missionaries of Charity in Calcutta, India
1951 – Winston Churchill re-elected British Prime Minister
1964 – Eric Edgar Cooke becomes last person in Western Australia to be executed.
1972 – Guided tours of Alcatraz (by Park Service) begin
1973 – President Nixon released first White House tapes on Watergate scandal
1977 – The last natural case of smallpox was discovered in Merca district, Somalia. The WHO and the CDC consider this date the anniversary of the eradication of smallpox, the most spectacular success of vaccination.
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October 25
1492 – Christopher Columbus’ flagship the Santa María lands at Dominican Republic
1854 – Charge of Light Brigade (Battle of Balaclava, Crimean War), 409 die
1861 – The Toronto Stock Exchange created
1924 – “Little Orphan Annie” comic strip 1st published
1943 – Burma railroad completed & opens
1947 – Bradman scores 156 for SA v the Indians, 152 mins, 22 fours
1960 – 1st electronic wrist watch placed on sale, NYC
1964 – Rolling Stones appear on Ed Sullivan Show
1984 – Hepatitis virus is discovered
2001 – Windows XP first became available.
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October 24
1260 – The spectacular Cathedral of Chartres is dedicated in the presence of King Louis IX of France; the cathedral is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
1818 – Felix Mendelssohn, 9, performs his first public concert (Berlin)
1857 – World’s first soccer club, Sheffield F C, founded in Yorkshire, England
1882 – Robert Koch discovers germ that causes tuberculosis
1904 – First New York subway opens
1911 – Captain Robert Falcon Scott’s expedition leaves Cape Evans for South Pole
1926 – Harry Houdini’s last performance, which was at the Garrick Theatre in Detroit, Michigan.
1931 – George Washington Bridge linking New York City and New Jersey dedicated, opens the next day
1946 – A camera on board the V-2 No. 13 rocket takes the first photograph of earth from outer space.
1982 – Steffi Graf plays her 1st pro tennis match
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October 23
42 BC – Roman Republican civil wars: Second Battle of Philippi – Brutus’s army is decisively defeated by Mark Antony and Octavian. Brutus commits suicide.
425 – Valentinian III is elevated to Roman Emperor, at the age of 6.
1091 – Tornado (possible T8/F4) strikes the heart of London killing two and demolishing the wooden London Bridge
1812 – Failed coup against emperor Napoleon
1941 – Walt Disney’s animation “Dumbo” released
1972 – Access credit cards introduced in Great Britain
1977 – Paleontologist Elso Barghoorn announces that 34-billion-year-old one-celled fossils, the earliest life forms, had been discovered
1981 – US national debt hits $1 trillion
2001 – Apple releases the iPod.
2011 – 7th Rugby World Cup: New Zealand beats France 8-7 in Auckland
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October 22
1721 – Tsar Peter the Great becomes “All-Russian Imperator”
1819 – 1st ship sails by Erie-channel (Rome-Utica)
1877 – The Blantyre mining disaster in Scotland kills 207 miners. Those widows and orphans who were unable to support themselves were evicted by the mine owners and likely sent to the Poor House.
1878 – The first rugby match under floodlights takes place in Salford, between Broughton and Swinton.
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1879 – Thomas Edison perfects carbonized cotton filament light bulb
1897 – World’s first car dealer opens in London
1924 – Toastmasters International is founded.
1962 – JFK imposes naval blockade on Cuba, beginning missile crisis
1964 – French philosopher/author Jean-Paul Sartre refuses Nobel prize
1978 – Pope John Paul II is inaugurated as Pope
2005 – Tropical Storm Alpha forms in the Atlantic Basin, making the 2005 Atlantic Hurricane Season the most active Atlantic hurricane season on record with 22 named storms.
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October 21
1520 – Explorer Ferdinand Magellen and his fleet reach Cape Virgenes and become first Europeans to sail into the Pacific Ocean
1774 – First display of the word “Liberty” on a flag, raised by colonists in Taunton, Massachusetts and which was in defiance of British rule in Colonial America.
1805 – Battle of Trafalgar, British Admiral Nelson defeats French & Spanish fleet but shot and killed
1854 – Florence Nightingale and a staff of 38 nurses were sent to the Crimean War.
