01 OCTOBER: WHAT HAPPENED ON THIS DAY?

• 331 BC – Alexander the Great defeats Darius III of Persia in the Battle of Gaugamela.^[1]
• 366 – Pope Damasus I is consecrated.^[2]
• 959 – Edgar the Peaceful becomes king of all England, in succession to Eadwig.^[3]
• 965 – Pope John XIII is consecrated.^[4]
• 1553 – Coronation of Queen Mary I of England.^[5]
• 1588 – Coronation of Shah Abbas I of Persia.
• 1730 – Ahmed III is forced to abdicate as the Ottoman sultan.
• 1787 – Russians under Alexander Suvorov defeat the Turks at Kinburn.
• 1791 – First session of the French Legislative Assembly.
• 1795 – More than a year after the Battle of Sprimont, the Austrian Netherlands (present-day Belgium) are officially annexed by Revolutionary France.
• 1800 – Via the Third Treaty of San Ildefonso, Spain cedes Louisiana to France, which would sell the land to the United States thirty months later.
• 1814 – Opening of the Congress of Vienna, intended to redraw Europe’s political map after the defeat of Napoleon the previous spring.
• 1827 – Russo-Persian War: The Russian army under Ivan Paskevich storms Yerevan, ending a millennium of Muslim domination of Armenia.
• 1829 – South African College is founded in Cape Town, South Africa. It will later separate into the University of Cape Town and the South African College Schools.
• 1832 – Texian political delegates convene at San Felipe de Austin to petition for changes in the governance of Mexican Texas.
• 1861 – Mrs Beeton’s Book of Household Management is published, going on to sell 60,000 copies in its first year and remaining in print until the present day.
• 1887 – Balochistan is conquered by the British Empire.
• 1890 – Yosemite National Park is established by the U.S. Congress.
• 1891 – Stanford University opens its doors in California, United States.
• 1898 – The Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration is founded under the name k.u.k. Exportakademie.
• 1903 – Baseball: The Boston Americans play the Pittsburgh Pirates in the first game of the modern World Series.
• 1908 – Ford Model T automobiles are offered for sale at a price of US$825.
• 1910 – A large bomb destroys the Los Angeles Times building, killing 21.
• 1918 – World War I: The Egyptian Expeditionary Force captures Damascus.
• 1918 – Sayid Abdullah becomes the last Khan of Khiva.
• 1928 – The Soviet Union introduces its first five-year plan.
• 1931 – The George Washington Bridge in the United States, linking New Jersey and New York, is opened.
• 1931 – Clara Campoamor persuades the Constituent Cortes to enfranchise women in Spain’s new constitution.
• 1936 – Spanish Civil War: Francisco Franco is named head of the Nationalist government of Spain.
• 1936 – Spanish Civil War: The Central Committee of Antifascist Militias of Catalonia dissolves itself, handing control of Catalan defence militias over to the Generalitat.^[6]
• 1938 – Germany annexes the Sudetenland.
• 1939 – World War II: After a one-month siege, German troops occupy Warsaw.
• 1940 – The Pennsylvania Turnpike, often considered the first superhighway in the United States, opens to traffic.
• 1942 – World War II: USS Grouper torpedoes Lisbon Maru, not knowing that she is carrying British prisoners of war from Hong Kong.
• 1943 – World War II: After the Four Days of Naples, Allied troops enter the city.
• 1946 – Nazi leaders are sentenced at the Nuremberg trials.
• 1946 – The Daegu October Incident occurs in Allied-occupied Korea.
• 1947 – The North American F-86 Sabre flies for the first time.
• 1949 – The People’s Republic of China is established.
• 1953 – Andhra State is formed, consisting of a Telugu-speaking area carved out of India’s Madras State.
• 1953 – A Mutual Defense Treaty Between the United States and the Republic of Korea is concluded in Washington, D.C.^[7]
• 1955 – The Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region is established.
• 1957 – First appearance of In God we trust on U.S. paper currency.
• 1958 – The National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics is replaced by NASA.
• 1960 – Nigeria gains independence from the United Kingdom.
• 1961 – The United States Defense Intelligence Agency is formed, becoming the country’s first centralized military intelligence organization.
• 1961 – East and West Cameroon merge to form the Federal Republic of Cameroon.
• 1964 – The Free Speech Movement is launched on the campus of the University of California, Berkeley.
• 1964 – Japanese Shinkansen (“bullet trains”) begin high-speed rail service from Tokyo to Osaka.
• 1966 – West Coast Airlines Flight 956 crashes with no survivors in Oregon. This accident marks the first loss of a DC-9.
• 1968 – Guyana nationalizes the British Guiana Broadcasting Service, which would eventually become part of the National Communications Network, Guyana.
• 1969 – Concorde breaks the sound barrier for the first time.
• 1971 – Walt Disney World opens near Orlando, Florida.
• 1971 – The first practical CT scanner is used to diagnose a patient.
• 1975 – Muhammad Ali defeats Joe Frazier in a boxing match in Manila, Philippines.
• 1978 – Tuvalu gains independence from the United Kingdom.
• 1979 – Pope John Paul II begins his first pastoral visit to the United States.
• 1979 – The MTR, the rapid transit railway system in Hong Kong, opens.
• 1982 – Helmut Kohl replaces Helmut Schmidt as Chancellor of Germany through a constructive vote of no confidence.
• 1982 – Epcot opens at Walt Disney World in Florida.
• 1982 – Sony and Phillips launch the compact disc in Japan. On the same day, Sony released the model CDP-101 compact disc player, the first player of its kind.
• 1985 – Israel-Palestinian conflict: Israel attacks the Palestine Liberation Organization headquarters in Tunisia during “Operation Wooden Leg“.
• 1987 – The 5.9 M_w  Whittier Narrows earthquake shakes the San Gabriel Valley with a Mercalli intensity of VIII (Severe), killing eight and injuring 200.
• 1989 – Denmark introduces the world’s first legal same-sex registered partnerships.
• 1991 – Croatian War of Independence: The Siege of Dubrovnik begins.
• 1994 – Palau enters a Compact of Free Association with the United States.
• 2000 – Israel-Palestinian conflict: Palestinians protest the murder of 12-year-old Muhammad al-Durrah by the Israeli police in northern Israel, beginning the “October 2000 events“.^[8]
• 2001 – Militants attack the state legislature building in Kashmir, killing 38.
• 2009 – The Supreme Court of the United Kingdom takes over the judicial functions of the House of Lords.
• 2012 – A ferry collision off the coast of Hong Kong kills 38 people and injures 102 others.
• 2014 – A series of explosions at a gunpowder plant in Bulgaria completely destroys the factory, killing 15 people.
• 2014 – A double bombing of an elementary school in Homs, Syria kills over 50 people.^[9]
• 2015 – A gunman kills nine people at a community college in Oregon.
• 2015 – Heavy rains trigger a major landslide in Guatemala, killing 280 people.
• 2017 – An independence referendum, declared illegal by the Constitutional Court of Spain, takes place in Catalonia.
• 2017 – Fifty-eight people are killed and 869 others injured in a mass shooting at a country music festival at the Las Vegas Strip in the United States; the gunman, Stephen Paddock, later commits suicide.

-Source: wikipedia