3rd November 1534: English Parliament passes the Act of Supremacy
The Parliament of England passed the First Act of Supremacy which made Henry VIII the head of the Church of ...
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20 of 433 episodes2nd November 1917: Balfour Declaration gives support to the establishment of a “national home for the Jewish people” in Palestine
Zionists regarded the Balfour Declaration as an important recognition of their national aspirations, while many Palestinian Arabs argued tha...
1st November 1512: Michelangelo’s ceiling of the Sistine Chapel unveiled
The public saw the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel for the first time when Pope Julius II celebrated All Saints Day ...
31st October 1913: Formal dedication of the Lincoln Highway, the first transcontinental highway in the United States
The Lincoln Highway connected New York City on the East Coast to San Francisco on the West Coast, traversing 13 states along the ...
30th October 1858: The Bradford sweets poisoning kills at least twenty people after eating peppermint lozenges containing arsenic
“Humbug Billy”, bought his stock from the confectioner Joseph Neal who made peppermint lozenges using powdered gypsum in place of some of th...
27th October 1954: Benjamin O. Davis Jr. becomes the first African American general in the US Air Force
His promotion to brigadier general on 27 October 1954 came six years after President Truman ordered the desegregation of the US military, an...
26th October 1881: The gunfight at the O.K. Corral involving Wyatt Earp
The gunfight at the O.K. Corral took place between the Earp brothers and a gang of outlaws in Tombstone, ...
25th October 1854: Charge of the Light Brigade undertaken by British forces during the Battle of Balaclava in the Crimean War
Due to miscommunication and a lack of clear orders Lord Cardigan led the Light Brigade, a cavalry unit consisting of approximately 670 horse...
24th October 1901: Annie Edson Taylor, the first person to deliberately go over Niagara Falls in a barrel and survive
Taylor had a specially constructed barrel built of oak, reinforced with iron bands, and fitted with internal padding. She survived the plung...
23rd October 1739: The War of Jenkins’ Ear begins when England declare war on Spain
The writer Thomas Carlyle is credited with giving the conflict its name in his 1858 biography of the Prussian King Friedrich ...
22nd October 1895: Granville-Paris Express train crashes through a wall at the Gare Montparnasse railway station
The Granville–Paris Express train ran across the station platform in Paris, crashed through a 60cm wall, and fell 10 metres to the street be...
21st October 1879: Thomas Edison makes a breakthrough in his attempt to develop an incandescent electric light
The breakthrough came when the team used carbonised cotton thread as a filament. A lamp that was initially illuminated on 21st October staye...
20th October 1740: Maria Theresa inherits the Austrian throne, prompting the War of the Austrian Succession
Maria Theresa inherited the Austrian throne, prompting the War of the Austrian ...
19th October 202 BCE: Roman Republic defeats Carthage at the Battle of Zama
After seventeen years, the Second Punic War was finally brought to an end with the decisive victory of the Roman general and consul Scipio A...
18th October 1967: Soviet spacecraft Venera 4 becomes the first to enter the atmosphere of Venus and transmit scientific data back to Earth
Instruments on board Venera 4 measured temperature, pressure, and the composition of the surrounding gases, with the results transmitted by...
17th October 1814: London Beer Flood kills eight people when nearly one and a half million litres of beer sweep out of the Horse Shoe Brewery
Once the beer began to pour into the street, it quickly began to fill the cellars of nearby houses in which families lived, killing eight .....
16th October 1939: First German air raid on Britain during WW2 took place when bombers attacked Rosyth naval base in Scotland
The light cruiser HMS Southampton and the destroyer Mohawk were damaged, while sixteen Royal Navy sailors died and 44 were ...
15th October 1815: Napoleon Bonaparte arrives at his exile on the island of St Helena in the South Atlantic
Napoleon was exiled to the island of St Helena, situated roughly halfway between Africa and South America, where he lived for six years befo...
14th October 1962: U-2 spy plane captures images of Cuban missile sites
A U-2 spy plane captured images of the construction of a missile site on Cuba, triggering the Cuban Missile ...
13th October 1908: Suffragette Margaret Travers Symons becomes the first woman to speak in the House of Commons when she burst into the main chamber
As she was accompanied through the Members’ Lobby, Travers Symons broke away from her escort and burst into the chamber where MPs were debat...