1915 – 1st transatlantic radiotelephone message, Arlington, Va to Paris
1923 – 1st planetarium opens at Deutsche Museum in Munich
1945 – Women in France allowed to vote for 1st time
1958 – 1st women in British House of Lords
1959 – Guggenheim Museum, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, opens (NYC)
2014 – Oscar Pistorius is sentenced to five years in prison for killing his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp
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October 20
1820 – Spain sells part of Florida to US for $5 million
1822 – 1st edition of London Sunday Times
1833 – Charles Darwin reaches river mouth of Parana
1864 – US President Lincoln formally establishes Thanksgiving as a national holiday
1877 – Franz Schubert’s 2nd Symphony in B premieres
1911 – Roald Amundsen sets out on race to South Pole
1912 – Hannes Kolehmainen runs world record marathon (2:29:39.2)
1955 – Harry Belafonte records “Day-O” (Banana Boat Song)
1956 – 58°F (15°C), Esperanza Station, Antarctica (Antarctic record high)
1973 – Queen Elizabeth II opens Sydney Opera House
2007 – 6th Rugby World Cup: South Africa beats England 15-6 at Saint-Denis
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October 19
1216 – King John of England dies at Newark-on-Trent and is succeeded by his nine-year-old son Henry.
1872 – World’s largest gold nugget (215 kg) found in New South Wales
1914 – US post office 1st used an automobile to collect & deliver mail
1919 – 1st Distinguished Service Medal awarded to a woman
1943 – Streptomycin, the first antibiotic remedy for tuberculosis, is isolated by researchers at Rutgers University.
1951 – US President Harry Truman formally ends state of war with Germany
1953 – 1st jet transcontinental nonstop scheduled service
1974 – Niue becomes self-govering, in association with New Zealand
2003 – Mother Teresa of Calcutta is beatified by Pope John Paul II.
2005 – Saddam Hussein goes on trial in Baghdad for crimes against humanity.
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October 18
707 – John VII ends his reign as Catholic Pope
1356 – Basel earthquake, the most significant historic seismological event north of the Alps, destroyed the town of Basel, Switzerland.
1776 – In a NY bar decorated with bird tail, customer orders “cock tail”
1867 – US takes formal possession of Alaska from Russia ($7.2 million)
1878 – Edison makes electricity available for household use
1922 – British Broadcasting Company (BBC) founded (later called British Broadcasting Corporation)
1929 – Women are considered “Persons” under Canadian law.
1961 – “West Side Story”, the film adaptation of the 1957 Broadway musical, starring Natalie Wood, is released (Best Picture 1962)
2007 – After 8 years in exile, Benazir Bhutto returns to her homeland Pakistan. The same night, suicide attackers blow themselves up near Bhutto’s convoy, killing over 100 in the cheering crowd, including 20 police officers. Bhutto escaped uninjured.
2012 – Google stock trading is suspended after a premature release of a quarterly report indicating a 20% drop in profits and a 9% fall in share price
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October 17
539 BC – King Cyrus The Great of Persia marches into the city of Babylon, releasing the Jews from almost 70 years of exile and making the first Human Rights Declaration
1483 – Tomas de Torquemada appointed inquisitor-general of Spain
1662 – Charles II of Great Britain sells Dunkirk to France for 2.5 million livres (320,000 English pounds)
1740 – Ivan VI becomes Tsar of Russia
1814 – London Beer Flood occurs in London killing nine.
1860 – 1st British Golf Open: Willie Park Snr shoots a 164 at Prestwick Club, Scotland
1961 – NY Museum of Modern Art hangs Henri Matisse’s “Le Bateau” upside-down. It wasn’t corrected until December 3rd
1971 – It is estimated today that approximately 16,000 households were withholding rent and rates for council houses as part of the campaign of civil disobedience against internment organised by the Social Democratic and Labour Party, Northern Ireland
1979 – Mother Teresa of India, awarded Nobel Peace Prize
2003 – The pinnacle was fitted on the roof of Taipei 101, a 101-floor skyscraper in Taipei, allowing it to surpass the Petronas Twin Towers in Kuala Lumpur by 50 meters (165 feet) and become the World’s tallest highrise.
