1187 Sultan of Egypt Saladin captures Jerusalem from the Crusaders

1263 The battle of Largs: Scots defeat the Norwegians on the Firth of Clyde, Scotland, returning the Western Isles to Scotland and ending 500 years of Viking invasions

1535 French explorer Jacques Cartier first visits the Iroquois settlement of Hochelaga (later Montreal)

1552 Conquest of Kazan, Republic of Tatarstan, by Russian Tsar Ivan the Terrible

1608 Hans Lippershey applies for patent for first known early telescope in the Netherlands

1614 French King Louis XIII declared an adult at 13

1627 Last Emperor of the Chinese Ming dynasty, Chongzhen, comes to the throne after death of his brother Emperor Tianqi

1656 English North American colony of Connecticut passes law against Quakers

1789 George Washington transmits the proposed constitutional amendments (United States Bill of Rights) to the states for ratification

1835 Battle of Gonzales fought between Texan settlers and Mexican forces. First engagement of the Texas revolution

1836 After 5 years at sea Charles Darwin returns to England aboard the HMS Beagle

1853 Austrian law forbids Jews from owning land

1861 US Civil War-Former US Vice President John C Breckinridge flees Kentucky to fight for the Confederacy

1866 New Yorker J Osterhoudt patents tin can with key opener

1870 Italy annexes Rome & Papal States; Rome made Italian capital

1871 US Mormon leader Brigham Young arrested for bigamy

1872 Centenary Biblical Institute, later named Morgan State University, a historically black college, founded in Baltimore, MD

1872 Phileas Fogg sets out on his journey as depicted in Jules Verne's "Around the World in Eighty Days"

1889 First Pan American Conference, held in Washington, D.C. to improve commercial, social, economic, military, and political cooperation among the nations of the Americas; North, Central and South America.

1889 In Colorado, Nicholas Creede strikes it rich in silver during the last great silver boom of the American Old West

1893 Cheniere Caminada hurricane (Great October Storm) - 3rd worst hurricane in US history kills 1,800 in Louisiana (one of the 1st to be classified as a category 4 storm)

1902 Beatrix Potter's "The Tale of Peter Rabbit" is published by Frederick Warne & Co. in London

1910 1st mid-air collision involving two fixed wing aircraft (Milan, Italy).  Both pilots survive

1916 Zoological Society of San Diego founded, in San Diego, California

1919 US President Woodrow Wilson has a stroke, leaving him partially paralyzed

1924 League of Nations approves protocols of Geneva

1928 "Prelature of the Holy Cross and the Work of God", known as Opus Dei, founded by Catholic priest Josemaría Escrivá in Madrid, Spain.  Opus Dei is an organization of laypeople and priests dedicated to the teaching that everyone is called to holiness by God and that ordinary life can result in sanctity

1935 NY Hayden Planetarium, 4th in US, opens

1936 First alcohol power plant forms in Atchison, Kansas

1942 RMS Queen Mary, carrying thousands of US troops, slices cruiser HMS Curacao in half, killing 239

1944 Polish resistance fighters capitulate in the Warsaw Uprising after an estimated 250,000 people are killed

1950 1st strip of Charlie Brown, "Li'l Folks", later "Peanuts", by Charles M. Schulz published in seven nationwide papers

1957 New volcanic island appears off Fayal Island, Azores

1967 Groundbreaking begins on Veteran's Stadium in Philadelphia

1967 Thurgood Marshall sworn in as 1st black Supreme Court Justice

1968 Mexico City police fire on protesting students, 300-500 killed

1968 Redwood National Park established to preserve the tallest trees on earth, by an act of US Congress with 58,000 acres (later extended)

1970 14 members of the Wichita State University Football team as well as 17 administrators and supporters are killed in a plane crash in the Rocky Mountains

1980 Michael Myers (D-Pa) is the first representative expelled in over 100 years after being caught in the ABSCAM sting operation

1984 Papa John's Pizza is founded by John Schnatter in Jeffersonville, Indiana; it would go on to become the fourth-largest pizza delivery restaurant chain in the United States

1984 Richard Miller becomes 1st (former) FBI agent to be charged with espionage

1990 WW2 Allied nations cede any remaining rights as occupiers of Germany

2001 NATO states it will support US military strikes against Afghanistan in retaliation for the 9/11 terrorist attacks

2002 The Beltway sniper attacks begin, extending over three weeks in the Washington DC area.  10 people are killed and 3 injured

2006 Charles Carl Roberts murders five schoolgirls in a shooting incident at an Amish school in Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania; he then commits suicide

2009 "Stan Lee Day" declared by County of Los Angeles and the City of Long Beach

2013 8 people are killed and 14 are injured after an accident involving an SUV, church bus, and tractor trailer in Jefferson County, Tennessee

2017 US scientists Jeffrey C. Hall, Michael Rosbash and Michael Young awarded Nobel Prize for physiology or medicine for work on the body clock

2018 Nobel prize in Physics awarded to Arthur Ashkin (optical tweezers), Gérard Mourou and Donna Strickland (both for laser beams)

2021 Massive oil slick from a pipeline discovered off California, along Orange County coast covering 13 square miles

2023 US Postal Service issues a commemorative stamp honoring late US Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg