On October 7th...

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1542 Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo discovered Catalina Island.

1727 William Samuel Johnson, the first president of Columbia College, was born.

1737 A cyclone caused 40-foot waves that kiiled about 300,000 people in Calcutta, India.

1763 King George III of Great Britain issued the Proclamation of 1763, closing lands north and west of the Alleghenies to white settlement.

1765 The Stamp Act Congress convened in New York City, New York.

1777 The Second Battle of Saratoga and the Battle of Bemis Heights were fought.

1780 The Battle of Kings Mountain (North Carolina) was fought.

1792 American politician George Mason died.

1806 Ralph Wedgewood patented carbon paper.

1816 The first double-decked steamboat, the Washington, arrived at New Orleans, Louisiana.

1826 Granite Railway, the first chartered railway in the United States, began operations.

1840 Willem I abdicated as King of the Netherlands.

1849 Poet James Whitcomb Riley was born.
1849 Author Edgar Allan Poe died.

1856 Cyrus Chambers, Jr. patented a machine for folding book and newspapers.

1864 The Battle of Darbytown Road (Virginia) began.

1868 Cornell University opened its doors.

1871 A 16-hour fire injured 30 of Chicago, Illinois', 185 firefighters.

1885 Physicist Niels Bohr was born.

1886 Spain abolished slavery in Cuba.

1888 American politician Henry A. Wallace was born.

1896 Dr. John Langdon Down, pioneer in the treatment of the mentally impaired, died.

1900 Nazi SS leader Heinrich Himmler was born.

1905 Actor Andy Devine was born.

1912 Fernando Belaúnde Terry, two-time President of Peru, was born.

1913 Henry Ford instituted the moving assembly line.

1916 The German submarine U-53 sank 9 British merchant ships in international waters off Newport, Rhode Island.
1916 Georgia Tech, coached by John Heisman, defeated Cumberland 222-0, the most lopsided score in the history of college football.

1917 Actress June Allyson was born.

1919 KLM, Royal Dutch Airlines, was established, making it the oldest still-existing airline.

1925 Baseball player Christy Mathewson died.

1929 Ramsay MacDonald became the first British Prime Minister to address the U. S. Congress.

1931 The first infra-red photograph was taken in Rochester, New York.
1931 Desmond Mpilo Tutu, South African cleric, was born.
1931 Sculptor Daniel Chester French died.

1933 The New York Giants defeated the Washington Senators to win the World Series.

1935 The United States Supreme Court met in its own building for the first time.
1935 The Detroit Tigers defeated the Chicago Cubs to win the World Series.

1938 Germany required all Jewish passports be stamped with the letter "J."

1943 National Security Council member Oliver North was born.

1944 Jews interred at Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp rebelled and burned down the crematoriums.

1949 The German Democratic Republic was formed from the Russian occupation zone.

1950 U. S. forces invaded Korea by crossing the 38th parallel.
1950 Willis Carrier, the inventor of air conditioning, died.
1950 The New York Yankees defeated the Philadelphia Phillies to win the World Series.

1951 Singer John Cougar Mellencamp was born.

1952 The New York Yankees defeated the Brooklyn Dodgers to win the World Series.
1952 Russian President Vladimir Putin was born.

1955 Cellist Yo-Yo Ma was born.

1956 Frozen food pioneer Clarence Birdseye died.

1958 Pakistani President Iskander Mirza overthrew his country's parliamentary government and implemented martial law.
1958 U. S. President Dwight Eisenhower appointed Potter Stewart to the Supreme Court.

1959 The Soviet Union's Luna 3 probe took the first ever views of the dark side of the Moon.
1959 Voters in São Paulo, Brazil, showed their displeasure with all candidates for the city council by casting their ballots for a rhinoceros.
1959 "American Idol" judge Simon Cowell was born.

1962 Judy Kimball won the LPGA Championship.

1963 Hurricane Flora killed 7,190 people in Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

1965 Robert Mitera aced the 447-yard 10th hole at Miracle Hills in Omaha, Nebraska to score the world's longest straight hole-in-one (until 2007).

1966 Singer Toni Braxton was born.

1968 The Motion Picture Association of America adopted a film rating system.

1970 General Juan José Torres Gonzalez overthrew General Rogélio Miranda and declared himself President of Bolivia.

1973 Jackie Stewart won the Formula 1 Driver's Championship.

1976 Hua Guofeng succeeded Mao Zedong as Chairman of the Communist Party of China.
1976 Singer Taylor Hicks was born.

1977 Guitarist Steve Hackett quit Genesis.

1979 Jody Scheckter won the Formula 1 Driver's Championship.

1982 The musical "Cats" opened at the Winter Garden Theater on Broadway.

1985 The Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro was hijacked by Palestinian terrorists.
1985 Lynette Woodard was chosen as the first woman to play with the Harlem Globetrotters.

1991 Law Professor Anita Hill accused Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas of making sexually inappropriate comments to her.
1991 Baseball player Leo Durocher died.

1993 Choreographer Agnes de Mille died.

1994 Faud Guliyev was appointed Premier of Azerbaijan.

1995 The Boston Bruins opened the Fleet Center by tying the New York Islanders 4-4.

1996 Rupert Murdoch launched Fox News.

1998 The body of Matthew Shepard was found tied to a fence in Laramie, Wyoming.

2001 The United States invaded Afghanistan.

2003 California voters removed Governor Gray Davis from office; he was replaced by Arnold Schwarzenegger.

2004 Norodom Sihanouk abdicated as King of Cambodia.

2008 Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon launched Spotify.

2012 A Sudanese military plane crashed near Khartoum, Sudan, killing 13 persons.

2013 Mulatu Teshome became President of Ethiopia.

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This page was last updated on October 07, 2018.