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October 16
1846 – Dentist William T Morton demonstrates effectiveness of ether
1847 – Charlotte Brontë’s book “Jane Eyre” published
1867 – Alaska adopts Gregorian calendar, crosses intl date line
1915 – Great Britain declares war on Bulgaria
1923 – Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio founded
1934 – Mao Zedong & 25,000 troops begin 6,000 mile Long March
1950 – The first edition of C.S. Lewis’ “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe” is released in London
1953 – Fidel Castro sentenced to 15 years (Havana)
1962 – Cuban missile crisis begins as JFK becomes aware of missiles in Cuba
1964 – China becomes world’s 5th nuclear power
1995 – Million Man March held in Washington, D.C. (over 830,000 African American men attend)
2014 – New Zealand, Malaysia, Angola, Spain and Venezuela are elected to the United Nations Security Council
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October 15
1520 – King Henry VIII of England orders bowling lanes at Whitehall
1582 – Many Catholic countries switch to Gregorian calendar, skip 10 days
1764 – Edward Gibbon observes a group of friars singing in the ruined Temple of Jupiter in Rome, which inspires him to begin work on The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
1860 – 11-year-old Grace Bedell writes to Lincoln, tells him to grow a beard
1874 – Child labor law takes 12 year olds out of work force
1913 – Train crash in Liverpool during “Black Week”
1917 – A Parisian dancer Mata Hari is executed for espionage by the French Government after being convicted of passing military secrets to Germany
1937 – Ernest Hemingway novel “To Have & Have Not” published
1939 – LaGuardia Airport opens in NYC
1989 – South Africa President FW de Klerk frees ANC Founder Walter Sisulu & 4 other political prisoners
1993 – Nelson Mandela & South Africa president F W de Klerk awarded Nobel Peace Prize
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October 14
1888 – In England, Louis Le Prince filmed the experimental film “Roundhay Garden Scene.” It is the oldest surviving motion picture.
1912 – Theodore Roosevelt was shot while campaigning in Milwaukee, WI. Roosevelt’s wound in the chest was not serious and he continued with his planned speech. William Schrenk was captured at the scene of the shooting.
1944 – During World War II, the Second British Parachute Brigade liberated the city of Athens.
1947 – Over Rogers Dry Lake in Southern California, pilot Chuck Yeager flew the Bell X-1 rocket plane and became the first person to break the sound barrier.
1962 – The Cuban Missile Crisis began. It was on this day that U.S. intelligence personnel analyzing data discovered Soviet medium-range missile sites in Cuba. On October 22 U.S. President John F. Kennedy announced that he had ordered the naval “quarantine” of Cuba.
1964 – Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his non-violent resistance to racial prejudice in America. He was the youngest person to receive the award.
1968 – The first live telecast to come from a manned U.S. spacecraft was transmitted from Apollo 7.
1972 – In Iraq, oil was struck for the first time just north of Kirkuk.
2002 – Britain stripped power from the Catholic and Protestant politicians of Northern Ireland. Britain resumed sole responsibility for running Northern Ireland.
2011 – The Apple iPhone 4S was released.
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October 13
1773 – The Whirlpool Galaxy was discovered by Charles Messier
1792 – “Old Farmer’s Almanac” is 1st published
1860 – 1st aerial photo taken in US (from a balloon), Boston
1862 – Bismarck’s “Blood & Iron” speech
1884 – Greenwich established as universal time meridian of longitude
1896 – First public screening of a motion picture in New Zealand
1914 – Garrett Morgan invents & patents gas mask
1963 – “Beatlemania” is coined after Beatles appear at Palladium
2010 – The 2010 Copiapó mining accident in Copiapó, Chile comes to an end as all 33 miners arrive at the surface after surviving a record 69 days underground awaiting rescue.
2012 – Gerhard Richter’s Abstraktes Bild sells for $34 million, the highest sold artwork by a living artist
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October 12
642 – John IV ends his reign as Catholic Pope
1216 – King John of England loses his crown jewels in The Wash, probably near Fosdyke, perhaps near Sutton Bridge
1609 – Children’s rhyme “Three Blind Mice” published in London
1773 – America’s first insane asylum opens for ‘Persons of Insane and Disordered Minds’ in Virginia
1775 – US Navy forms
1901 – Theodore Roosevelt renames “Executive Mansion,” “The White House”
1928 – 1st use of iron lung (Boston’s Children Hospital)
1986 – Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh visit the People’s Republic of China
1989 – Musical “Buddy” with Paul Hipp premieres in London
1999 – The Day of Six Billion: the proclaimed 6 billionth living human in the world is born.
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October 11
1521 – Pope Leo X titles King Henry VIII of England “Defender of the Faith”
1737 – Earthquake kills 300,000 and destroys half of Calcutta India
1852 – The University of Sydney, Australia’s oldest university, is inaugurated in Sydney.
1868 – Thomas Edison patents his 1st invention: electric voice machine
1890 – 1st 100 yard dash under 10 seconds (John Owens 9-4/5 secs, Wash DC)
1975 – “Saturday Night Live” premieres on NBC with George Carlin as host
1982 – English ship Mary Rose, which sank during an engagement with France in 1545, raised at Portsmouth, England
1984 – 1st space walk by US woman (Dr Kathryn D Sullivan)
1992 – First 3-way US presidential debate (Bush-Clinton-Perot)
2013 – The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons wins the 2013 Nobel Peace Prize
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October 10
19 – Germanicus, the best loved of Roman princes, dies of poisoning. On his deathbed he accuses Piso, the governor of Syria, of poisoning him.
1865 – The billiard ball was patented by John Wesley Hyatt.
1877 – Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer is buried at West Point in New York.1886 – The tuxedo dinner jacket made its U.S. debut in New York City.
1911 – The Panama Canal opens.
1959 – Pan American World Airways announced the beginning of the first global airline service.
1965 – The Red Baron made his first appearance in the “Peanuts” comic strip.
1971 – The London Bridge, built in 1831 and dismantled in 1967, reopens in Lake Havusu City, Arizona, after being sold to Robert P. McCulloch and moved to the United States.
1987 – Tom McClean finished rowing across the Atlantic Ocean. It set the record at 54 days and 18 hours.
1997 – The Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, opened to the public. Architect Frank Gehry designed the 450 ft. long and 98 ft. wide building.
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October 9
768 – Charlemagne and his brother Carloman I are crowned Kings of The Franks.
1804 – Hobart Tasmania founded
1855 – Isaac Singer patents sewing machine motor
1870 – Rome is incorporated into Italy by royal decree
1876 – 1st 2-way telephone conversation, 1st over outdoor wires
1936 – Hoover Dam begins transmitting electricity to Los Angeles
1947 – First telephone conversation between a moving car & a plane
1976 – Test Cricket debut of Javed Miandad (Pakistan), scores 163 on 1st day
1986 – “Phantom of the Opera” premeires in London
2012 – Women’s rights and education activist Malala Yousafzai is shot three times by a Taliban gunman as she tried to board her school bus in the Swat district of northwest Pakistan
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October 8
1604 – Supernova “Kepler’s nova” first sighted
1769 – Captain James Cook lands in New Zealand (Poverty Bay)
1818 – Two English boxers are first to use padded gloves
1862 – Otto Von Bismarck becomes chancellor of the German Empire
1892 – Sergei Rachmaninoff first performs “Prelude in C-sharp-Minor” in Moscow
1896 – Dow Jones starts reporting an average of selected industrial stocks
1932 – The Indian Air Force is established.
1942 – Comedy duo Abbott and Costello launch their weekly radio show
1958 – Dr Ake Senning installs first pacemaker (Stockholm)
1971 – John Lennon releases his megahit “Imagine”
2001 – U.S. President George W. Bush announces the establishment of the Office of Homeland Security.
October 7
1492 – Columbus misses Florida when he changes course
1520 – 1st public burning of books in Netherlands, in Louvain
1806 – Carbon paper patented in London by inventor Ralph Wedgewood
1900 – The term “orienteering” is first used for an event
1912 – The Helsinki Stock Exchange sees its first transaction.
1913 – Henry Ford institutes moving assembly line
1919 – KLM, Royal Ducth Airlines, established (oldest existing airline)
1931 – 1st infra-red photograph, Rochester, NY
1944 – Uprising at Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp, Jews burn down crematoriums
1982 – Musical “Cats” opens at Winter Garden Theater on Broadway NYC and runs for nearly 18 years before closing on September 10, 2000.
2000 – The last ever competitive soccer match at Wembley Stadium is a 1-0 defeat of England by Germany and the last goal was scored by Liverpool’s Dietmar Hammann. The match was Tony Adams’ 60th at Wembley setting the record for most appearances at the stadium.
October 6
1783 – Benjamin Hanks patents self-winding clock
1866 – First train robbery in US: the Reno Brothers take $13,000
1889 – Moulin Rogue opens in Paris and Thomas Edison shows his first motion picture
1903 – The High Court of Australia sits for the first time
1911 – Beatrix van Rijk becomes 1st licensed Dutch woman pilot
1917 – In the final attack on Third Battle of Ypres, Canadian troops capture the village of Passchendaele, after 250,000 casualties on both sides
1939 – Adolf Hitler denies he intends to go to war against France & Britain
1952 – Agatha Christie’s play “The Mousetrap” opens in London (still running)
1987 – Military coup leader Maj-Gen Sitiveni Rabuka declares Fiji a republic
2010 – Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger launch Instagram
Courtesy of history.com and onthisday.com
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